 Milton, who had supported the revolutionary cause during the English Civil War, mixed history based on a wide range of sources with comments on the restored monarchy of his time.He admitted the unreliability of many of his sources, but justified his use of popular fables "be it for nothing else but in favour of our English poets and rhetoricians, who by their art will know how to use them judiciously".Milton began work on the "History" around 1649, completing four books in the first phase, then continued in the 1650s with a further two books.