(Vol. vii., p. 596.)
As your correspondent CRANMORE has long been a deserter from the ranks of
"N. & Q.," I may perhaps, without presumption, for once "stand in his
shoes," and reply to the challenge addressed to him by V. M.
Much obscurity has all along prevailed among the many biographers of
Milton, in reference to the family of Elizabeth Minshull, his third wife,
and eventually, for more than fifty years, his widow. Philips, Warton,
Todd, and numerous others, state her to have been "the daughter of Mr.
Minshull, of Cheshire,"--a very vague assertion when we consider that there
were at least three or four different families of that name then existing
in the county. Pennant, who delighted in particularities, sometimes even at
the expense of historical fact, tells us, for the first time, in 1782, that
she was the daughter of Mr. (or Sir) Edward Minshull, of Stoke, near
Nantwich, and that she died at the latter town in March, 1726, at an
advanced age. Mr. Ormerod, again, whose splendid _History of Cheshire_ will
be the standard authority of the county for ages after he himself is
carried to his fathers, has unfortunately adopted the same conclusion, and
so given a colour, as it were, to this erroneous statement of our Cambrian
antiquary. The Rev. Benjamin Mardon's paper, printed in the _Journal of the
British Archaeological Association for 1849_, is another and more recent
instance of the way in which such errors as this may become perpetuated.
Another writer (Palmer) conjectures her to have been the daughter of
Minshull of Manchester; but this also has been proved to be entirely
destitute of foundation.
The truth of the matter is (and I am indebted to Mr. Fitchett Marsh's clear
and succinct dissertation in the _Miscellany_ of the Chetham Society for
the information), the poet's widow was daughter of Mr. Randle Minshull, of
Wistaston in the county of Chester, whose great-great-grandfather, a
younger son of Minshull of Minshull, settled on a small estate there in the
reign of Queen Elizabeth, and so founded the house of Minshull of
Wistaston. Milton was introduced to his Cheshire wife by his friend Dr.
Paget; and {13} it was by his advice that the author of _Paradise Lost_
once more entered into the bonds of wedlock. Mr. Marsh, to clear up all
doubt upon the subject, and having previously established the identity of
the family, examined the parish register at Wistaston, and there found that
"Elizabeth, the daughter of Randolph Mynshull, was baptized the 30th day of
December, 1638;" so that, if baptized shortly after birth, she must have
been about twenty-six years old when united to Milton in 1664, and about
eighty-nine at her death, which occurred in 1727.
V. M., and all others who desire farther enlightenment on the subject, will
do well to refer to the volume before mentioned, which forms the
twenty-fourth of the series published by the Chetham Society.