it was a prudent precaution. For, till 1670, Marshall's botch prefixed to
the Poems was the only published portrait of Milton-the only guide to any
idea of his personal appearance for those, whether friends or foes,
whether in Britain or abroad, who were not acquainted with himself.
Especially among enemies on the Continent, as we shall find, both
Marshall's portrait and Milton's sarcastic disavowal of it were eagerly
scanned and interpreted for the worst. As late as 1655, Milton, in his
_Pro se Defendio contra Alexandrum Morion_, had to refer to both
portrait and disavowal as follows:--"Now I am a Narcissus with you,
because I would not be the Cyclops you paint me from your sight of the
most unlike portrait of me prefixed to my Poems. Really, if, in
consequence of the persuasion and importunity of my publisher, I allowed
myself to be clumsily engraved by an unskilful engraver, because there
was not another in the city in that time of war, this argued rather my
entire indifference in the affair than the too great care with which you
upbraid me." The passage quite confirms the view taken in the text of the
way in which the portrait came to be published. In justice to Marshall,
it is right to say that he had done much better things, and did better
things afterwards for Moseley, than this head of Milton. "Marshall," says
Bliss (Wood's Ath. III. 518, Note), "though in general a coarse and hasty
performer, is not to be despised, since his heads, though often very
rough sketches, bear evident marks of authenticity and resemblance to the
originals. The best head he ever engraved, in my opinion, is one of Dr.
Donne when young." I can confirm this by saying that his head of Featley
really gives one an idea of that obstinate and consequential old divine.
I only wish he had done Milton half as well. About Marshall's engraving
of Milton see Mr. J. F. Marsh's tract on the _Engraved and Pretended
Portraits of Milton_ (Liverpool, 1860). Mr. Marsh thinks, with me,
that Marshall based his engraving partly on the Onslow picture, and that
that picture suggested the date, _ætat_. 21, so absurdly given to
the engraving.]
TWO DIVORCE SONNETS, AND SONNET TO HENRY LAWES.
Moseley's precious little volume, with the engraver Marshall thus grimly
immortalized in it, brings Milton to the beginning of 1646, or twelve
months beyond his _Tetrachordon_ and _Colasterion_. His wife having been
for some months back with him, for better or worse, in the house at
Barbican, he had dropped the Divorce argument, or at least its public
prosecution. That he did so with a certain reluctance, and in no spirit
of recantation, appears from two of his Sonnets, which must have been
written about the time of the publication of his volume of Poems (Oct.
1645--Jan. 1645-6), but which are not included in that volume, either
because they were too late to come in their places after the Ten Sonnets
contained in it, or because Milton thought it better not then to print
them. "_On the Detraction which followed upon my writing certain
Treatises_" is the title given by Milton himself in MS. to the two
Sonnets together; but they may have been written separately.
I.
I did but prompt the age to quit their clogs,
By the known rules of ancient liberty,
When straight a barbarous noise environs me
Of Owls and Cuckoos, Asses, Apes, and Dogs;
As when those hinds that were transformed to frogs
Railed at Latona's twin-born progeny,
Which after held the sun and moon in fee.
But this is got by casting pearl to hogs,
That bawl for freedom in their senseless mood,
And still revolt when Truth would set them free.
Licence they mean when they cry Liberty;
For who loves that must first be wise and good:
But from that mark how far they rove we see,
For all this waste of wealth and loss of blood.
II.
A book was writ of late called _Tetrachordon_,
And woven close, both matter, form, and style;
The subject new. It walked the town a while
Numbering good intellects; now seldom pored on.
Cries the stall-reader "Bless us! what a word on
A title-page is this!" and some in file
Stand spelling false while one might walk to Mile-
End Green. Why is it harder, Sirs, than _Gordon_,
_Colkitto_, or _Macdonnell_, or _Galasp_?
Those rugged names to our like mouths grow sleek,
That would have made Quintilian stare and gasp.
Thy age, like ours, O soul of Sir John Cheke,
Hated not learning worse than toad or asp,
When thou taught'st Cambridge and King Edward Greek.
The second of these Sonnets is printed first in all the editions of
Milton, but there is proof that it was written second. [Footnote: It
stands first in the Second or 1673 Edition of Milton's Poems; but in the
Cambridge MSS, it comes second in Milton's own hand.] And, while the two
together form what may be called Milton's poetical farewell to the
Divorce subject, the mood in the second, it may be noted, is more
humorous than in the first. In the first Milton, still angry, clenches
his fist in the face of his generation, as a generation of mere hogs and
dogs, unable to appreciate any real form of the liberty for which they
are howling and grunting; in the second the spleen is less, and he is
content with a rigmarole of rhyme about the queer effects among the
illiterate of the Greek title of his last Divorce Pamphlet. And here what
is chiefly interesting in the rigmarole is the evidence that Milton had
been recently attending to the news from Scotland. The "_Colkitto_, or
_Macdonnell_, or _Galasp_" of the Sonnet is no other than our friend
Alexander MacDonnell, _alias_ MacColkitto, _alias_ MacGillespie,
Montrose's gigantic Major-general; and the "Gordon" is either Lord
Aboyne, the eldest son of the Marquis of Huntly, who adhered to Montrose
till Philiphaugh, or it is a general name for the many Gordons who were
with him (see _antè_, pp. 348, 358, 367). The odd Scottish and Gaelic
names had amused Milton's delicate ear; _Gordon_ rhymed aptly to
_Tetrachordon_; and hence the notion of the Sonnet. [Footnote: Those
annotators on Milton who have tried to identify _Galasp_ at all have
supposed him to be the Mr. George Gillespie who was one of the Scottish
Divines in the Westminster Assembly. There _may_ be a side-reference to
him, for Milton must have heard much of him; but the primary reference is
not to the Presbyterian minister, but to the huge Colonsay Highlander,
recently heard of everywhere as Montrose's comrade in arms, and who was
_Colkitto_, _MacDonnell_, and _Galasp_, all in one.]
A third Sonnet, written about the same time, shows even more distinctly
the calming effect on Milton's mind produced by his changed mode of life
in the house in Barbican, after his wife's return and the publication of
his little Volume of Poems. It is the well-known Sonnet to his friend
Henry Lawes, the musician.
So far as the two artists, William and Henry Lawes, concerned themselves
in the politics of the time, they were, of course, Royalists. Officially
attached to his Majesty's household and service, what else could they be?
The elder of the two, indeed, William Lawes, had gone into the Royalist
army, taken captain's rank there, and been slain quite recently at the
siege of Chester (October 1645), much regretted by the King, who is said
to have put on private mourning for him. Henry, the younger, and much the
more celebrated as a composer, had remained in London, exercising his art
as much as might be at such a time, and kept by it in acquaintance with
many who, differing in other things, were at one in their love of music.
Everybody liked and admired the gentle Harry Lawes, and he was welcome
everywhere. But there was still no family with which he was on more
intimate terms than with his old patrons of the accomplished Bridgewater
group, and there can have been no house where his visits were more
frequent than at their house in Barbican. True, the family was greatly
reduced from what it had been in the old days of the _Arcades_ and
_Comus_, when Lawes was teacher of music to its budding girls and
boys, and the master and stage-director of their tasteful masques and
private concerts. The Countess had been ten years dead; Lord Brackley,
the heir of the house, and the elder of the boy-brothers in _Comus_,
had wedded, in July 1642, when only nineteen years of age, the Lady
Elizabeth Cavendish, daughter of the powerful Royalist Earl, afterwards
Marquis and Duke, of Newcastle; and one or two of his sisters, unmarried
in the _Comus_ year, had since found husbands. With the widower
Earl, however, inhabiting now his town-house in Barbican, and visiting
but seldom his country mansion at Ashridge, Herts, there still remained
his youngest daughter, the Lady Alice of _Comus_, verging on her
twenty-fifth year, and Mr. Thomas Egerton, the younger of the boy-
brothers in _Comus_, now a youth of about twenty. Probably elder and
married members of the family gave the Earl their occasional company; for
he was now about sixty-five years of age, in an infirm state of health,
sorely impoverished, and in the unfortunate condition of a Peer who would
have been with the King if he could, and whom the King had expected to be
with him, but who was obliged to plead his infirm health and his poverty
for a kind of semi-submission to Parliament. He had reluctantly taken the
Covenant (_antè_, pp. 39,40), and there are entries in the Lords
Journals proving that his excuses for non-attendance in the House were
barely allowed to pass. Music and books were among the invalid Earl's
chief recreations; and some of his happiest moments in his old age may
have been in listening to the Lady Alice, or another of his daughters,
singing one of Lawes's songs, with Lawes, now the privileged artist-
friend rather than the professional tutor, standing by or accompanying.
What if it were the Lady Alice, and the song were that well-remembered
one of _Comus_ which she had sung, when a young girl, eleven years
before, in the Hall of Ludlow Castle, before the assembled guests of her
father's Welsh Presidency, her proud mother then among the listeners,--
"Sweet Echo, sweetest nymph that liv'st unseen
Within thy airy shell"?
If so, the sound of her voice might have almost reached Milton in
_his_ house close by in the same street. At all events, here, in the
street called Barbican, by a strange chance, were assembled, within a few
yards of each other, at the very time when _Comus_ was first
published by Milton himself, and acknowledged among his other poems, at
least five of the persons chiefly concerned in the masque on its first
production--the Earl in whose honour it had been composed; the Lady
Alice, and Mr. Thomas Egerton, two of the chief actors: the musician
Lawes, who had directed all, composed the music, and sustained the parts
of Thyrsis and the Attendant Spirit in the, performance; and the poet who
had written the words.
When Lawes was in Barbican of an evening, it was but a step for him from
the Earl's house to Milton's. And then would there not be more music,
mingled with talk perhaps about the Bridgewater family, while Mrs. Milton
sat by and listened? And would not the old Scrivener come down from his
room to see Mr. Lawes, and bring out his choicest old music-books, and
almost set aside his son in managing the visit for musical delight? So
one fancies, and therefore keeps to the interrogative form as the safest;
but the fancy here is really the most exact possible apprehension of the
facts as they are on record. Lawes's friendship with Milton had been
uninterrupted since 1634; but it so chances that the third point in
Milton's life at which his intimacy with Lawes emerges into positive
record is precisely the winter of 1645-6, when Milton was the Earl of
Bridgewater's neighbour in Barbican, and his Volume of Poems was going
through the press. Not only was there reprinted in this volume Lawes's
Dedication of the _Comus_ in 1637, "To the Right Honourable John,
Lord Brackley, son and heir-apparent to the Earl of Bridgewater;" but in
the very title-page of the volume, as arranged by Moseley, Lawes's name
is associated with Milton's. "_The Songs were set in musick by Mr.
Henry Lawes, &c._," says the title-page; and this may mean that not
only the songs in _Arcades_ and _Comus_, but other lyrical pieces in the
volume, had been set to music by Lawes. If so, a good deal more of
Lawes's music to Milton's words may have been in existence about 1645
than his settings of the five songs in _Comus_, which are all that have
come down to us in his own hand. Songs of Milton set by Lawes may have
been in circulation in MS. copies, and may have been as well known in
musical families as the numerous songs by Carew, Herrick, Waller and
others, which had been set by the same composer; and it may be to this
that Moseley alludes by the prominent mention of Lawes in the title-page
of the collected Poems. And, if Lawes had done so much for Milton's
verse, it was fitting that Milton should make some return in kind. He had
indeed introduced skilful compliments to Lawes personally in his _Comus_;
but something more express might be now appropriate. Accordingly, on the
9th of February, 1645-6, or five weeks after the publication of the
Poems, Milton wrote the following:--
"TO MY FRIEND MR. HENRY LAWES.
"Harry, whose tuneful and well-measured song
First taught our English music how to span
Words with just note and accent, not to scan
With Midas ears, committing short and long,
Thy worth and skill exempts thee from the throng,
With praise enough for Envy to look wan:
To after-age thou shalt be writ the man
That with smooth air could humour best our tongue.
Thou honour'st Verse, and Verse must lend her wing
To honour thee, the priest of Phoebus' quire,
That tun'st their happiest lines in hymn or story.
Dante shall give Fame leave to set thee higher
Than his Casella, whom he wooed to sing,
Met in the milder shades of Purgatory."
The original draft of this Sonnet, entitled as above, and with the date
"Feb. 9, 1645," attached, and a corrected transcript underneath, both in
Milton's own hand, are in the Cambridge volume of Milton MSS. The Sonnet
was prefixed by Lawes, with the same title, in 1648 to a publication of
some of his own and his deceased brother's compositions, entitled
_Choice Psalmes put into Musick for Three Voices_; but in the Second
or 1673 Edition of Milton's Poems it reappeared with the title which it
has retained in all subsequent editions: viz. "To Mr. Henry Lawes on his
Airs." For biographical purposes it is well to remember the first title
and the dating. The Sonnet is, in fact, a memorial of a time when Milton
and Lawes must have been much together. [Footnote: The details about the
state of the Bridge water family in the text are partly from Todd's Note
prefixed to _Comus_ (Todd's Milton, ed. 1852, IV 38-44), partly from
entries in the _Lords Journals_ already referred to in this volume.
Todd has also (_ibid._ 45-54) an elaborate, though ill-digested,
note on Lawes, with particulars of his continued connexion, to 1653 and
beyond, with various members of the Bridgewater family. In the
Stationers' Registers there is this entry:--"Nov. 16, 1647, Rich.
Woodnoth entered for his copy under the hands of Mr. Downham and Mr.
Bellamy, warden, a book called 'Compositions of Three Parts,' by Henry
and William Lawes, servants to his Majesty." I suppose this was the book
published in 1648 with the title "_Choice Psalmes_," &c.]
CONTINUED PRESBYTERIAN ATTACKS ON MILTON: HIS ANTI-PRESBYTERIAN SONNET OF
REPLY.
Altogether it was beginning to be a more placid time with Milton. With
his book out, his wife restored to him, the Divorce argument dropped, and
his pupils to teach, he might look about him quietly on the state of
public affairs, and expect what should be the next call on him. There did
not seem to be any immediate call. In the month when his volume of Poems
appeared Presbyterianism was at its fullest tide in Parliament; but in
the succeeding months, what with the increase of Recruiters in the
Commons, what with the tramp of Independency in the field growing louder
and nearer as the New Model ended its work, he could see the political
power of the Presbyterians gradually waning, until, in April 1646, when
Cromwell reappeared in London, Anti-Toleration was abashed and the
Westminster Assembly itself under control. The spectacle must have been
quite to Milton's mind; but, as he had already expressed himself
sufficiently on the main question between the Independents and the
Presbyterians, and as nobody doubted on which side he was to be ranked,
he was disposed to take his ease on this subject too, and to leave the
issue to the Parliament and the Army. He was too marked a man, however,
to be quite let alone. The Presbyterian writers, true to their policy of
publicly naming all prominent heretics and sectaries, and painting their
opinions in the most glaring colours, with a view to disgust people with
the idea of a Toleration, could not part with Milton and his Divorce
Doctrine. After he and his wife were in the Barbican house together, he
was still pursued by the hue and cry. Here are two specimens:--
_Mr. Baillie on Milton._--"Mr. Milton permits any man to put away his
wife upon his mere pleasure without any fault, and without the cognisance
of any judge," writes Baillie in the Table of Contents to the First Part
of his _Dissuasive_, published in November 1645; and in the text of the
work (p. 116) the statement is amplified as follows:--"Concerning
Divorces, some of them [the Independents] go far beyond any of the
Brownists; not to speak of Mr. Milton, who in a large treatise hath
pleaded for a full liberty for any man to put away his wife, whenever he
pleaseth, without any fault in her at all, but for any dislike or
dyssympathy of humour. For I do not certainly know whether this man
professeth Independency, albeit all the heretics here whereof ever I
heard avow themselves Independents. Whatever therefore may be said of Mr.
Milton, yet Mr. Gorting and his company were men of renown among the New
English Independents before Mistress Hutchinson's disgrace; and all of
them do maintain that it is lawful for every woman to desert her husband
when he is not willing to follow her in her church-way." In other words,
Baillie is not sure that it is fair to charge Milton's extreme opinion
upon Independency as such, inasmuch as it may be the crotchet of a
solitary heretic; but he is inclined to think that Milton _is_ an
Independent, and he knows at least that Mr. Gorting and other
Independents have broached a milder form of the same heresy. In his Notes
(pp. 144,145) he quotes sentences to the amount of a page from Milton's
_Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce_ to prove that he does not
misrepresent him.--The "Gorting" here mentioned by Baillie is the "Samuel
Gorton" who had been such a sore trouble to the New Englanders, and even
to Roger Williams at Providence, by his anarchical opinions and conduct
(Vol. II. 601). He had returned or been ejected from America, and was
making himself notorious in London. "This I am assured of from various
hands," wrote Edwards (_Gangr._ Part II. p. 144), "that Gorton is here in
London, and hath been for the space of some months; and I am told also
that he vents his opinions, and exercises in some of the meetings of the
sectaries, as that he hath exercised lately at Lamb's Church, and is very
great at one Sister Stagg's, exercising there too sometimes." This will
explain Baillie's allusion to Gorton in connexion with Milton's Divorce
Doctrine. Strange that Gorton should be cited as holding a _milder_ form
of the heresy than Milton's!
_Mr. Edwards on Milton._--Of course, Milton got into the _Gangræna._
Everybody that deviated in anything, to the right or left, from the path
of Presbyterian orthodoxy, got into that register of scandals; and we
have already availed ourselves of information incidentally supplied in
the Second and Third Parts of it as to the horror caused by Milton's
Divorce Doctrine among the Presbyterians (_antè_, pp. 189-192). We have
still to present, however, Edwards's direct notice of Milton in the First
Part of his scandalous medley. It was published in January or February
1645-6; so that, at the very time when Milton's volume of Poems was out,
and he was writing his Sonnet to Lawes, he found himself pilloried again
in the new book which all London was reading greedily. A leading portion
of the book, as we know (_antè_, pp. 143-5), consisted of a catalogue of
176 "Errors, Heresies, and Blasphemies" that had been vented by divers
Sectaries and were then distracting and corrupting the soul of England.
Well, the 154th Error, Heresy, and Blasphemy in this catalogue is this:--
"That 'tis lawful for a man to put away his wife upon indisposition,
unfitness, or contrariety of mind, arising from a cause in nature
unchangeable; and for disproportion and deadness of spirit, or something
distasteful and averse in the immutable bent of nature; and man, in
regard of the freedom and eminency of his creation, is a law to himself
in this matter, being head of the other sex, which was made for him;
neither need he hear any judge therein above himself." To this summary by
Edwards of Milton's Doctrine, partly in Milton's own words, the reference
is appended in the margin: "_Vide Milton's Doctrine of Divorce._"
(_Gangræna_, Part I. p. 29.) And so for the moment Edwards dismisses
Milton, very much as Baillie had done, to return to him again in the
Second and Third Parts of his _Gangræna_, as Baillie was to do in the
Second Part of his _Dissuasive_.
Milton was provoked. It was not in his nature to let any attack upon him,
from whatever quarter, pass without notice; and attacks by persons of
such popular celebrity as Baillie and Edwards could hardly be ignored.
But, as he had given up the public prosecution of the Divorce argument,
his punishment for Edwards and Baillie came in a different form from that
which he had administered in the _Tetrachordon_ and _Colasterion_ to
Herbert Palmer, Dr. Featley, Mr. Caryl, Mr. Prynne, and the anonymous
attorney. It came in verse, thus--
"ON THE FORCERS OF CONSCIENCE.
"Because you have thrown off your Prelate lord,
And with stiff vows renounced his Liturgy,
To seize the widowed whore Plurality
From them whose sin ye envied, not abhorred,
Dare ye for this adjure the civil sword
To force our consciences that Christ set free,
And ride us with a Classic Hierarchy,
Taught ye by mere _A. S._ and _Rutherford?_
Men whose life, learning, faith, and pure intent
Would have been held in high esteem with Paul,
Must now be named and printed heretics
By _shallow Edwards_ and _Scotch What d'ye call._
But we do hope to find out all your tricks,
Your plots and packing, worse than those of Trent,
That so the Parliament
May, with their wholesome and preventive shears,
Clip your phylacteries, though baulk your ears,
And succour our just fears,
When they shall read this clearly in your charge--
New PRESBYTER is but old PRIEST writ large."
Milton, we are to suppose, having already written two Divorce Sonnets,
did not care to write a third, but preferred to punish Edwards and
Baillie in a general Anti-Presbyterian Sonnet. It turned out, however,
not a Sonnet proper, but a _Sonetto con coda_, as the Italians call
it, or "Sonnet with a tail"--the Anti-Presbyterian rhythm prolonging
itself beyond the fourteen lines that would have completed the normal
Sonnet, and demanding the scorpion addition of six lines more. Into this
peculiar "tailed Sonnet" Milton condenses metrically all the rage against
Presbytery, the Westminster Assembly, and the Anti-Tolerationists, which
had already broken forth at large in his later prose pamphlets. The piece
is unusually full of historical allusions. It breathes throughout his
acquired hatred of the Presbyterians for their opposition to Liberty of
Conscience, and their determination that the "Classic Hierarchy," or
system of Presbyterian _classes_ which they were establishing in
England, should be as compulsory on all as the Prelacy they had thrown
off; and there is a palpable side-hit at the recent acquisition by some
of the leading Presbyterian Divines in the Assembly of University posts
and the like in addition to their previous livings, notwithstanding their
outcries against Pluralities in the time of Episcopacy. In this side-hit
not a few known Divines are slashed; and among them, I fear, Milton's old
tutor Thomas Young, now Master of Jesus College, Cambridge, as well as
Vicar of Stowmarket. But the open personal references are four. The "A.
S." selected as one prominent expounder of Presbytery is the Scotchman,
Dr. Adam Steuart, who, under his initials "A. S.," had been one of the
first to rush into print in behalf of strict Presbytery and Anti-
Toleration against the _Apologetical Narrative_ of the Independents
of the Assembly, and who had been replied to by John Good win, but had
since gone into Holland (_antè_, p. 25). The "Rutherford" coupled
with him is the celebrated Scottish divine, and Commissioner to the
Assembly, Samuel Rutherford, who had set forth several expositions of
strict Scottish Presbytery for the enlightenment of the English. "Shallow
Edwards" is obvious enough: he is Mr. Edwards of the _Gangræna_, once far
from a nobody in London, but who will now, through Milton's mention of
him, be "Shallow Edwards" to the world's end. In Milton's draft of the
Sonnet he was "hair-brained Edwards;" but "hair-brained" was erased, and
"shallow" substituted. The "Scotch What d'ye call" has cost the
commentators more trouble. Most of them have identified him with George
Gillespie, whom they also, though erroneously, suppose to be the "Galasp"
of one of the Divorce Sonnets. There can be little doubt now, I think,
that I have detected the real "What d'ye call" in Gillespie's fellow-
Commissioner from Scotland, our good friend Baillie, whose _Dissuasive_,
with its reference to Milton as one of the heretics of the time, had just
preceded Edwards's _Gangræna_. I am sorry for this, but it cannot be
helped. There was, I ought to add, in the original draft of the Sonnet, a
fifth personal allusion, which Milton saw fit, on second thoughts, to
omit. Line 17, which now stands "_Clip your phylacteries, though baulk
your ears_" (_i.e._" though pass over your ears and leave them
undipped"), was originally "_Crop ye as close as marginal P--'s ears_."
As Milton had already, in his _Colasterion_, said enough about Prynne and
the heavy margins of his many pamphlets, and as the circumstances in
which Prynne had lost his ears made the subject hardly a proper one for a
public joke, it was but good taste in Milton to make the change.
It is from internal evidence that I assign this famous Anti-Presbyterian
outburst of Milton to some early month of the year 1646. [Footnote: The
lines were first published in the Second or 1673 Edition of Milton's
Poems, and not there among the Sonnets, but as a piece apart, with the
title, since always given to it, _On the New Forcers of Conscience
under the Long Parliament_. The draft of it among the Milton MSS. at
Cambridge has the simpler title _On the Forcers of Conscience_. This
draft, however, is not in Milton's own hand, but is a transcript by an
amanuensis. Hence we have not the means of determining the date so
exactly as if Milton's own draft had been preserved. I am pretty
confident that the date cannot be later than 1646, and I fancy copies may
have been in private circulation in that year.] It fits in exactly with
the state of public affairs and of Milton himself at that time; all the
motives to it, public and private, were in existence by the March of that
year; and it is difficult to suppose that the composition was of much
later date. Or, if it was a little later, the lines fairly represent
Milton's feeling at the time to which I assign them. In March, April, and
May, 1646, Milton was one of those Englishmen who had done for ever with
Presbyterianism, who rejoiced over the curb imposed at length upon the
Westminster Assembly by the Independents and Erastians of the Parliament,
and who longed to see that conclave dismissed, and the Scots sent packing
home.
SURRENDER OF OXFORD: CONDITION OF THE POWELL FAMILY.
That the Scots should be sent packing home, but that they should leave
the King behind them in English custody, was the result for which all the
Independents were anxious. Through May and June 1646, it was for Milton,
among the rest, to watch the progress of the negotiations with the Scots
at Newcastle round the person of the King, and at the same time to
observe the surrender of one after another of the few remaining Royalist
garrisons, including the great Royalist capital of Oxford. The siege of
this city by Fairfax, begun May 1, a week after the King had left it, and
continued for seven or eight weeks with the help of Cromwell and Skippon,
must have been a matter of considerable personal interest to Milton, and
of more interest to his wife. She was now in a state of health requiring
as much freedom from anxiety as possible; but, while the siege was going
on, there was good reason for anxiety in the fact that her father and
mother, with the rest of her family, or some of them, were in the
besieged city and undergoing its dangers. They had taken refuge there on
the approach of the Parliamentarian troops into Oxfordshire, leaving
their house at Forest-hill to take its chance. What might that chance be,
and what worse chances might come of the siege itself? It was a relief
when the news came of the actual surrender of the city (June 24), on
terms exceedingly liberal to the garrison, the citizens, and all the
resident Royalists. The terms, indeed, were thought far too liberal by
the Presbyterians. "The scurvy base propositions which Cromwell has given
to the Malignants at Oxford has offended many," writes Baillie, June 26;
[Footnote: Baillie, II. 376] the reason for the offence being that it was
but too clear that the Independents had been in haste to obtain Oxford on
any terms whatever, in order that the army might be free to act, if
necessary, against the Scots in the north. Anyhow the surrender had taken
place. The Princes Rupert and Maurice had left the city with a retinue
and promise of liberty to go abroad; the garrison, to the number of 7,000
men, had marched out honourably, with arms and baggage; security for the
property of the citizens and the colleges had been guaranteed; and all
the miscellaneous crowd of Royalists of various ranks that had been
cooped up so long in Oxford were at liberty to disperse themselves on
certain stipulated conditions. To one of the Articles of the Treaty of
Surrender I must ask special attention, as it came to be of much domestic
consequence to Milton in future years:--
"XI. That all lords, gentlemen, clergymen, officers, soldiers, and all
other persons in Oxford, or comprised in this capitulation, who have
estates real or personal under or liable to sequestrations according to
the Ordinance of Parliament, and shall desire to compound for them
(except persons by name excepted by Ordinance of Parliament from pardon),
shall at any time within six months after the rendering of the garrison
of Oxford be admitted to compound for their estates; which composition
shall not exceed two years' revenue for estates of inheritance, and for
estates for lives, years, and other real and personal estates, shall not
exceed the proportion aforesaid for inheritances, according to the value
of them: And that all persons aforesaid whose dwelling-houses are
sequestered (except before-excepted) may after the rendering of the
garrison repair to them, and there abide, convenient time being allowed
to such as are placed there under the sequestrations for their removal.
And it is agreed that all the profits and revenues arising out of their
estates after the day of entering their names as Compounders shall remain
in the hands of the tenants or occupiers, to be answered to the
Compounders when they have perfected their agreements for their
compositions; And that they shall have liberty, and the General's pass
and protection, for their peaceable repair to and abode at their several
houses or friends, and to go to London to attend their compositions, or
elsewhere upon their necessary occasions, with freedom of their persons
from oaths, engagements, and molestations during the space of six months,
and after so long as they prosecute their compositions without wilful
default or neglect on their part, except an engagement by promise not to
bear arms against the Parliament, nor wilfully to do any act prejudicial
to their [Parliament's] affairs so long as they remain in their quarters.
And it is further agreed that, from and after their compositions made,
they shall be forthwith restored to and enjoy their estates, and all
other immunities, as other subjects, together with the rents and profits,
from the time of entering their names, discharged from sequestrations,
and from fifths and twentieth parts, and other payments and impositions,
except such as shall be general and common to them with others."
[Footnote: Whitlocke (ed. 1853), II. 38; also in Rushworth, VI. 282,
283.]
Some hundreds of persons in Oxford at the time of its surrender must have
had their movements for the next few months determined by this article.
Among these was Milton's father-in-law, Mr. Richard Powell.
The view we arrived at as to the condition of the Powell family before
the Civil War was (Vol. II. p. 499) that they were then "an Oxfordshire
family of good standing, keeping up appearances with the neighbour-
gentry, and probably more than solvent if all their property had been put
against their debts, but still rather deeply in debt, and their property
heavily mortgaged." During the war, we have now to record, on the faith
of a statement afterwards made by Mr. Powell himself, the losses of the
family in one way or another had amounted to at least 3,000_l_.
Remembering this heavy item, I will try to present in figures the state
of Mr. Powell's affairs while he was shut up in Oxford:--
I. PROPERTY.
1. Lease, till 1672, of the Forest-hill mansion and £
estate, worth about . . . . . . . . 270 a year.
2. Furniture, household-stuff, and corn in the Forest-
hill mansion and appurtenances, valued at . 500
3. Wood and timber stacked about the Forest-hill
premises, worth . . . . . . . . . 400
4. Property in land and cottages at Wheatley,
valued at . . . . . . . . . . . 40 a year.
5. Debts owing to Mr. Powell . . . . . . . . 100
II. DEBTS AND OBLIGATIONS.
1. Due to Mr. John Milton, by recognisance since
1627, as unpaid part of an original debt of
£500 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 300
2. Promised to the said Mr. Milton, when he married
Mr. Powell's eldest daughter, a
marriage portion of. . . . . . . . . 1,000
3. Due to Mr. Edward Ashworth, or his representatives,
in redemption of a mortgage on the
Wheatley property since 1631, a capital sum
(besides arrears of interest) of . . . . 400
4. Due to Sir Robert Pye, in redemption of a mortgage
on the Forest-hill mansion and property
since 1640, a capital sum (besides arrears of
interest) of . . . . . . . . . . . 1,400
5. Other debts, as estimated by Mr. Powell . . . 1,200
It is difficult to square this ragged account (which, however, is the
best one can produce); [Footnote: My authorities for it are--(1) My own
previous accounts of the state of Mr. Powell's affairs before the ware,
Vol. II. pp. 492-9, based on authorities there cited. (2) "A Particular
of the Real and Personal Estate of Richard Powell of Forest-hill," after
the surrender of Oxford, attested by himself Nov. 21, 1646, and given in
the Appendix to Hamilton's _Milton's Papers_. (3) Other papers in the
same Appendix, especially an attestation of Milton himself at p. 95. (4)
The documents relative to Milton's Nuncupative Will printed by Todd and
others.] but the general effect is that Mr. Powell's affairs were in a
woful condition. It was almost mockery now to style him Mr. Powell of
Forest-hill and Wheatley; for, before he could call these Oxfordshire
properties his own, with their joint revenue of 310_l._ a year, he had to
clear off a debt of 1,400_l._ to Sir Robert Pye, and another of 400_l._
to one Ashworth, each with heavy arrears of interest. Actually, in
furniture, goods, corn, and timber in the house at Forest-hill and its
premises, and in debts owing to him, he fancied himself worth 1,000_l._;
but his debts, apart from those to Pye and Ashworth, and apart also from
the 300_l_. legally owing to his son-in-law Milton (which, with the
promised marriage-portion of 1,000_l._, might stand over to a convenient
time), amounted to 1,200_l._ Nay, this is too favourable a view; for,
while the siege of Oxford had been going on, incidents had happened which
much increased Mr. Powell's difficulties:--(l) The terms of the mortgage
of the Forest-hill mansion and estate to Sir Robert Pye had been that
the mortgage was to be void if Mr. Powell should pay Sir Robert a sum of
1,510_l._ by the 1st of July, 1641. This not having been done, Sir Robert
had had, ever since that date, a legal right to eject Mr. Powell from the
mansion and lands and take possession of them for his debt. A friendly
compromise appears to have been arranged on the subject in May, 1642, by
the payment to Sir Robert of l10_l._, being the difference between the
original debt and the higher sum which was to void the mortgage.
Nevertheless the right to take possession remained with Sir Robert; and
that he had not exercised it may have been as much owing to the fact that
Oxford was difficult of access to a Parliamentarian creditor during the
war as to neighbourly forbearance. But, now that Parliament was at the
gates of Oxford, and its troops quartered in and about Forest-hill, it
was but common prudence in Sir Robert to use the only method left of
saving himself from the loss of his 1,400_l._ with the unpaid interest.
Some time in May, accordingly, or early in June, while the siege of
Oxford was in progress, he caused his servant, or agent, Laurence Farre,
to take formal possession of the Forest-hill premises. At the date of the
surrender of Oxford, therefore, Mr. Powell was no longer owner of the
Forest-hill manor and mansion; they belonged to his neighbour, Sir Robert
Pye. There was, perhaps, a temporary convenience in this for Mr. Powell.
If he had lost the property, his debt to Sir Robert was cancelled by the
loss in the meantime; and, if at any future time he or his heirs should
be in a position to re-acknowledge the debt with arrears, arrangements
for the redemption of the property would be easier with the Pye family
than with strangers. Besides, Sir Robert had taken possession of the
property just in time to anticipate its sequestration by Parliament as
part of the estate of a Delinquent; and in this too there may have been
some intention of neighbourly service, or saving of future trouble, to
Mr. Powell. Still it was a hard thing for the Powells to know that their
lease of their family residence and estate was gone, and they were no
longer the Powells of Forest-hill. [Footnote: The vouchers for the
statements in the text about the transfer of Forest-hill to Sir Robert
Pye in May or June, 1646, are in various documents printed in Mr.
Hamilton's _Milton Papers_. See especially p. 56 and Documents xxii.,
xli., xlii., and xlv. in the Appendix. The Forest-hill property, we shall
find, did eventually come back to the Powell family; but it is worthy of
remark that in Mr. Powell's own "Particular" of the state of his property
in 1646 the Forest-hill lease is not mentioned, but only the goods and
household stuff on the premises. On the other hand, of course, the
1,400_l_. and arrears of interest due to Sir Robert Pye are omitted from
the list of debts, as cancelled by the loss of the property.] (2). But
not only was the lease of the family house and lands gone. There had come
a sequestration, and worse than a sequestration, upon the goods,
household stuff, and timber on the Forest-hill premises, which formed now
the best part of Mr. Powell's worldly all. The order for the
sequestration was issued by the Committee of Parliamentary Sequestrations
for the County of Oxford just after Sir Robert Pye had possessed himself
of the premises; and, on the 16th of June, while Mr. Powell and his
family were in Oxford with the rest of the besieged, three of the
sequestrators, John Webb, Richard Vivers, and John King, with assistants
and spectators, were rummaging the rooms and offices at Forest-hill, and
taking an inventory and valuation of all the furniture, goods, and stock
of every kind contained in them. The inventory still exists, and has been
used in our description of the house when Milton went to fetch his bride
from it (Vol. II. pp. 500, 501). Now, however, it comes in more sadly. _A
copy of the Inventory, with the prices of the goods as they were
appraysed the 16th of June 1646_, is the title of the document; and, as
we read it, we see the sequestrators, with their pens behind their ears,
going round the house, and through the house, and in among the wood-
yards, attended by gaping country-people, and jotting down particulars. A
trunk of linen first attracts them, and they set down its contents,
including "1 pair of sheets, 3 napkins, 6 yards of broad tiffany," at
16_s._ Next is a heavier entry--to wit, "240 pieces of tymber, 200 loades
of firewood, 4 carts, 1 wain, 2 old coaches, 1 mare colt, 3 sows, 1 boar,
2 ewes, 3 parcels of boards," valued in the aggregate at 156_l_. l2_s_.
And so on they go, pell-mell, putting down "hops in the wool-house" at
2_l_., "a bull" at 1_l._ 10_s._, "14 quarters of mastline" at l4_l._, "5
quarters of malt" at 5_l._, "6 bushels of wheat" at 1_l._ 2_s._, two more
parcels of wood at 100_l._ and 60_l._ respectively, a piece of growing
corn at 42_l._, a piece of growing wheat at 6_l._ l3_s._ 4_d._, and even
two fields of meadow, which they leave unappraised for the good reason
that they had been "eaten up by the souldiers." At this point also are
mentioned, as also unappraised, some bit of land at Forest-hill,
apparently not included in the lease that had gone to Sir Robert Pye, and
also Mr. Powell's property at Wheatley. Then, having concluded the outer
survey, and brought the total, so far as appraised, up to 400_l._ or a
little more, the sequestrators proceed to a separate and special
inventory of the household goods. "In the hall" they find furniture which
they value at 1_l._ 4_s._; "in the great parlour" 7_l._; "in the little
parlour" 3_l._; "in the study or boys' chamber" 2_l._ l3_s._; and so on
through the other rooms--"Mrs. Powell's chamber," as the best furnished
of all, counting for 8_l._ 4_s._, while "Mr. Powell's study" goes for
only 1_l._ l4_s._ Altogether the household stuff amounts in their
estimate to a little over 70_l._ It was a monstrously good bargain to any
one who would give that sum for it. Nor, in fact, had the sequestrators
been taking all the trouble of the inventory without inducement. Going
about with them all the while, and possibly haggling with them over the
values, was an intending purchaser in the person of a certain Matthew
Appletree from London--one of those dealers who followed in the wake of
the Parliamentary forces as they advanced into Royalist districts, with a
view to pick up good bargains for ready money in the confiscated property
of Delinquents. To this Appletree the aforesaid sequestrators, Webb,
Vivers, and King, did sell all the household stuff they had inventoried,
together with the best part of the out-of-door-stock, including the
carts, wain, and old coaches, the mare, the bull, and other animals, and
all of the timber except 100%, worth in keeping of a Mr. Eldridge. The
sum which Appletree was to give for the whole was 335_l._, whereas the
real value may have been about 800_l._ or 900_l._; and no sooner had he
concluded his bargain than he began to cart some of the lighter things
away. We can tell what went off in the first cart. They were: "1 arras
work chayre, 6 thrum chayres, 6 wrought stooles, 2 old greene carpetts, 1
tapestry carpett, 1 wrought carpett, 1 carpett greene with fringe, 3
window curtaines." [Footnote: Document xxvi. in Appendix to Hamilton's
_Milton Papers_, with references to other Documents in same Appendix.]
All this took place on the 16th of June, 1646, eight days before the
surrender of Oxford. On the preceding day, June 15, Cromwell had been at
Halton, close to Forest-hill, seeing his daughter Bridget married to
Ireton.
The reader now understands the state of Mr. Powell's affairs, when he was
released from Oxford, as well as he did himself, if not better. It was
all very well that the Articles of Capitulation had provided for the
liberty of all persons among the besieged to return to their several
places of abode and resume their estates and callings, subject only to
composition with Parliament within six months according to the fixed
rates of fine for Delinquency. This may have been a privilege for many;
but it was poor comfort for the Powells. In the first place, they had now
no home of their own to go to. Forest-hill was in possession of their old
friend, Sir Robert Pye, who was preparing to fit up the mansion afresh
for himself or some of his family, its redemption by Mr. Powell being now
out of the question. But what remained was worse. Though the house and
manor of Forest-hill were gone, Mr. Powell, by the terms of the Treaty,
might still hope to compound for the wreck of his other property which
lay under sequestration--viz. the small Wheatley estate; the goods,
furniture, timber, &c., which he had left on the Forest-hill premises;
and also, it appears, some odd bits of land about Forest-hill not
included in the mortgage to Sir Robert Pye. With what grief and anger,
then, must the family, on the surrender of Oxford, have learnt that even
this poor remainder of their property was for the most part
irrecoverable--that not only had it been sequestrated by the County
Commissioners, but most of it sold and some actually dispersed. There
appears, indeed, to have been some very harsh, if not unfair and
underhand, dealing on the part of the sequestrating Commissioners in this
matter of the hurried sale of Mr. Powell's goods to Matthew Appletree. It
became afterwards, as we shall find, the subject of legal complaint by
the Powells, and of a long and tedious litigation on their behalf. Only
two facts need at present be noted. One is the significant fact that
among the members of the County Committee who issued the order for the
sequestration was a "Thomas Appletree," clearly a relative of the
"Matthew Appletree" who purchased the goods, while a third Appletree,
named Richard, was also concerned somehow in the transaction. [Footnote:
Hamilton's _Milton Papers_: Appendix, Documents xlv. and xlvii.] One
suspects some collusion between the public sequestrators and the private
purchaser. Then again, when the transaction came to be litigated, one
observes a discrepancy between the two parties as to its alleged date.
The preserved copy of the inventory and valuation, signed by the
sequestrators, Webb, Vivers, and King, is distinctly dated "the 16 of
June 1646," and as distinctly declares that day to have been the date of
the sale to Appletree. [Footnote: _Ibid._ Document xxvi.] If this is
correct, the sale had occurred while the Treaty for the surrender of
Oxford was in progress, but exactly four days before it was completed and
the Articles of Surrender signed (June 20). On the other hand, the
Powells afterwards invariably represented the sale as a violation of the
Articles; they quoted June 17, and not June 16, as the date of the order
for sequestration issued by "the Committee for the County of Oxford
sitting at Woodstock;" and they laid stress on the fact that the
sequestrators Webb, Vivers, and King had sold the goods to Appletree
"within few days after the granting of the said Articles." [Footnote:
Hamilton's Milton Papers: Appendix, Documents xxviii. and xiv.] How the
discrepancy is to be accounted for one does not very well see; but one
again suspects over-eagerness to injure Powell by obliging Appletree. Can
the sequestrators possibly have inventoried and sold the goods, as they
themselves declared, on the 16th, though the sequestrating Order was not
formally issued till the 17th? If so, they were evidently in a hurry to
push through the business before the Treaty for the Surrender of Oxford
was signed, so as to deprive Mr. Powell, if possible, of any advantage
from it. Or, after all, can there have been any contrivance of ante-
dating, to disguise the fact that the sale, though intended on the 16th,
was really pushed through between Saturday the 20th of June, when the
Articles were signed, and Wednesday the 24th, when the surrender took
place? In either case it must have been a sore sight to Mr. Powell, when,
on this latter day, or the day after, he was free to walk over to Forest-
hill, to find some of his goods already gone and Mr. Matthew Appletree
superintending the carting away of the rest-all except the timber, which
remained upon the premises till its removal should be convenient.
[Footnote: This appears from an extract from "the Certificate of the
Solicitor for Sequestration in the County of Oxford," not given in Mr.
Hamilton's Milton Papers, but in Hunter's Milton Gleanings, pp. 31, 32.]
THE POWELLS IN LONDON: MORE FAMILY PERPLEXITIES: BIRTH OF MILTON'S FIRST
CHILD.
What was to be done? Only one thing was possible. Mr. Powell must go to
London to compound for what shreds of his sequestrated property survived
the sale to Appletree, and at the same time to see whether he could have
any redress at head-quarters against the Oxfordshire Committee of
Sequestrations. On other grounds, too, a removal to London was advisable
or necessary. There, in Mr. Milton's house, the family would have a roof
over their heads until some new arrangement could be made and while Mr.
Powell prosecuted the composition business. Accordingly, on the 27th of
June, or three days after the surrender of Oxford, Mr. Powell obtained
Fairfax's pass, as follows:-"Suffer the bearer hereof, Mr. Richard
Powell, of Forest-hill in the county Oxon., who was in the city and
garrison of Oxford at the surrender thereof, and is to have the full
benefit of the Articles agreed unto upon the surrender, quietly and
without let or interruption to pass your guards, with his servants,
horses, arms, goods, and all other necessaries, and to repair unto London
or elsewhere upon his necessary occasions: And in all places where he
shall reside, or whereto he shall remove, to be protected from any
violence to his person, goods, or estate, according to the said Articles,
and to have full liberty, at any time within six months, to go to any
convenient port and to transport himself, with his servants, goods, and
necessaries, beyond the seas: And in all other things to enjoy the
benefit of the said Articles. Hereunto due obedience is to be given by
all persons whom it may concern, as they will answer the contrary. Given
under my hand and seal the 27th day of June, 1646. (Signed) T. FAIRFAX."
[Footnote: From the Composition Papers: Document i. in Hamilton's
Appendix VOL. III.] Provided with this pass, Mr. Powell and Mrs. Powell,
with some of their sons and daughters, arrived in London some time early
in July, and took up their abode for the while at their son-in-law
Milton's in the Barbican. That they were there, and a pretty large party
of them too, we learn from Phillips. "In no very long time after her [the
wife's] coming [back to Milton] she had a great resort of her kindred
with her in the house: viz. her father and mother and several of her
brothers and sisters, which were in all pretty numerous." The surrender
of Oxford and the loss of Forest-hill were the immediate causes of this
crowding of the Barbican house with the Powell kindred, unless we are to
suppose that some of them had preceded Mr. Powell thither.
Poor Mr. Powell's perplexities were never to have an end. He cannot have
been more than a fortnight in London when he became aware not only that
he had small chance of redress at head-quarters against the injury
already done him by the Oxfordshire sequestrators, but that
Parliamentarian public opinion in Oxfordshire was pursuing him to London
with fell intent of farther damage. July 15, 1646, we read in the
_Lords Journals_, "A Petition of the inhabitants of Banbury was
read, complaining that the one half of the town is burnt down, and part
of the church and steeple pulled down; and, there being some timber and
boards at one Mr. Powell's house, a Malignant, near Oxford, they desire
they may have these materials assigned them for the repair of their
church and town. It is Ordered, that this House thinks fit to grant this
Petition, and to desire the concurrence of the House of Commons therein,
and that an Ordinance may be drawn up to that purpose." The Commons
concurred readily; for, in the _Commons Journals_ of the very next
day, July 16, we read, "The humble Petition of the inhabitants of Banbury
was read; and it is thereupon Ordered: That the Timber and Boards cut
down by one Mr. Powell, a Malignant, out of Forest Wood near Oxford, and
sequestered, being not above the value of 300%., be bestowed upon the
inhabitants of the town of Banbury, to be employed for the repair of the
Church and Steeple, and rebuilding of the Vicarage House and Common Gaol
there; and that such of the said Timber and Boards as shall remain of the
uses aforesaid shall be disposed, by the members of both Houses which are
of the Committee for Oxfordshire, to such of the well-affected persons of
the said town, for the rebuilding of their houses, as to the said
members, or major part of them, shall seem meet." Here was a confiscation
by Parliament itself of every moveable thing belonging to Mr. Powell that
had been left at Forest-hill after the sale to Appletree. All the
precious timber, including that bought by the harpy Appletree, but not
yet removed by him, was voted to these cormorants of the town of Banbury:
Mr. Powell's condition was to be that of Job at his worst. He had come to
London to plead the benefit of the Articles of Surrender; and behold,
enemies in Oxfordshire and Parliament in London had conspired to strip
him totally bare!
One sees the poor gentleman in his son-in-law's house utterly broken down
with the accumulation of his misfortunes, hanging his head in a corner of
the room where they all met, letting his wife and daughters come round
him and talk to him, but refusing to be comforted. What mattered it to
him to be told of better times that might be coming, or even of the new
little creature of his own blood that was then daily expected into the
world? To Mrs. Powell, however, this expected event was of more
consequence. She was a person of some temper and spirit; and, even in her
troubles, there was some spur upon her in her present motherly duty. And
so, when, on the 29th of July, 1646, being Wednesday, and the day of the
monthly Fast, Milton's first-born child saw the light, at about half-past
six in the morning, and was reported to be a daughter, what could they do
but agree to name the little thing ANNE in honour of her grandmother?
[Footnote: Pedigree of the Milton Family by Sir Charles Young, Garter
King at Arms, prefixed to Pickering's edition of Milton's Works, 1851.
But the original authority was an inscription in Milton's own hand on a
blank leaf of his wife's Bible:--"Anne, my daughter, was born July the
29th, the day of the monthly Fast, between six and seven, or about half
an hour after six in the morning, 1646." This, with subsequent entries on
the same leaf, was copied by Birch, Jan. 6, 1749-50, when the Bible was
shown him by Mrs. Foster, granddaughter to Milton (daughter to his
youngest daughter Deborah), then keeping a chandler's shop in Cock Lane,
near Shoreditch Church. It was the Bible in which Milton had written the
dates of his children's births. It was, however, his wife's book: "I am
the book of Mary Milton" was written on it in her hand.--The fact that
the 29th of July, 1846, on which Milton's first child was born, was
Wednesday and a day of public Fast, is verified by a reference to the
_Commons Journals_. The Commons had but a brief sitting that day
after hearing Fast-day sermons by Mr. Caryl and Mr. Whittaker; and their
chief business was to pass thanks to these two preachers for the same.]
It was the name also of Milton's sister, once Mrs. Phillips, now Mrs.
Agar; but there is little doubt that this can have been thought of only
incidentally, and that the real compliment was to Mrs. Powell. The babe
was, of course, shown to Mr. Powell in his sadness, and also to its other
grandfather, then in the house, who could be cheerier over it, as having
less reason for melancholy. "A brave girl," is Phillips's description of
the new-born infant; "though, whether by ill constitution, or want of
care, she grew up more and more decrepit." The poor girl, in fact, turned
out a kind of cripple. This, however, was not foreseen, and for the
present there was nothing but the misfortunes of the Powells to mar the
joy in the Barbican household over the appearance of this little pledge
of the reconciliation of Milton and his wife about a year before.
After the little girl was born, they did rouse Mr. Powell to take the
necessary steps for the recovery of what could be recovered of his
property, if that should prove to be anything whatsoever. The first of
these steps consisted in appearing personally, or by petition, before a
certain Committee at Goldsmiths' Hall, in Foster-lane, Cheapside, to whom
had been entrusted by Parliament the whole business of arranging the
compositions with Delinquents whose estates had been sequestrated. To
this Committee, which must have had a very busy time of it at the end of
the war, when would-be compounders were flocking in from north, south,
and west, Mr. Powell, among others, addressed his petition on the 6th of
August, 1646, in these terms: "To the Honourable the Committee sitting at
Goldsmiths' Hall for Compositions, the humble Petition of Richard Powell,
of Forest-hill, in the County of Oxon., Esq., sheweth--That your
Petitioner's estate for the most part lying in the King's quarters, he
did adhere to his Majesty's party against the forces raised by Parliament
in this unnatural war; for which his Delinquency his estate lieth under
sequestration. He is comprised within those Articles at the surrender of
Oxford; and humbly prays to be admitted to his composition according to
the said Articles. And he shall pray, &c.--RICHARD POWELL." [Footnote:
Hamilton's Milton Papers Appendix, Document ii.] This was all he could do
in the meantime. As soon as the Committee should have leisure to attend
to his case, he could take the other necessary steps. Among these would
be the preparation of the most perfect schedule of his estate, real and
personal, which he could draw up, the verification of every item of the
same, and (which would be the most difficult part of the business) his
argument with the Committee that, by the Articles of Oxford, he ought to
be reinstated both in the goods and furniture which had been sold, at an
under value, by the Oxford sequestrators to Appletree, and in the
300_l._, worth of his timber which had been hastily bestowed by
Parliament on the people of Banbury. To these matters it would be time
enough to attend when the Committee at Goldsmiths' Hall had returned
their answer to his Petition. Not till then either need he go through the
formality of subscribing the Covenant in the presence of a parish-
minister or other authorized person. That was, indeed, an indispensable
formality for any Delinquent who would sue out his composition, or
otherwise signify his submission to Parliament. But it was a formality
which a Delinquent in Mr. Powell's circumstances would willingly put off
to the last moment.
Milton's father-in-law was not the only one of his relatives who were
engaged about this time in the disagreeable business of compounding for
their Delinquency. His younger brother, Christopher Milton, was in the
same predicament. Our last glimpse of this gentleman was after the
surrender of Reading to the Parliamentarian Army under Essex, in April
1643. He was then, we found (Vol. II. pp. 488-490), a householder in
Reading, and decidedly a Royalist; and, after the siege, when his father
came from Reading to London, to reside with his Parliamentarian brother,
he himself remained at Reading, a Royalist still. In the interim he had
even been rather active as a Royalist, having been "a Commissioner for
the King, under the great seal of Oxford, for sequestering the
Parliament's friends of three Counties." Latterly, in some such capacity,
he had gone to Exeter; and he had been residing in that city, if not in
1644, when Queen Henrietta Maria was there, at least some time before its
siege by the New Model Army. On the surrender of Exeter (April 10, 1646),
on Articles similar to those afterwards given to Oxford, he had come to
London on very much the same errand as that on which Mr. Powell came
three months later. More forward in one respect than Mr. Powell, he had
at once begun his submission to Parliament by taking the Covenant. He did
so before William Barton, minister of John Zachary, in Alders-gate Ward,
on the 20th of April, or almost immediately on his arrival in London.
That preliminary over, he had been residing, most probably, in the house
of his mother-in-law. Widow Webber, in St. Clement's Churchyard, Strand,
where Milton had boarded his wife while the house in Barbican was getting
ready. Not till August 7, the day after Mr. Powell had sent in his
Petition for compounding to the Goldsmiths' Hall Committee, did
Christopher Milton send in _his_ petition to the same body. Then,
still styling himself "Christopher Milton, of Reading, in the county of
Berks, Esq., a Councillor at Law," he acknowledged his Delinquency in
having served as a Commissioner of Sequestrations for the King, but
prayed that he might have the benefit of the Exeter Articles of
Surrender, so as to be allowed to compound for his little property now
sequestered in turn. "I am seized in fee, to me and to my heirs," he said
in his accompanying statement, "in possession of and in a certain
messuage or tenement situate, standing, and being within St. Martin's
parish, Ludgate, called the sign of the Cross Keys, and was of the yearly
value, before these troubles, 40_l._ Personal estate I have none but
what hath been seized and taken from me and converted to the use of the
State. This is a true particular of all my estate, real and personal, for
which I only desire to compound to free it out of sequestration, and do
submit unto and undertake to satisfy and pay such fine as by this
Committee for Compositions with Delinquents shall be imposed and set to
pay for the same in order to the freedom and discharge of my person and
estate." Two years' value of an estate was about the ordinary fine for
Delinquency; but different grades of Delinquency were recognised, and the
fines for very pronounced Delinquency were heavier. [Footnote:
Particulars about Christopher Milton and his Delinquency are from
Hamilton's _Milton Papers_, pp. 62-64, and from Documents lxii. and
lxiii. in Appendix.]
We have arrived, biographically as well as historically, at August 1646.
In this month, while Mr. Powell and Christopher Milton had begun
severally to sue out their compositions for Delinquency, it is on a
rather crowded domestic tableau round Milton in Barbican that the curtain
drops. On one side of him was his own old father, on the other was his
father-in-law; the mother-in-law, Mrs. Powell, was there, with her
married daughter Mrs. Milton, and the little baby Anne; how many of Mrs.
Milton's brothers and sisters were in the group can hardly be guessed;
the two boys Phillips, and one knows not how many other pupils, fill up
the interstices between the larger people in front; and one sees
Christopher Milton, his wife Thomasine, their children, and perhaps the
Widow Webber, as visitors in the background. Of the whole company, I
should say, the mother-in law, Mrs. Powell, was, for the time being, and
whether to Milton's private satisfaction or not, the chief in command.