 Book 6, Part 3 of the History of Britain by John Milton. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Thomas Copeland. Edward the Confessor. Glad with the English to be delivered so unexpectedly from their Danish masters. And little did they think how near another conquest was hanging over them. Edward, the Easter following—note, post-price 1043, returned to text—was crowned at Winchester, and the same year, accompanied with the Earl's Godwin, the Offric and Seward, came again thither on a sudden, and by their counsel seized on the treasure of his mother, Emma. The cause alleged is that she was hard to him in the time of his banishment. And indeed she is said not much to have blugged Ethelrid, her former husband, and thereafter the children she had by him. She was more over-noted to be very covetous, hard to the poor, and profuse to monasteries. About this time also, King Edward, according to Thomas, took to wife Edith, or Edith, Earl Godwin's daughter, commended much for beauty, modesty, and, beyond what is requisite in a woman, learning. Ingolf, who was then a youth lodging in the court with his father, saw her oft, and when coming from the school, was sometimes met by her, and posed, not in grammar only, but in logic also. Edward, the next year but one, note, post-Christ 1045, returned to text, made ready a strong navy at Sandwich against Magnus, king of Norway, who threatened an invasion, had not swayed king of Denmark, diverted him from it by a war at home to defend his own land, and, note, post-Christ 1046, returned to text. Not out of good will to Edward, as may be supposed, who at the same time expressed none to the Danes, banishing Canildas the niece of Canute, with her two sons, and Osgold by surname Clappa, out of the realm. Swaying, overpowered by Magnus, note, post-Christ 1047, returned to text, sent the next year to entreat aid of King Edward. Godwin gave counsel to send him 50 ships fraught with soldiers, but the offer can the general voice gain saying, none was sent. The next year, note, post-Christ 1048, returned to text, Harold Harvinger, king of Norway, sending ambassadors, made peace with King Edward, but an earthquake at Wooster and Darby, and pestilence and famine in many places, much lessened the enjoyment thereof. The next year, note, post-Christ 1049, returned to text, Henry the emperor, displeased with Baldwin, Earl of Flanders, had straightened him with a great army by land, and sending to King Edward, desired him with his ships to hinder what he might, his escape by sea. The king, therefore, with a great navy, coming to Sandwich, their state till the emperor came to an agreement with Earl Baldwin. Meanwhile, Swayne, son of Earl Godwin, who, not being permitted to marry Edgibor, the Abbas of Chester, who had been by him deflowered, had left the land, came out of Denmark with eight ships, feigning a desire to return into the king's favor, and borne his cousin, German, who commanded part of the king's navy, promised to intercede that his earldom might be restored to him. Godwin, therefore, and Bjorn, with a few ships, the rest of the fleet being gone home, coming to Pevency, but Godwin soon departing thence in pursuit of 29 Danish ships, who had got much booty on the coast of Essex, and perished by Tempest in the return. Then with his ships comes to Bjorn at Pevency, guilefully requests him to sail with him to Sandwich and reconcile him to the king, as he had promised. Bjorn, mistrusting no evil where he intended good, went with him in his ship, attended by three only of his servants. But Swayne, set upon barbarous cruelty, not reconciliation with the king, took Bjorn now in his power, and bound him. Then, coming to Dartmouth, slew him, and buried him in a deep ditch, after which the men of Hastings took six of his ships, and brought them to the king off the port of Sandwich. With the other two he escaped to the Flanders, there remaining till Aldred, Bishop of Worcester, by earnest mediation, brought his peace with the king. About this time, King Edward sent to Pope Leo, desiring up solution from a vow which he had made in his younger years, to take a journey to Rome of Dartmouth's safety into reign in England. The pope dispensed with his vow, but not without the expense of his journey given to the poor, and a monastery built or re-edified to St. Peter, who, in a vision to a monk, as it is said, chose Westminster for the situation of it, which King Edward thereupon rebuilding, and doubted with large privileges and revenues. The same year set the florent of Worcester. Certain Irish pirates, with thirty-six ships, entered the mouth of the Severn, and with the aid of Griffin, Prince of South Wales, did some hurt in those parts. Then passing the river Y, burnt Dunedin, and slew all the inhabitants they found. Against whom Aldred, Bishop of Worcester, with a few men out of Gloucestershire and Hertfordshire, went out in haste. But Griffin, to whom the Welsh and Irish had privilege sent messengers, came down upon the English with his whole power by night, and early in the morning, suddenly assaulting them, slew many, and put the rest to flight. The next year, but one, note, post-pressed 1051 returned to text, King Edward remitted the Danish tax which had continued thirty-eight years heavy upon the land, since Ethelrod first paid it to the Danes. And what remained thereof in his treasury he sent back to the owners. But through imprudence laid the foundation of a far worse mischief to the English. While studying gratitude to those Normans who to him in exile had been helpful, he called them over to public offices here, whom better he might have repaid out of his private purse. By this means exasperating the two nations one against the other, and making way by degrees for the Norman conquest. Robert, a monk of that country, who had been serviceable to him there in the time of need, he made bishop first of London, then of Canterbury, and William, his chaplain, he made bishop of Dorchester. Then began the English to lay aside their own ancient customs, and in many things to imitate French manners. The great peers to speak French in their houses, and use the same language in writing their bills and letters, is a great piece of gentility, and as if they were ashamed of their own, which seems to have been a presage of their subjections shortly after to that people whose fashions and language they affected so slavishly to adopt. But that which gave beginning to many troubles ensuing happened this year and upon this occasion. Eustace, Earl of Boloin, father of the famous Godfrey who won Jerusalem from the Saracens, and husband to Goda, the king's sister. Having been to visit King Edward and returning by Canterbury to take ship at Dover, one of his harbingers, insolently seeking to lodge by force in a house there, revoked the master thereof to such a degree that by chance or heat of anger he killed him. The count, with his whole train going to the house where his servant had been killed, slew both the slayer and 18 more who defended him. But the townsmen running to arms requited him with the slaughter of 20 more of his servants and wounded most of the rest. He himself, with one or two hardly escaping, ran back with clamour to the king, whom, seconded by other Norman courtiers, he stirred up to great anger against the citizens of Canterbury. Earl Godwin, in haste, is sent forth, the cause related and much aggravated by the king against that city, and the Earl is commanded to raise forces and treat the citizens thereof as enemies. Godwin, sorry to see strangers more favoured of the king than his native people, answered that it were better to summon first the chief men of the town into the king's court, to charge them with sedition, where both parties might be heard, that if they should be found to have not been in fault, they might be acquitted. If otherwise, they might, by fine or loss of life, satisfy the king whose peace they had broken and the count whom they had injured. But till this were done, he refused to prosecute with hostile punishment those men of his own country unheard whom his office was rather to defend. The king, displeased with his refusal and not knowing how to compel him, appointed an assembly of all the peers to be held at Gloucester, where the matter might be fully tried. The assembly was full and frequent according to summons. But Godwin, mistrusting his own cause or the violence of his adversaries, with his two sons, Swain and Harold, and a great power gathered out of his own at his son's earldoms, which contained most of the south-east and west parts of England, came no farther than Beverston, giving out that their forces were to go against the Welsh, who intended an eruption into Hertfordshire. And Swain, under that pretense, lay with part of his army thereabout. The Welsh, understanding this device, and with all diligence clearing themselves before the king, left Godwin, thus detected a false accusation in great hatred to all the assembly. The Alfric, therefore, and Seward, dukes of great power, the former in Mercia, the other in all parts beyond the Humber, both ever faithful to the king, sent privily with speed to raise the forces of their provinces, which Godwin not knowing sent boldly to King Edward, demanding Count Eustis and his followers, together with those Bolognians, who, as simian rites, held a castle in the jurisdiction of Canterbury. The king, as then having but little force at hand, entertained him a while with treaties and delays, till his summoned army drew an eye, and then rejected his demands. Godwin, thus matched, commanded his sons not to begin a fight against the king, but, if begun with, not to give ground. The king's forces were the flower of those countries whence they came, and eager to fall on. But Leofric and the wiser sort, detesting civil war, brought the matter to this accord, that hostages being given on either side, the cause should be again debated at London. Thither the king and lords coming to their army sent to Godwin and his sons, who with their powers were come as far as southern, commanding their appearance unarmed with only twelve attendants, and that the rest of their soldiers they should deliver over to the king. They, to appear without pledges before an adverse faction, denied. But to dismiss their soldiers refused not, nor in ought else to obey the king, as far as might stand with honour and the just regard of their safety. This answer not pleasing the king, and edict was presently issued forth that Godwin and his sons, within five days, should depart the land. He who perceived now his numbers to diminish readily obeyed, and with his wife and three sons, Tosti, Swain, and Gertha, with as much treasure as their ship could carry, embarking at Thornie, sailed into Flanders to Earl Baldwin, whose daughter Judith, Tosti, had married, for Wulnut, his fourth son, was then a hostage to the king in Normandy. His other two, Harold and Leofwin, taking ship at Bristow, in a vessel that lay ready there belonging to Swain, passed into Ireland. King Edward, pursuing his displeasure, divorced his wife Edith, Earl Godwin's daughter, and sent her to spoil of all her ornaments, to wear well, with one waiting maid, to be kept in custody by his sister, the abbess there. His reason of so doing was as harsh as his act, quote, that she only, while her nearest relations were in banishment, might not, though innocent, enjoy ease at home, unquote. After this, William Duke of Normandy, with a great number of followers coming into England, was by King Edward honorably entertained, and led about the cities and castles, as it were to show him what there long was to be his own, though at that time Seth in Belf, no mention thereof passed between them. Then, after some time of his abode here, presented richly and dismissed, he returned home. The next year Queen Emma died, note, post-price 1051, returned to text, and was buried at Winchester. The chronicle attributed to John Brompton, a Yorkshire abbot, but more probably the work of some nameless author that lived under Edward III or later, reports that the year before, by Robert the Archbishop, she was accused both of consenting to the death of her son Alfred, and of preparing poison for Edward also, lastly, of too much familiarity with Alwyn, Bishop of Winchester, and that in order to prove her innocence, praying overnight to St. Swithun, she offered to walk blindfolded between certain plowshares made red hot, according to the child by Ordeal, without harm, and afterwards did perform this dangerous penance, and that the king thereupon received her to honor. And from her and the bishop, penance for his credulity, that the Archbishop, ashamed of his accusation, fled out of England, which besides the silence of more ancient authors, for the bishop fled not till a year after, brings the whole story into suspicion. In this, more probable, if it can be proved that in memory of this deliverance from the nine burning plowshares, Queen Emma gave to the Abbey of Saints with you nine manners, and Bishop Alwyn another nine. About this time, Griffin, Prince of South Wales, wasted herfordshire, to oppose whom the people of that country with many Normans garrisoned in the castle of Hertford went out in arms, but were put to the worse, many slain, and much booty driven away by the Welsh. Soon after which, Harold and Ledwyn, sons of Godwin, coming into the Severn with many ships in the confines of Somerset and Dorteture, spoiled many villages, and resisted by those of Somerset and Devonshire, slew in a fight more than 30 of their principal men, many of the common sort, and returned with much booty to their fleet. King Edward, on the other side, made ready above 60 ships at Sandwich, well stored with men in provision, under the conduct of Odo and Raddolf, two of his Norman kindred, and joining them to find out Godwin, whom he heard to be at sea. To quicken them, he himself lay on shipboard, oft times watched, and sailed up and down in search of those pirates. But Godwin, whether in a mist or by other accident, passing by them, arrived in another part of Kent, and dispersing several messengers abroad by fair words allured the chief men of Kent, Surrey, and Essex to his party, which, news coming to the King's fleet at Sandwich, they hasted to find him out. But missing of him again came up without effect to London. Godwin advertised of this forthwith sail to the Isle of Wight, where at length his two sons Harold and Levwin, finding him with their United Navy, lay on the coast, forbearing other hostility than to furnish themselves with fresh vitals from land as they needed. Thence, as one fleet, they set forward to Sandwich, using all fair means, by the way, to increase their numbers, both of mariners and soldiers. The King, who was then at London, startled at these tidings, gave speedy order to raise forces in all parts that had not revolted from him, but now too late. For Godwin, within a few days after, with his ships or galleys, came up the river Thames to Souther, and till the tide returned, had conference with the Londoners, whom by fair speeches, for he was held a good speaker in those times, he brought to his bent. The tide returning, and none upon the bridge hindering, he rode up in his galleys along the South Bank, where his land army now come to him in a ray of battle now stood on the shore. Then, turning toward the north side of the river, where the King's galleys lay in some readiness, and land forces also not far off, he made show as offering to fight. But they understood one another, and the soldiers on either side soon declared their resolution not to fight English against English. Then, coming to treaty, the King and the Earl were reconciled, and both armies were dissolved, and Godwin and his sons were restored to their former dignities, except Swain, who being touched with conscience for the slaughter of Bjorn as kinsman, was gone therefore to Jerusalem, and returning home died by sickness, or Saracens, in Lycia. And King Edward took to him again his wife Edith, Godwin's daughter, and restored her to her former dignity. Then, with the Normans, who had done many unjust things under the King's authority, and given him ill counsel against his people, banished the realm. Some of them, who were not blameable, being permitted to stay. Robert, Archbishop of Canterbury, William, Bishop of London, Ulf, Bishop of Lincoln, all Normans, hardly escaping with their followers, got to sea. The Archbishop went with this complaint to Rome, but returning died in Normandy at the same monastery from whence he came. Osborne and Hugh surrendered their castles, and by permission of Joffrey, passed through his counties with their Normans, to Macbeth, King of Scotland. The year following, note 1053, returned to text, Reese, brother to Griffin, Prince of South Wales, who by inroads had done much damage to the English, taken at Bullendon, was put to death by the King's order, and his head brought to him at Gloucester. The same year at Winchester, on the second holiday of Easter, Earl Godwin, sitting with the King at table, sunk down suddenly in his seat as dead. His three sons, Harold, Tostey, and Bertha, forthwith carried him into the King's chamber, hoping he might revive, but the malady had so seized him that the fifth day after he expired. The Normans, who hated Godwin, gave out Seth Momsbury that mention happening to be made of Alfred, and the King thereat looking sourly upon Godwin, he, to vindicate himself, uttered these words, Thou, O King, at every mention made of thy brother, Alfred, look as frowningly upon me, but let God not suffer me to swallow this morsel if I be guilty of ought done against his life or thy advantage, that after these words choked with the morsel taken, he sunk down and recovered not. His first wife was the sister of Kenute, a woman of much infamy for the trade she drove of buying up English youths and maids to sell in Denmark, whereas she made great gain, but Erlong was struck with thunder and died. The year ensuing, note, post Christ 1054 written to text, Seward, Earl of Northumberland, with a great number of horse and foot attended also by a strong fleet at the King's appointment, made an expedition into Scotland, vanquished the Tyrant Macbeth, slaying many thousands of Scots with those Normans that went thither and placed Malcolm, son of the Cumbrian King, on the throne in his stead. He had not without loss of his own son and many other soldiers, both English and Danes. When he was told of his son's death, he asked whether he received his death's wound before or behind. When it was answered that the wound was before, I am glad to hear that, said he, and should not else have thought him, though my son, worthy of burial. In the meanwhile, King Edward, being without issue to succeed him, sent Aldred, Bishop of Winchester, with great presence to the emperor and treating him to prevail with the King of Hungary that Edward, the remaining son of his brother, Edmund Ironside, might be sent into England. Seward, but one year surviving as great victory, died at York, note, post Christ 1055 written to text, reported by Huntington, a man of giant-like stature, and by his own demeanor at the point of death, manifested to have been of a rough and mere soldierly mind. For, much disdaining to die in bed by a disease and not in the field fighting with his enemies, he caused himself completely armed and weaponed with battle-axe and shield to be set in a chair, whether to fight with death, if he could be so vain, or to meet him when far other weapons and preparations were needful in a martial bravery. But true fortitude glories not in the feats of war as they are such, but as they serve to end war soonest by a victorious peace. His earldom, the king bestowed on Tosti, the son of Earl Godwin, and soon after, in a convention held at London, banished without visible cause, Huntington set for treason, Algar, the son of Delfrey, who, passing into Ireland, soon returned with 18 ships to Griffin, Prince of South Wales, requesting his aid against King Edward. He, assembling his powers, entered with him into Hertfordshire, whom Radolf, a timorous captain, son to the king's sister, not by Eustis, but by a former husband, met two miles distant from Hertford and having hoarse the English, who knew better to fight on foot. Without stroke, he, with his French and Normans beginning to fly, taught the English by his example to do so likewise. Griffin and Algar, following the chase, slew many, wounded more, entered Hertford, slew seven cannons who were defending the minister, burnt first the monastery and relics and then the city, killing some leading captive others of the citizens, returned with great spoils. Whereof, King Edward having noticed, he gathered a great army at Gloucester under the conduct of Harold, now Earl of Kent, who, strenuously pursuing Griffin, entered Wales and encamped beyond Straddale. But the enemy flying before him farther into the country, leaving there the greater part of his army with such as had charged to fight, if occasion were offered, with the rest he returned and fortified Hertford with the wall and gates. Meanwhile, Griffin and Algar, dreading the diligence of Harold, after many messages to and fro, concluded a peace with him. Algar, discharging his fleet with pay at Westchester came to the king and was restored to his kingdom. But Griffin, with breach of faith, the next year, note 1056, returned to text, set upon Lelfgar, the bishop of Hertford and his clerks, then at a place called Glassbury, with Aylemorth by count of the Shire and slew them. But Lelfric, Harold and King Edward by force, as is likely as though it be not said how, reduced him to peace. The next year, note post Christ 1057, returned to text, Edward, son of Edmund Ironside for whom his uncle, King Edward, had sent to the emperor, came out of Hungary, designed successor to the crown. But within a few days after his coming, died at London, leaving behind him, Edward Atheling, his son, Margaret and Christiana, his daughters. About the same time also died Earl Lelfric in a good old age, a man of no less virtue than power in his time, religious, prudent and faithful to his country, happily wedded to Godiva, a woman of great praise. His son, Algar, found less favor with King Edward, being again banished the year after his father's death, note post Christ 1058, returned to text. But he again, by the aid of Griffin and a fleet from Norway, mow where the king soon recovered his Earl down. The next year, note post Christ 1059, returned to text. Malcolm, King of Scots, coming to visit King Edward, was brought on his way by Tosti, the Northumbrian Earl, to whom he swore brotherhood. Yet the next year, but one, note post Christ 1061, returned to text. While Tosti was gone to Rome with Aldrid, Archbishop of York, for his Paul, this sworn brother, taking advantage of his absence, roughly harassed Northumberland. The year passing to an end without other matter of moment, save the frequent inroads and robberies of Griffin, who no bonds of faith could restrain, King Edward sent against him after Christmas Harold, now Duke of the West Saxons, with no great body of horse, note post Christ 1062, returned to text, from Gloucester, where he then kept his court. Whose coming, heard of, Griffin not daring to abide, nor in any part of his land holding himself secure, escaped hardly by sea. Air Harold, coming to Roodland, burnt his palace and ships there, and returned to Gloucester the same day. But by the middle of May, note post Christ 1063, returned to text. Setting out with a fleet from Bristow, he sailed about the most part of Wales, and being met by his brother Tostey, with many troops of horse, as the King had appointed, began to waste the country. But the Welsh, giving pledges, yielded themselves and promised to become tributary and banished Griffin their prince, who lurking somewhere was the next year taken and slain by Griffin, Prince of North Wales. Note post Christ 1064, returned to text. His head, with the head and tackle of his ship, sent to Harold and by him to the King, who of his gentleness made Bledgent and Grythwallon, or Rivalon, his two brothers, princes in his stead. They, to Harold, in behalf of the King, swore fealty and tribute. Yet the next year, note post Christ 1065, returned to text. Harold, having built a fair house at a place called Portasift in Monmouthshire, then stored it with provision that the King might lodge there in time of hunting. Caradoc, the son of Griffin, slain fear before, came with a number of men, slew all he found there and took away the provision. Soon after which, the Northumbrians in a tumult at York, who set the palace of Tostey their earl, slew more than 200 of his soldiers and servants, pillaged his treasure and forced him to fly for his life. The cause of this insurrection they alleged to be for that the Queen Edith had commanded in her brother Tostey's behalf, goes Patrick, a nobleman of that country, to be treacherously slain in the King's court. And the Tostey himself, the year before, with light treachery, had caused to be slain in his chamber, Gamal and Ulth, to other of their noblemen, besides his intolerable exactions and oppressions. Then, in a manner, the whole country coming up to complain of their grievances met with Harold at Northampton, whom the King at Tostey's request had sent to pacify the Northumbrians. But they, laying open the cruelty of his government and their own birthright of freedom, not to endure the tyranny of any governor whatsoever, with absolute refusal to admit him again, and Harold, hearing reason, all the accomplices of Tostey were expelled the earl. He himself was banished the realm and went into Flanders, and Morkar, the son of Algar, made earl in his stead. Pondington tells another cause of Tostey's banishment, that one day at Windsor, while Harold reached the cup to King Edward, Tostey, envying to see his younger brother in greater favor than himself, could not forbear to run furiously upon him, catching hold of his hair. The scuffle was soon parted by other attendants rushing between, and Tostey forbidden the court. He with continued fury riding to Herford, where Harold had many servants, preparing an entertainment for the king, came to the house and set upon them with his followers, then lopping off hands, arms, legs, of some, heads of others, threw them into butts of wine, meat, or ale, which were laid in for the king's drinking. And at his going away charged them to send him this word, that of other fresh meats he might bring with him to his farm what he pleased, but of sauce he should find plenty provided ready for him. That for this barbarous act the king pronounced him banished, that the Northumbrians, taking advantage of the king's displeasure and sentence against him, rose also to be revenged of his cruelties done to themselves. But this no way agrees, for why then should Harold, or the king, so much labor with the Northumbrians to readmit him if he were a banished man for his crimes done before? About this time it happened that Harold, putting to sea one day for his pleasure in a fisher boat from his manner at Boson and Sussex, being caught in a tempest too far off land, was carried into Normandy, and by the Earl of Pontier, on whose coast he was driven, was at his own request brought to Duke William, who, entertaining him with great courtesy, so far won him as to induce him to promise the duke by oath of his own accord, not only to deliver up to him the castle of Dover then in his tenure, but the whole kingdom also after King Edward's death to his utmost endeavor, thereupon betrothing the duke's daughter, then too young for marriage, and departing richly presented. Others say that King Edward himself, after the death of Edward his nephew, sent Harold Dither on purpose to acquaint Duke William with his intention to bequeath him his kingdom. But Monsbury accounts the former story to be the truer. Ingolf writes that King Edward, now grown old and perceiving Edgar his nephew, to be both in body and mind unfit to govern, especially against the pride and insolence of Godwin's sons who would never obey him, and Duke William, on the other hand, to be a man of high merit, and considering likewise that he was his kinsman by the side of his mother, Green Emma, had sent Robert Archbishop of Canterbury to acquaint the duke with his purpose, not long before Harold came dither. The former part may be true that King Edward, upon such considerations, had sent some person or other to Duke William, but it could not be Archbishop Robert because he had fled the land and had been dead many years before. Edmer and Simeon write that Harold went of his own accord into Normandy by the king's permission, or connivance, to get free his brother, Wulnod, and his nephew, Hakun, the son of Swain, whom the king had taken as hostages of Godwin, and had sent into Normandy, and that thereupon King Edward had forewarned Harold that his journey dither would be to the detriment of all England and to his own reproach. And they further write that Duke William, then acquainted Harold, how Edward errs coming to the crown, had promised, if ever he attained it, to leave Duke William's successor after him. Last of these old historians, Matthew Parris writes that Harold, to get free of Duke William, affirmed his coming dither, not to have been by accident or force of tempest, but on set purpose in that private manner to enter with him into secret confederacy. So variously are these things reported. After this, King Edward grew sickly, no, post-price 1066 returned to text. Yet as he was able, he kept his Christmas at London and was present at the dedication of St. Peter's Church in Westminster, which he had rebuilt. But on the eve of Epiphany, or 12th Tide, he died much lamented and in the church was entombed. That he was harmless and simple is conjectured by his words in anger to a peasant who had crossed his game. Or with hunting and hawking, he was much delighted. By God and God's mother, said he, I shall do you a shudder turn if I can, observing that law maxim better than any of his successors, that the King of England can do no wrong. The softness of his nature gave growth to factions of those about him, Normans especially and English. The latter complaining that Robert the Archbishop was a sower of dissension between the King and his people, a traducer of the English. The other side, that God when it his sons bore themselves arrogantly and proudly towards the King, usurping to themselves an equal share in the government. Oftentimes making sport with his simplicity and that through their power in the land, they made no scruple to kill men to whose inheritance they took a liking and so to take possession. The truth is that God when it his sons did many things boisterously and violently much against the King's mind, which not being able to resist, he had as some say, taken such a dislike to his wife, Edith, Godwin's daughter, as in bed, never to have touched her. Whether for this cause or mistaken chastity, not commendable, to inquire further is not material. His laws were held good and just and not long after were desired by the English of their Norman kings and they are yet extant. He is said to have been at table not excessive. At festivals, nothing puffed up with the costly robes he wore, which his queen with curious art had woven for him in gold. He was full of alms deeds and exhorted the monks to like charity. He is said to be the first English king that cured the disease, then called the King's evil. Yet Momsbury blames them who attribute that cure to his royalty and not to his sanctity. He is said also to have cured certain blind men with the water wherein he had washed his hands. A little before his death, lying speechless two days, the third day after a deep sleep, he was heard to pray that if it were a true vision, not an illusion, which he had seen, God would give him strength to utter it, otherwise not. Then he related how he had seen two devout monks whom he knew in Normandy to have lived and died well, who, appearing, told him that they were sent messengers from God to foretell that because the great ones of England, dukes, lords, bishops, and abbots were not ministers of God but of the devil, God had delivered the land to their enemies. And when he desired that he might reveal this vision to the end they might repent, it was answered they neither will repent nor will God pardon them. At this relation, others trembling, Stigand, the Simoniaco archbishop whom Edward much to blame had suffered many years to sit primate in the church, is said to have laughed as at the feverish dream of a doting old man. But the event proved it to be true. Harold, son of Earl Godwin. Harold, whether he had by King Edward a little before his death been ordained successor to the crown as Simeon of Durham and others affirm, or by the prevalence of his faction he had excluded Edgar, who was surnamed Atherling on account of his noble descent from King Edmund Ironside, of whom he was the grandson, as Momsbury and Huntington agree. Immediately after the conclusion of the funeral of King Edward and on the same day was elected and crowned King and was no sooner placed on the throne but he began to frame himself by all manner of compliances to gain the affections of the people. He endeavored to make good laws, repealed bad ones, became a great patron to the church and churchmen, courteous and affable to all that were reputed good, a hater of evil doers and charged all his officers to punish thieves, robbers and all disturbers of the peace, while he himself by sea and land labored in the defense of his country. So good an actor is ambition. In the meanwhile, a blazing star, seven mornings together about the end of April was seen to stream terribly, not only over England, but other parts of the world. For telling here, as was thought, the great changes that were approaching, plainly as prognosticated, by Elmer, a monk of Mumpsbury, who could not foresee when time was the breaking of his own legs for soaring too high. He in his youth, strangely aspiring, had made and fitted wings to his hands and feet. With these on the top of a tower spread out to gather air, he flew more than a furlong but the wind being too high, he came fluttering down to the maiming of all his limbs. Yet so conceited was he of his art that he attributed the cause of his fall to the want of a tale as birds have, which he forgot to make to his higher parts. This story, though seeming otherwise too light to appear in the midst of a saturation, yet for the strangeness thereof, I thought worthy enough to be placed here, as I found it placed in my author. But to digress no farther, Tostey, the king's brother, coming from Flanders, full of envy at his younger brother's advancement to the crown, resolved what he might to trouble his reign. Forcing, therefore, the inhabitants of the Isle of Wight to contribution, he sailed thence to Sandwich, committing piracies on the coast between. Harold, then residing at London with a great number of ships drawn together and of horse troops by land, prepares in person for Sandwich, where, of Tostey having noticed, directs his course with 60 ships towards Lindsay, taking with him all the seamen he found willing or unwilling, where he burnt many villages and slew many of the inhabitants. But Edwin, the Mercian Duke, and Morkar, his brother, the Norhumbrian Earl, with their forces on either side, soon drove him out of the country, who then spitook him to Malcolm, the Scottish king, and with him abode the whole summer. About the same time, Duke William, sending ambassadors to admonish Harold of his promise and oath to assist him in his plea to the kingdom, he made answer that by the death of his daughter, betrothed to him on that condition, he was absolved of his oath. Or if she was not dead, he could not take her now, being an outlandish woman, without consent of the realm, that it was presumptuously done and not to be persisted in if, without consent or knowledge of the states, he had sworn away the right of the kingdom, that what he swore was to gain his liberty, being in a manner then his prisoner, that it was unreasonable in the Duke to require or expect of him the foregoing of a kingdom conferred upon him with the universal favor and acclamation of the people. To this flat denial, he added contempt, sending the messengers back, Seth Matthew Parris, on maimed horses. The Duke, thus contemptuously put off, addresses himself to the Pope, setting forth the justice of his cause, which Harold, whether through heartiness of mind or distrust or that the ways to roam were stopped, sought not to do. Duke William, besides the promise and oath of Harold, alleged that King Edward, by the advice of Seward, Godwin himself and Stigand, the Archbishop, had given him the right of succession and had sent him the son and nephew of Godwin as pledges of the gift. The Pope sent to Duke William, after this demonstration of his right, a consecrated banner, whereupon he, having with great care and choice, got an army of tall and stout soldiers under captains of great skill and mature age, came in August to the port of St. Valerie. Meanwhile, Harold from London comes to sandwich, there expecting his navy, which also coming, he sails to the Isle of Wight, and having heard of Duke William's preparations and readiness to invade him, kept good watch on the coast and footforces everywhere in fit places to guard the shore. But ere the middle of September, provision failing when it was most needed, both fleet and army returned home. When on a sudden, Harold Harviger, King of Norway, with a navy of more than 500 great ships, others lessen them by 200, others augment them to a thousand, appears at the mouth of the time, to whom Earl Tostey with his ships came as was agreed between them. Whence both, uniting, set sail with all speed and entered the river Humber, thence turning into the ooze as far as recall, they landed and took York by assault. At these tidings Harold with all his power hasteth thitherward. But ere is coming, Edwin and Morkar at Fulford by York, on the north side of the ooze, about the feast of St. Matthew had given them battle, successfully at first, but were overborn at length with numbers and being forced to turn their backs, more of them perished in the river than in the fight. The Norwegians, taking with them 500 hostages out of York and leaving there 150 of their own, retired to their ships. But the fifth day after, King Harold with a great and well-appointed army coming to York and at Stamford Bridge or Battle Bridge on the Darwin, assailing the Norwegians, after much bloodshed on both sides, cut off the greatest part of them with harbour of their king and Tostey his own brother. But Olaf, the king's son and Paul, Earl of Orkney, who had been left with many soldiers to guard the ships, surrendering themselves with hostages and oath given, quote, never to return as enemies, unquote, he suffered them freely to depart with 20 ships and the small remnant of their army. One man of the Norwegians is not to be forgotten, who with incredible valor keeping the bridge a long hour against the whole English army with his single resistance delayed their victory and scorning offered life till in the end, no man daring to grapple with him, either dreaded as too strong or contend as one desperate, he was at length shot dead with an arrow and by his fall opened the passage of pursuit to a complete victory. Wherewith Harold lifted up in mind and forgetting now his former shows of popularity, defrauded his soldiers of their due and well-deserved share of the spoils. While these things passed in Northumberland, Duke William lay still at St. Valerie. His ships were ready, but the wind served not for many days, which put the soldiery into much discouragement and murmur, taking this for an unlucky sign of their success. At last, the wind becoming favorable, the Duke first under sail awaited the rest at anchor till all coming forth, the whole fleet of 900 ships with a prosperous gale arrived at Hastings. At his going out of the boat by a slip falling on his hands to correct the omen, a soldier standing by said aloud that their Duke had taken possession of England. Landed, he restrained his army from waste and spoil, saying that they ought to spare what was their own. But these things are related of Alexander and Caesar and, I doubt, are then borrowed by the monks to adorn their story. The Duke, for 15 days after landing, kept his men quiet within the camp, having taken the castle of Hastings or built a fortress there. Harold, secure the while and proud of his new victory, thought all his enemies now under his feet. But sitting jollily at dinner, news is brim that Duke William of Normandy with a great multitude of horse and foot, slingers and archers, besides other choice auxiliaries which he had hired in France, was arrived at Pevensey. Harold, who had expected him all the summer, but not so late in the year as now it was, for it was October, with his forces much diminished after two sore conflicts and the departing of many others from him discontented in great haste marches to London. Thence, not tarrying for supplies which were on their way towards him, hurries to Sussex, for he was always in haste since the day of his coronation. And the third part of his army could be well put in order, finds the Duke about nine miles from Hastings and now drawing nigh, sent spies before him to survey the strength and number of his enemies. Then, discovered to be such, the Duke, causing to be let about and afterwards to be well filled with meat and drink, sent back. They, not over wise, thought word that the Duke's army were most of them priests, for they saw their faces all over shaven. The English then using to let grow on their upper lip large mustachios as did ancient to the Britons. The King, laughing, answered that they were not priests but valiant and hearty soldiers. Therefore, said Goethe, his brother, a youth of noble courage and of understanding love his age. For bear thou thyself to fight who are obnoxious to Duke William by your oath and let us, unsworn, undergo the hazard of battle who may justly fight in the defense of our country. Thou, reserved to fitter time, mayst either reunite us flying or revenge us dead. The King, not hearkening to this, lest it might seem to argue fear in him or a bad cause with like resolution, rejected also the offers of Duke William, sent to him by a monk before the battle, with this only answer hastily delivered. Let God judge between us. The offers were these, that Harold would either lay down the scepter or hold it of him, or would try his title with him by single combat in sight of both armies or would refer to the Pope. These offers being rejected, both sides prepared to fight the next morning. The English from singing and drinking all night, the Normans from confession of their sins and communion of the host. The English were in a straight disadvantageous place so that many, discouraged with their ill ordering, scarce having room where to stand, slipped away before the onset. The rest, in close order with their battle axes and shields, made an impenetrable squadron. Side note, the 14th of October, 1066, returned to text. The King himself, with his brothers on foot, stood by the royal standard wherein the figure of a man fighting was enwoven with golden precious stones. The Norman foot, most bowman, made to foremost front, on either side, wings of horse, somewhat behind. When the duke was arming, his coarselet being given him on the wrong side, he said pleasantly, the strength of my duke doom will be turned now into a kingdom. Then the whole army singing the song of Roland, the remembrance of whose exploits might harden them, imploring, lastly, divine help, the battle began and was fought sorely on either side. But the main body of English foot, by no means would be broken till the duke, causing his men to feign flight, drew them out with desire of pursuit into open disorder, then turned suddenly upon them, when so routed by themselves, which wrought their overthrow. Yet so they died not unmanfully but turning off upon their enemies by the advantage of an upper ground, beat them down in heaps and filled up a great ditch with their carpuses. Thus hung the victory wavering on either side from the third hour of day to evening. When Harold, having maintained the fight with unspeakable courage and personal valor, being shot into the head with an arrow, fell at length and left his soldiers without heart, longer to withstand the unwirried enemy. With Harold fell also his two brothers, the Afwin and Gertha, and with them the greatest part of the English nobility. His body lying dead, a knight or soldier who wounded it on the thigh was by the duke immediately turned out with the military service. Of Normans and French were slain no small number. The duke himself also that day, not a little hazarded his person having had three choice horses killed under him. The victory being obtained and his dead carefully buried, the English dead also being buried by permission, he sent the body of Harold to his mother without ransom, though she had offered a very great sum to redeem it, which having received, she buried it at Walton in a church built there by Harold. In the meanwhile, Edwin and Morcar, who had withdrawn themselves from Harold, hearing of his death came to London, sending Aldgith the queen their sister with all speed to Westchester. Aldrid, Archbishop of York and many of the nobles with the Londoners would have set up Edgar Athling, the right heir, and prepared themselves to fight for him, but Morcar and Edwin not liking the choice who each of them expected to have been chosen before him withdrew their forces and returned home. Duke William, contrary to his former resolution, if Florent of Worcester and they will follow him, say true, wasting, burning and slaying all in his way, or rather, as Seth Momsbury, not in hostile, but in regal manner, came up to London and was met at Barkham by Edgar with the nobles, bishops, citizens, and at length, Edwin and Morcar, who all submitted to him, gave hostages, and swore fidelity to him, and he to them promised peace and defense, yet permitted his men the while to burn and make prey. Coming to London with all his army, he was on Christmas Day solemnly crowned in the Great Church at Westminster by Aldrid, Archbishop of York, having first given his oath at the altar in presence of all the people to defend the church, well govern the people, maintain right law, prohibit rappin' and unjust judgment. Thus, the English, while they agreed not about the choice of their native king, were constrained to take the yoke of an outlandish concord. With what mind and by what course of life they had fitted themselves for this servitude, William of Momsbury spares not to lay open. Not a few years before the Normans came, the clergy, though in Edward the Confessor's days, had lost all good literature and religion, being scarce able to read and understand their Latin service, and any one of them who knew his grammar was considered as a miracle by the others. The monks went clad in fine stuffs and made no difference what they ate, which though in itself no fault, yet to their consciences was a religious. The great man, given to gluttony and disillusioned life, made a pray of the common people, abusing their daughters whom they had in service, then turning them off to the stews. The meaner sort, tippling together night and day, spent all they had in drunkenness, attended with other vices which effeminate men's minds. Once it came to pass, that carried on with fury and rashness more than any true fortitude or skill of war, they gave to William their conqueror so easy a conquest. Not but that some few of all sorts were much better among them, much such was the generality. And as the long suffering of God permits bad men to enjoy prosperous days with the good, so his severity often times exempts not good men from their share in evil times with the bad. If these were the causes of such misery enthralled them to those our ancestors, with what better clothes can we conclude this history than by here in fifth season admonishing this present age, side note, 80, 16, 70 return to text, in the midst of her security to fear from like vices without amendment, the return of like calamities. The end of the sixth book. The end of the history of Britain by John Milton, recording by Thomas Copeland. The Life of Milton by Edward Phillips. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, visit LibriVox.org. The Life of Milton, 1694. Of all the several parts of history, that which has forth the lives and commemorates the most remarkable actions, sayings, or writings of famous and illustrious persons, whether in war or peace, whether many together or anyone in particular, as it is not the least useful in itself, so it is in highest vogue and esteem among the studious and reading part of mankind. The most eminent in this way of history were among the ancients, Plutarch, and Diogenes Lyosius of the Greeks. The first wrote the lives for the most part of the most renowned heroes and warriors of the Greeks and Romans. The other, the lives of the ancient Greek philosophers. And Cornelius Nepos, or as some will have it, Emilius Probus of the Latins, who wrote the lives of the most illustrious Greek and Roman generals. Among the moderns, Machiavell, a noble Florentine, who eloquently wrote the Life of Castruciocaster Cana, Lord of Lucca. And of our nation, Sir Philip Gravel, who wrote the Life of His Most Intimate Friends of Philip Sidney. Mr. Thomas Stanley, of Combello-Breen, who made a most elaborate improvement to the Forsedley Aertsius by adding to what he found in him, but by diligent search and inquiry he collected from other authors of best authority. And Isaac Walton, who wrote the lives of Sir Henry Watton, Dr. Dunn, and for his divine poems, the admired Mr. George Herbert. Lastly, not to mention several other biographers have considered the note, the great Gascendos of France, the worthy celebrator of two no less worthy subjects of his impartial pen, vis the noble philosopher Epicurus, and the most politely learned virtuoso of his age, his countryman, Monsieur Piaresque. And pity it is, the person whose memory we have here undertaken to perpetuate by recounting the most memorable transactions of his life, although his works, sufficiently recommended to the world, finds not a well-informed pen able to set him forth, equal with the best of those here mentioned. For doubtless had his fame been as much spread through Europe in the honestest time as now it is, and hath been for several years, he had justly merited from that great historian a newlogy not inferior to the highest by him given to all the learned and ingenious that lived within the compass of his history. For we may safely and justly affirm that, taking him in all respects, for a human of wit, quickness of apprehension, sagacity of judgment, depth of argument, and elegance of style, as well in Latin as English, as well in verse as prose, he is scarce to be paralleled by any the best of writers our nation hath in any age brought forth. He was born in London, in a house in Gredstreet. The least whereof as I take it, but for certain it was a house in Gredstreet, became in time part of his estate. In the year of our Lord, 1606, note, 1603, return to text. His father, John Milton, an honest, worthy, and substantial citizen of London, by profession, a scrivener, to which he voluntarily betook himself by the advice and assistance of an intimate friend of his, eminent in that calling upon his being cast out by his father, a bigoted Roman Catholic, who were embracing when young the Protestant faith and adjuring the Popish tenants. For he is said to have been descended of an ancient family of the Milton's, of Milton Abingdon in Oxfordshire, where they had been a long time seated as appears by the monument, still to be seen in Milton Church, till one of the family having taken the wrong side in the contest between the houses of York and Lancaster was sequestered of all his estate with what he held by his wife. However, certain it is that this vocation he followed for many years at his said house in Bridge Street with success suitable to his industry and prudent conduct of his affairs. Yet he did not so far quit his own generous and ingenious inclinations as to make himself wholly a slave to the world, for he sometimes found vacant hours to the study which he made his recreation of the noble science of music in which he advanced to that perfection that as I have been told, and as I take it by our author himself, he composed an ennominé of 40 parts for which he was rewarded with a gold medal and chain by a Polish prince who only presented it. However, this is a truth not to be denied that for several songs of his composition after the way of these times, three or four of which are still to be seen in all will be set of heirs besides some compositions of his in Ravenscraft's songs, he gained the reputation of a considerable master in this most charming of all the liberal sciences. Yet all this while he managed his grand affair of this world with such prudence and diligence that by the assistance of divine providence, favoring his honest endeavors, he gained a competent estate whereby he was enabled to make a handsome provision both for the education and maintenance of his children. For three he had and no more, all by one wife, Sarah of the family of the castans, derived originally from Wales, a woman of incomparable virtue and goodness, John the eldest, the subject of our present work, Christopher and an only daughter, Anne. Christopher, being principally designed for the study of the common law of England, was entered young a student of the inner temple of which house he lived to be an ancient venture and keeping close to that study and profession all his lifetime, except in the time of the Civil War of England, when being the great favor and asserter of the king's cause and obnoxious to the parliament's side by acting to his utmost power against them so long as he kept his station of reading. And after that town was taken by the parliament forces, being forced to quit his house there, he steered his course according to the motion of the king's army. But when the war was ended with victory and success to the parliament party by the valor of general fairfax and the craft and conduct of prom well, and his composition made by the help of his brother's interest with the then revealing power, he betook himself again to his former study and profession, following chamber practice every term. Yet came to no advancement in the world in a long time, except some small employee in the town of Ipswich where and near it, he lived all the latter time of his life, for he was a person of a modest quiet temper, preferring justice and virtue before all worldly pleasure or grant you. But in the beginning of the reign of King James II, for his known integrity and ability in the law, he was by some persons of quality recommended to the king and at a call of sergeants received the coiff and the same day was sworn one of the barons of the ex-checker and soon after made one of the judges of the common pleas. About his years and in disposition, not well brooking the fatigue of public employment, he continued not long in either of these stations, but having his quietest est retired to a country life, his study and devotion. Anne, the only daughter of the sejong of the elder, had a considerable dowry given her by her father in marriage with Edward Phillips, the son of Edward Phillips of Shrewsbury, who coming up young to town was bred up in the crown office in Chancery and at length came to be secondary of the office under old Mr. Benbow. By him she had, besides other children that died infants, two sons, yet surviving, of whom were hereafter, and by a second husband, Mr. Thomas Agar, who on the death of his intimate friend, Mr. Phillips, worthily succeeded in the place, which except some time of exclusion before and during the interregnum, he held for many years and left it to Mr. Thomas Milton, the son of the aforementioned Sir Christopher, who at this day executes it with great reputation and ability, two daughters, Mary, who died very young and Anne, yet surviving. But to hasten back to our matter in hand, John, our author, who was destined to be the ornament and glory of his country, was sent together with his brother to Paul's school, whereof Dr. Gill the Elder was then chief master, where he was entered into the first rudiments of learning and advanced therein with that admirable success, not more by the discipline of the school and good instructions of his masters, for that he had another master, possibly at his father's house, appears by the fourth elegy of his Latin poems written in his 18th year to Thomas Young, pastor of the English Company of Merchants at Hanborough, wherein he owns and styles him his master. Then by his own happy genies, he jumped wit and apprehension and insuperable industry, for he generally sat up half the night as well in voluntary improvements of his own choice as the exact perfecting of the school exercises. So that at the age of 15, note, he had completed his 16th year, returned to text. He was full right for academic learning and accordingly was sent to the University of Cambridge, where in Christ's college under the tuition of a very eminent learned man, whose name I cannot call to mind, he studied seven years and took his degree of Master of Arts, for the extraordinary wit and reading he had shown in his performances to attain his degree. Some where outspoken at a vacation exercise in his 19th year of age are to be yet seen in his miscellaneous poems. He was loved and admired by the whole University, particularly by the fellows and most ingenious persons of his house. Among the rest, there was a young gentleman, one Mr. King, with whom for his great learning of parts he had contracted a particular friendship and intimacy, whose death, for he was drowned on the Irish seas in his passage from Chester to Ireland, he be wails in that most excellent monody in his aforementioned poems entitled, Lysithus. Never was the loss of a friend so elegantly lamented and among the rest of his juvenile poems, some he wrote at the age of 15, which contained a poetic genius scarce to be paralleled by any English writer. Soon after he had taken his master's degree, he thought fit to leave the University, not upon any disgust or discontent for want of preferment as some ill-willers have reported, nor upon any cause whatsoever forced to fly as his detractors maliciously feign, but from which asversion he sufficiently clears himself in his second answer to Alexander Morris, note, first answer, return to text, the author of a book called, Clamor Regi Sanguinis at Kylon, the chief of his columnators, in which he plainly makes it out that after his leaving the University to the no small trouble of his fellow collegiates, who in general regretted his absence, he for the space of five years lived for the most part with his father and mother at their house at Horton near Coldbrook in Berkshire. Wither his father, having gotten a state to his content and left off all business, was retired from the cares and critiques of the world. After the said term of five years, his mother then dying, he was willing to add to his acquired learning the observation of foreign customs, manners and institutions, and thereupon took a resolution to travel, more especially designing for Italy. Note, there is great confusion in all the biographers of Milton, respecting the period of his travels. And this confusion originates with Milton himself. He left Cambridge on taking his degree of Master of Arts in 1632. He assigns five years as the interval in which he lived at home with his father and mother. And his mother died in 1637, so much, upon which he set out on his travels. Thus far, the story is consistent. But Milton goes on to inform us that his travels occupied a space of 15 months and that he returned to England about the time of King Charles, a second expedition against the Scots. He would end Fermi Tempore, co-carolers from Scutus, ruptapache, bellum altum codvoca pepiscopale, ridintigrava, in cofusis primo congresso regiis copis, male coactus non sponte, poudit amulto postpobocale. This can refer to no other period than the route at Newburn, August 1640. And Milton can less be suspected of an erroneous statement in these last two dates than the former. The result is that a period of two years from the spring 1637 to the spring 1639 is passed over in his narrative unnoticed. It was probably spent like the former years at Horton. He returned to text. And accordingly, with his father's consent and assistance, he put himself into an equippage suitable for such a design. And so, intending to go by the way of France, he set out for Paris, accompanied only with one man who attended him through all his travels, where his prudence was his guide and his learning, his introduction, and presentation to persons of most eminent quality. However, he had also a most civil and obliging letter of direction and advice from Sir Henry Wotten, then Provost of Eaton, and formerly resident ambassador from King James I to the State of Venice, which letter is to be seen in the first edition of his Islamist poems. At Paris, being recommended by the said Sir Henry and other persons of quality, he went first to wait upon my Lord Scudamon, then ambassador in France from King Charles I. My Lord received him with wonderful civility and understanding he had a desire to make a visit to the great Hugo Grotius, he sent several of his attendants to wait upon him and to present him in his name to that renowned doctor and statesman who was at that time ambassador from Christina, Queen of Sweden, to the French King. Grotius took the visit kindly and gave him entertainment suitable to his worth and the high commendations he had heard of it. After a few days, not intending to make the usual tour of France, he took his leave of my Lord, who at his departure from Paris gave him letters to the English merchants, residing in any part through which he was to travel, in which they were requested to show him all the kindness and do him all the good offices that lay in their power. From Paris, he hastened on his journey to Nicea, where he took shipping and in a short space arrived at Genoa. From whence he went to Legorne, then to Pisa and so to Florence. In this city, he met with many charming objects which invited him to stay a longer time than he intended. The pleasant situation of the place, the nobleness of the structures, the exact humanity and civility of the inhabitants, the more polite and refined sort of language there than elsewhere. During the time of his stay there, which was about two months, he visited all the private academies of the city, which are places established for the improvement of wit and learning and maintained a correspondence and perpetual friendship among gentlemen strictly qualified for such an institution. In such sort of academies there are in all or most of the most noted cities in Italy. Visiting these places, he was soon taken notice of by the most learned and ingenious of the nobility and the grand wits of Florence, who caressed him with all the honors and civilities imaginable, particularly Jacopo Gatti, Garroldati, Antonio Francini, Frisco Baldo, Cultellino, Pomatei and Clementillo, another of Gatti, note it should be Francini, return to text, have a large, elegant Italian chansonist in his praise, and Dotti, a Latin epistle, both printed before his Latin poems, together with a Latin dystic of the Marquis of Villa and another of Savaggi and a Latin tetrastick of Giovanni Saucedi, a Roman. From Florence he took his journey to Siena, from thence to Rome, where he was detained much about the same time he had been in Florence, as well by his desire of seeing all the rarities and antiquities of that most glorious and the mounted city, as by the conversation of Lucas Holsteinius and other learned and ingenious men, who highly valued his acquaintance and treated him with all possible respect. From Rome he traveled to Naples, where he was introduced by a certain Hermit, who accompanied him in his journey from Rome, thither, into the knowledge of Giovanni Baptista Manso, Marquis of Villa, a Neapolitan by birth, a person of high nobility, virtue, and honor, to whom the famous Italian poet Troquato Tazzo wrote his treatise di Amichitia, and, moreover, mentions him with great honor in that illustrious poem of his entitled, Girol Salene Liburata. This noble Marquis received him with extraordinary respect and civility and went with him himself to give him a sight of all that was of note and remark in the city, particularly the Viceroy's Palace, and was often in person to visit him at his lodging. Moreover, this noble Marquis honored him so far as to make a Latin dystic in his praise, as had been already mentioned, which, being no less pity than short, though already in print, it will not be unworth the while here to repeat. Ut mains, forma, decor, facches, mos, si pietas, seek, non anglos, werum, heckle, anglos, if sefores. Note on the phrase si pietas, seek. This word relates to his being a Protestant, not a Roman Catholic. E.P., return to text. In return of this honor and in gratitude for the many favors and civilities received of him, he presented him at his departure with a large Latin eclog entitled Mansus, afterwards published among his Latin poems. The Marquis, at his taking leave of him, gave him this compliment, that he would have done him many more offices of kindness and civility, but was therefore rendered incapable in regard he had been over-liberal in his speech against the religion of the country. He had entertained some thoughts of passing over into Sicily and Greece, but was diverted by the news he received from England that affairs there were tending towards a civil war. Thinking at a thing unworthy in him to be taking his pleasure in foreign parts about his countrymen at home or fighting for their liberty, but first resolved to see Rome once more. And though the merchants gave him a caution that the Jesuits were hatching designs against him in case he should return thither, a reason of the freedom he took in all his discourses of religion, nevertheless he ventured to prosecute his resolution and to Rome the second time he went, determining with himself not industriously to begin to fall into any discourse about religion, but being asked not to deny or endeavor to conceal his own sentiments. Two months he stayed at Rome and in all that time never flinched, but was ready to defend the orthodox faith against all opposers. And so well he succeeded therein that with Providence guarding him, he went safe from Rome back to Florence, where his return to his friends at that city was welcomed with as much joy and affection as had it been to his friends and relations in his own country, he could not have come to a more joyful and welcome guest. Here having stayed as long as at his first coming, accepting an excursion of a few days to Lucca, crossing the Apennine and passing through Bononia and Ferrara, he arrived at Venice, where when he had spent a month's time in viewing of that stately city and shipped up a parcel of curious and rare books which he had picked up in his travels, particularly a chest or two of choice music books was the best masters flourishing about that time in Italy, namely Luca Morenzo, Monteverdi, Precio Vecchi, Cifa, the Prince of Venosa, and several others, he took his course through Verona, Milan, and the Puenine Alps, and so by the Lake Lima to Geneva, where he stayed for some time and had daily converse with the most learned Giovanni Deodati, theology professor in that city. And so returning through France by the same way he had passed it going to Italy, he by a peregrination of one complete year and about three months arrived safe in England about the time of the King's making his second expedition against the Scots. Soon after his return and visits paid to his father and other friends, he took him a lodging in St. Bride's church yard at the house of one Russell, a tailor, where he first undertook the education and instruction of his sister's two sons. The younger world had been wholly committed to his charge of care. And here, by the way, I judge it not impertinent to mention the many authors, both of the Latin and Greek, which, through his excellent judgment and way of teaching, far above the pedantry of common public schools, where such authors are scarce ever heard of, were run over within no greater compass of time than from 10 to 15 or 16 years of age. Of the Latin, the four grand authors, Iurelustica, Cato, Varo, Columella, and Palladius. Cornelius Kelsus, an ancient physician of the Romans, a great part of Pliny's natural history, the Truvius, his architecture, Frontinas, his stratagems, together with the two egregious poets, Lucretius and Manilius. Of the Greek, Hesiod, a poet equal with Homer, Eratus, his phenomena, and Diosomia, Dionysius Arthur, De Situ Orpheus, Arpiens, Ineghetics, and Haleutics. Critis Calaver, his poem of the Trojan War, continued from Homer. Apollonius Rhodius, his organotics, and in prose, Plutarchs, Plachata, Philosophorum, and Peri Python, Ororius. Seek. Eminus's astronomy, Xenophon's Giri Institutio, and Anabasis, Elian's tactics, and Polinas, his warlike stratagems. Thus, by teaching, he, in some measure, increased his own knowledge, having the reading of all these authors, as it were, by proxy. And all this might possibly have conduced to the preserving of his eyesight, had he not, moreover, been perpetually busy in his own laborious undertakings of the book, or pen. Nor did the time thus studiously employed in conquering the Greek and Latin tongues enter the attaining to the chief oriental languages, such as the Hebrew, Caldy, and Syriac, so far as to go through the Pentateuch, or five books of Moses, in Hebrew, to make a good entrance into the targum, or Caldy paraphrase, and to understand several chapters of St. Matthew in the Syriac Testament, besides an introduction into several arts and sciences, by reading Orstitius, his arithmetic, Gryff's geometry, Pettiscus, his trigonometry, Ioannes de Sacrobosco de Spira, and into the Italian and French tongues, by reading, in Italian, Jovan Villani's history of the transactions between several Petty States of Italy, and in French, a great part of Pierre Daviti, the famous geographer of France, in his time. The Sunday's work was, for the most part, the reading each day a chapter of the Greek Testament, and hearing his learned exposition upon the same, and how this savored of atheism in him, I'll leave to the courteous backbiter to judge. The next work after this was the writing from his own dictation, some part, from time to time, of a tractate which he thought fit to collect from the ableist of divines who had written of that subject, Amesius, Olybius, et cetera, is a perfect system of divinity, of which more hereafter. Now, a person so far man ducted into the highest paths of literature, both divine and human, had they received his documents with the same acuteness of wit and apprehension, the same industry, alacrity, and first after knowledge, as the instructor was endued with, what prodigies of wit and learning might they have proved? The scholars, might in some degree, have come near to the equaling of the master, or at least have in some sort made good what he seems to predict in the close of an elegy he made in the 17th year of his age, upon the death of one of his sister's children, a daughter who died in her infancy. Then thou, the mother of so sweet a child, her false imagined loss ceased to lament, and wisely learned to curb thy sorrow's wild. This, if thou do, he will in offspring give that till the world's last end shall make thy name to live. But to return to the thread of our discourse, he made no long stay in his lodgings at St. Bright's churchyard, necessity of having a place to dispose his books in and other goods fit for the furnishing of a good, handsome house, hastening him to take one. And accordingly, a pretty garden house he took in Aldersgate Street, at the end of an entry, and therefore the fitter for his turn by reason of the privacy. Besides that there are few streets in London more free from noise than that. Here first it was that his academic erudition was put in practice, then vigorously proceeded, he himself giving an example to those under him, before it was not long after his taking this house, where his elder nephew was put to board with him also, of hard study and spare diet. Only this advantage he had that once in three weeks or a month he would drop into the society of some normal sparks of his acquaintance, the chief whereof were Mr. Alfred and Mr. Miller, two gentlemen of grace in, the bodes of those times, but nothing near so bad as those nowadays. With these gentlemen he would so far make both of his body as now and then to keep a gaudy day. In this house he continued several years. In the one or two first grove he set out several treatises, missed that of reformation, that against political episcopacy, the reason of church government, the defense of St. Timnius, at least the greater part of them, but as I take it all, and sometime after one sheet of education, which he dedicated to Mr. Samuel Hartley, he that wrote so much of husbandry. This sheet is printed at the end of the second edition of his poems. And lastly, Harry of Jitaker. During the time also of his continuance in this house, there fell out several occasions of the increasing of his family. His father, who till the taking of Reading by the Earl of Essex's forces, had lived with his other son at his house there, was upon that son's dissettlement necessitated to be take himself to this, his eldest son, with whom he lived for some years, even to his dying day. In the next place, he had an addition of some scholars, to which may be added, is entering into matrimony. But he had his wife's company so small a time that he may well be said to have become a single man again soon after. About quits and tide it was, or a little after, that he took a journey into the country. Nobody about him, certainly knowing the reason, or that it was any more than a journey of recreation. After a month's stay, home he returns a married man that went out a bachelor. His wife being married, the eldest daughter of Mr. Richard Powell, then a justice of peace, a forest hill near Shotover in Oxfordshire. Some few of her nearest relations accompanying the bride to her new habitation, which by reason the father, nor anybody else were yet come, was able to receive them. Where the feasting held for some days in celebration of the nuptials and for entertainment of the bride's friends. At length they took their leave and returning to forest hill left the sister behind. Probably not much to a satisfaction as appeared by the sequel. By that time she had for a month or thereabout led a philosophical life after having been used to a great house and much company and joviality. Her friends, possibly incited by her own desire, made earnest soup by letter to have her company during the remaining part of the summer, which was granted on condition of her return at the time appointed, which was nickel-ness or thereabout. In the meantime came his father and some of the aforementioned disciples. And now the studies went on with so much the more vigor as there were more hands and heads employed. The old gentleman living wholely retired to his rest and devotion without the least trouble imaginable. Our author, now as it were a single man again, made it his chief diversion now and then in an evening to visit the Lady Margaret Lee, daughter to the blank Lee Earl of Marlborough who had been Lord High Treasurer of England and President of the Brewery Council to gain James I. This lady, being a woman of great wit and ingenuity, had a particular honor for him and took much delight in his company as did likewise her husband, Captain Hobson, a very accomplished gentleman. And what a steam Milton at the same time had for her appears by a sonnet he made in praise of her which is to be seen among his other sonnets in his extent poems. Nickel must be income and no news of his wife's return, he sent for her by letter and receiving no answer sent several other letters which were also unanswered so that at last he dispatched down a foot messenger with a letter desiring a return. The messenger came back not only without an answer at least a satisfactory one but to the best of my remembrance reported that he was dismissed with some sort of contempt. This proceeding in all probability was grounded upon no other cause but this, namely that the family being generally addicted to the Cavalier party as they called it and some of them possibly engaged in the king's service who by this time had his headquarters at Oxford and was in some prospect of success. They began to repent them of having matched the eldest daughter of the family to a person so contrary to them in opinion and thought it would be a blot in their escutcheon whenever that court should come to flourish again. However, it's so incensed to our author that he thought it would be dishonorable ever to receive her again after such a repulse so that he forthwith prepared to fortify himself with arguments for such a resolution and accordingly wrote two treatises by which he undertook to maintain that it was against reason and the enjoyment of it not grimmable by scripture for any married couple disagreeable in humor and temper or having an aversion to each other to be forced to live yoked together all their days. The first tract was his Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce of which there was printed a second edition with some additions. The other in prosecution of the first was styled tetracorta. Then the better to confirm his own opinion by the attestation of others, he set out a piece called the Judgment of Martin Luther, a Protestant minister, being a translation out of that reverend divine of some part of his works exactly agreeing with him in sentiment. Lastly, he wrote in answer to a pragmatical clerk who would need to give himself the honor of writing against so great a man his Colosterion or Rod of Correction for a saucy impertinent. Not very long after the setting forth of these treatises, having application made to him by several gentlemen as acquaintance for the education of their sons as understanding happily the progress he had fixed by his first undertakings of that nature, he laid out for a larger house and soon found it out. But in the interim before he removed, there fell out a passage which though it altered not the whole course he was going to steer, yet it put a stop or rather an end to a grand affair, which was more than probably thought to be then in agitation. It was indeed a design of marrying one of Dr. Davis's daughters, a very handsome and witty gentle woman, but averse as it is said to this motion. However, the intelligence hereof and the then declining state of the king's cause and consequently of the circumstances of Justice Powell's family caused them to set all engines on work to restore the late married woman to the station wherein they a little before had planted her. At last, this device was pitched upon. There dwelt in the lane of St. Martin's of Grand, which was hard by, a relation of our authors, one black borough whom it was known he often visited. And upon this occasion, the visits were the more narrowly observed and possibly there might be a combination between both parties. The friends on both sides concentering in the same action, though on different perhaps. One time above the rest, he making his usual visit, the wife was ready in another room and on a sudden he was surprised to see one whom he thought never to have seen more making submission and begging pardon on her knees before him. He might probably at first make some show of aversion and rejection, but partly his own generous nature, more inclinable to reconciliation than to perseverance and anger and revenge, and partly the strong intercession of friends on both sides soon brought him to an act of oblivion and a firm league of peace for the future. And it was at length concluded that she should remain at a friend's house till such time as he was settled at his new house at Barbican and all things for her reception in order. The place agreed on for her present abode was the widow Weber's house in St. Clement's churchyard, whose second daughter had been married to the other brother, note Christopher Milton, who turned to text many years before. The first fruits of her return to her husband was a brave girl born within a year after, though whether by ill constitution or want of care, she grew more and more to crap it. But it was not only by children that she increased the number of the family for in no very long time after her coming, she had a great resort of her kindred with her in the house, is her father and mother, and several of her brothers and sisters, which were in all pretty numerous, who upon his father sickening and dying soon after went away. And now the house looked again like a house of the muses only, though the accession of scholars was not great. Possibly his proceeding thus far in the education of youth may have been the occasion of some of his adversaries calling him pedagogue and schoolmaster. Whereas it is well known, he never set up for a public school to teach all the young fry of a parish, but only was willing to impart his learning and knowledge to relations and the sons of some gentlemen that were his intimate friends. Note, there is something beautiful in the generosity with which Edward Phillips here sets himself to vindicate his uncle against the aspersions of his adversaries as it is certain that the writer was a schoolmaster and by the representation of Anthony Wood, probably set up for a public school to teach all the young fry of a parish. The sentiment is, my kinsman, the great man whose merits I am commemorating was far from being the insignificant person that I, his historian, am. I am in my proper place when I make the education of youth my daily employment and my profession. But he was a man of a different standard and belonging to another class of intelligences. Nor is it just that terms and ideas sufficiently descriptive of my destination should be applied to one who is scarce to be paralleled by any the best of writers our nation hath in any age brought forth. Return to text. Besides, that neither his converse, nor his writings, nor his manner of teaching ever savored in the least anything of pedantry and probably he might have some prospect of putting in practice his academic institution according to the model laid down in his sheet of education. The progress of which design was afterwards diverted by a series of alteration in the affairs of state. For I am much mistaken if there were not about this time a design in agitation of making him adjutant general in Sir William Waller's army. But the new modeling of the army soon following proved an obstruction to that design and Sir William, his commission being laid down, began as the common saying is to turn cat in pan. It was not long after the march of Fairfax and Cromwell through the city of London with the whole army to quell the insurrections which Brown and Massey now become malcontents also were endeavoring to raise in the city against the army's proceedings. There he left his great house in Barbican and he took himself to a smaller in High Hover among those that opened backward in Lincoln's in fields. Here he lived a private and quiet life still prosecuting his studies and curious search into knowledge, the grand affair perpetually of his life. Till such time as the war being now at an end with complete victory to the parliament side as the parliament then stood purged of all its dissenting members and the king after some treaties with the army great infecta brought to his trial, the form of government being now changed into a free state he was here upon obliged to write a treatise called the tenure of kings and magistrates. Side note, March AD 1648 49, return to text. After which his thoughts were bent upon retiring again to his own private studies and falling upon such subjects as his proper genius prompted him to write on among which was the history of our own nation from the beginning till the Norman conquest wherein he had made some progress. Side note, AD 1649, return to text. When for this his last treatise reviving the fame of other things he had formally published being more and more taken notice of for his excellency of style and depth of judgment he was courted into the service of this new commonwealth and at last prevailed with or he never hunted after preferment nor effected the Tintamar and hurry of public business to take upon him the office of Latin secretary to the council of state for all their letters to foreign princes and states. But they stuck to this noble and generous resolution not to write to any or receive answers from them but in a language most proper to maintain a correspondence among the learned of all nations in this part of the world. Scorning to carry on their affairs in a wheely, lisping jargon of the cringing French especially as they had a minister of state able to cope with the ablest any prince or state could employ for the Latin tongue. And so well he acquitted himself in the station that he gained from abroad both reputation to himself and credit to the state that employed him. And it was well the business of his office came not very fast upon him for he was scarce well warm in his secretarieship before other work flowed in upon him which took him up for some considerable time. In the first place there came out a book said to have been written by the king and finished a little before his death entitled Icon Basilica that is the royal image. A book highly cried up for its smooth style and pathetical composure. Wherefore to obviate the impression it was like to make among the many he was obliged to write an answer which he entitled iconoplasties or image breaker. And upon the heels of that out comes in public the great kill cow of Christendom with his Defensio Regis Contrapopulum Anglicana. Note this title everyone will see to be a misstatement no man ever professed to write against a people for their governors. The proper title is Defensio Regia Procarlo Primo adcarlo secundum returned to text. A man so famous and cried up for his plinian excitations and other pieces of reputed learning that there could know where have been found a champion that Durst lift up the pen against so formidable an adversary had not our little English David had the courage to undertake this great French Goliath to whom he gave such a hit in the forehead that he presently staggered and soon after fell. For immediately upon the coming out of the answer entitled Defensio Populi Anglicani Contraplaudium Anonimum et cetera he who till then side note AD 1651 returned to text. Had been chief minister and superintendent in the court of the learned Christina Queen of Sweden dwindled in esteem to that degree that he at last about safe to speak to the meanest servant. In short, he was dismissed with so cold and sliding in adieu that after a faint dying reply he was glad to have recourse to death the remedy of all evils and ender of all controversies. Side note AD 1652 returned to text. And now I presume our author had some breathing space but it was not long. For though Salmatius was departed he left some stings behind. New enemies started up, barkers though no great biters. Who the first assertor of Salmatius his cause was is not certainly known but variously conjectured at some supposing it to be one Janus a lawyer graze in some to be Dr. Brahmal who was made by King Charles II after his restoration Archbishop of Armaa in Ireland. But whoever the author was the book was thought fit to be taken into correction and our author thinking it worth his own undertaking to disturbing the progress of whatever more chosen work he had been in hand committed this task to the younger of his two nephews but with such exact commendations before it went to the press that it might have very well passed for his but that he was willing the person that took the pains to prepare it for his examination and punishment should have the name and credit of being the author so that it came forth under this title Linus, Philippi, Angli, Defensio, Pro popolo, Anglicano, Pontra, et cetera. Side note AD 1652 footnote this title is given from memory and inaccurately. Return to text. During the writing and publishing of this book he lodged at one Thompson's next door to the bullhead tavern at Charing Cross opening into the Spring Garden which seems to have been only a lodging taken till his design department in Scotland Yard was repaired for him. For hither he soon removed from the foresaid place and here his third child, a son, was born which to the ill usage or bad constitution of an ill-chosen nurse died an infant. From this apartment, whether he thought it not healthy or otherwise convenient for his use or whatever else was the reason he soon after took a pretty garden house in petty France in Westminster next door to the Lord's Scudamores and opening into St. James's Park. Here he remained no less than eight years namely from the year 1652 till within a few weeks to King Charles II's restoration. In this house his first wife, dying in child bed, he married a second who after a year's time died in child bed also. This his second marriage was about two or three years after his being wholly deprived of sight which was just going about the time if he's answering Salmatias whereupon his adversaries gladly take occasion of imputing his blindness as a judgment upon him for his answering the King's book, etc. Putna regii sanguinic clomor 1652 return to text whereas it is most certainly known that his sight but with his continual study his being subject to the headache and his perpetual tampering of physics to preserve it had been decaying for about a dozen years before in the sight of one for a long time clearly lost. Here he wrote by Zimenuensis his two answers to Alexander Moore who upon the last answer quit at the field. So that being now quiet from state adversaries and public contests he had leisure again for his own studies and private designs. Side note AD 1655 return to text which were his foresight history of England and a new thesaurus lingualitimae according to the manner of Stephenus. A work he had been long since collecting from his own reading and still went on with it at times even very near to his dying day but the papers after his death were so discomposed and deficient that it could not be made fit for the press. However, what there was of it was made use of for another dictionary. But the height of his noble fancy and invention began now to be seriously and mainly employed in a subject worthy of such amuse is a heroic poem entitled Paradise Lost. The noblest in the general esteem of learned and judicious persons of any yet written by any either ancient or modern. This subject was first designed to be produced to the world in the form of a tragedy. And in the fourth book of the poem there are six verses which several years before the poem was begun were shown to me and some others as designed for the very beginning of the said tragedy. The verses are these. O thou that with surpassing glory crowned looks from thy soul dominion like the god of this new world at whose sight all the stars hide the diminished heads. To thee I call but with no friendly voice and add thy name, O sun, to tell thee how I hate thy beams that bring to my remembrance from what state I fell how glorious once above thy sphere to pride and worse ambition threw me down warring in heaven against heaven's glorious king. There is another very remarkable passage in the composure of this poem which I have a particular occasion to remember for whereas I had the perusal of it from the very beginning for some years as I went from time to time to visit him in a parcel of 10, 20, or 30 verses at a time which being written by whatever hand came next might possibly want correction as to orthography and pointing. Having as the summer came on not been showed any for a considerable while and desiring the reason thereof was answered that his vein never happily flowed but from the autumnal equinoxial to the vernal and that whatever he attempted otherwise was never to his satisfaction though he courted his fancy never so much so that in all the year he was about this poem he may be said to have spent but half his time therein. It was but a little before the king's restoration that he wrote and published his book in defense of a common well so undaunted he was in declaring his true sentiments to the world and not long before his power of the civil magistrate in ecclesiastical affairs and his treatise against hirelings just upon the king's coming over having a little before been sequestered from his office of lapton secretary and the salary there until the longing. He was forced to leave his house also in Petty France where all the time of his abode there which was eight years as above mentioned he was frequently visited by persons of quality particularly by my lady rain law whose son for some time he had instructed and by all learned foreigners of note who could not part out of the city without giving a visit to a person's island and lastly by particular friends that had a high esteem for him is Mr. Andrew Marvell young Lawrence the son of him that was first into Oliver's council to whom there is a sonnet among the rest in his printed poems Mr. Marchamont Needham the writer of Politicus but above all Mr. Syriac Skinner whom he honored with two sonnets one long since public among his poems the other but newly printed his next removal was by the advice of those that wished him well and had a concern for his preservation into a place of retirement and obscondance till such time as the current of affairs for the future should instruct him what farther course to take it was a friend's house and by far new clothes where he lived till the act of oblivion came forth which at least God proved as favorable to him as could be hoped or expected through the intercession of some that stood his friends both in council and parliament particularly in the house of commons Mr. Andrew Marvell a member for Hull acted vigorously in his behalf and made a considerable party for him so that together with John Goodwin of Coleman Street he was only so far accepted as not to bear any office in the Commonwealth soon after appearing again in public side note 1662 returned to text he took a house in Hoburn near Red Lion Fields where he stayed not long before his pardon having passed the seal he removed to Jewin Street there he lived when he married his third wife recommended to him by his old friend Dr. Padgett in Coleman Street but he stayed not long after his new marriage ere he removed to a house in the artillery walk leading to Bunhill Fields and this was his last stage in this world but it was of many years continuous more perhaps than he had had in any other place besides here he finished his noble poem and published it in the year 1666 the first edition was printed in Porto by one Simon's a printer in Aldersgate Street and a second in a large uptable by Starkey near Temple Bar amended enlarged and differently disposed as to the number of books by his own hand that is by his own appointment and a third has been set forth many years since his death in a large folio with cuts added by Jacob Thompson here it was also that he finished and published his history of our nation till the conquest all complete so far as he went side note he published his history of England in the year 1670 returned to text some passages only being accepted which being thought too sharp against the clergy could not pass the hand of the licensor were in the hands of the late Earl of Anglesey what he lived where at present is uncertain it cannot certainly be concluded when he wrote his excellent tragedy entitled Samson Agonisties but sure enough it is that it came forth after his publication of Paradise Lost together with his other poem called Paradise You Gained which Douglas was begun and finished and printed after the other was published and that in a wonderful short space of time considering the sublimeness of it however it is generally censured to be much inferior to the other though he could not hear with patience any such thing when related to him possibly the subject may not afford such variety of invention but it is thought by the most judicious to be little or nothing inferior to the other who styled in decorum the said Earl of Anglesey whom he presented with a copy of the unlicensed papers of his history came often here to visit him as very much coveting his society and converse as likewise others of the mobility and many persons of eminent quality nor were the visits of foreigners ever more frequent than in this place almost to his dying day his treatise of true religion heresy, schism and toleration etc was doubtless the last thing of his writing that was published before his death he had as I remember prepared for the press an answer to some little scribbling quack in London who had written a scurrilous libel against him but whether by the dissuasion of friends as thinking him a fellow not worth his notice or for what other cause I know not this answer was never published he died in the year 1673 towards the latter end of the summer footnote November 8th 1674 returned to text and had a very decent interment according to his quality in the church of St. Giles Priplegate being attended from his house to the church by several gentlemen then in town his principal well-wishers and admirers he had three daughters who survived him many years and a son all by his first wife of whom sufficient mention hath been made Anne his eldest as above said and Mary his second who were both born at his house in Barbican and Deborah the youngest who is yet living born at his house in petty France between whom and his second daughter the son named John was born as above mentioned at his apartment in Scotland Yard by his second wife Catherine the daughter of Captain Woodcock of Hackney he had only one daughter of which the mother the first year after a marriage died in child bed and the child also within a month after by his third wife Elizabeth the daughter of one Mr. Minchell of Cheshire and Kin's woman to Dr. Patchett who survived him and is said to be yet living he never had any child and those he had by the first he made serviceable to him in that very particular in which he most wanted their service and supplied his want of eyesight by their eyes and tongue for though he had daily about him one or other to read to him some persons of man's estate who of their own accord greedily catched at the opportunity of being his readers that they might as well reap the benefit of what they read to him as obliged him with the benefit of their reading others of younger years sent by their parents to the same end yet excusing only the eldest daughter by reason of her bodily infirmity and difficult utterance of speech which to say the truth I doubt was the principal cost of excusing her the other two were condemned to the performance of reading and exactly pronouncing of all the languages of whatever book he should at one time or other think fit to peruse Viz the Hebrew and I think the Syriac the Greek the Latin Italian Spanish and French all which sorts of books to be confined to read without understanding one word must needs be a trial of patience almost beyond endurance yet it was endured by both for a long time yet the irksomeness of this employment could not always be concealed but broke out more and more into expressions of uneasiness so that at length they were all even the eldest also sent out to learn some curious and ingenious sorts of manufacture that are proper for women to learn particularly embroideries in gold or silver it had been happy indeed if the daughters of such a person had been made in some measure in heritrixes of their father's learning but since fate otherwise decreed the greatest honor that can be ascribed to this now living and so would have been to the others had they lived is to be daughter of a man of his extraordinary character he is said to have died worth 1500 pounds in money a considerable estate all things considered besides household goods for he sustained such losses as might well have broke any person less frugal and temperate than himself no less than 2000 pounds which he had put for security and improvement into the excise office but neglecting to recall it in time could never after get it out with all the power and interest he had in the great ones of those times besides another great sum by mismanagement and for want of good advice thus I have reduced into form and order whatever I have been able to rally up either from the recollection of my own memory of things transacted while I was with him or the information of others equally conversant afterwards or from his own mouth by frequent visits to the last I shall conclude this history with two material passages which though they relate not immediately to our author or his own particular concerns yet in regard that they happen during his public employment of Latin secretary to the council of state of the Commonwealth of England and consequently felt most especially under his cognizance it will not be a miss here to subjoin them the first was this before the war broke forth between the states of England and the Dutch the Hollenders sent over three ambassadors in order to an accommodation but they returning ray infecta the Dutch sent away a plenipotentiary to offer peace upon much milder terms or at least to gain more time but this plenipotentiary could not make such haste but that the Parliament had procured a copy of their instructions in Holland which were delivered by our author to his kinsman who was then with him to translate for the council to view before the said plenipotentiary had taken shipping for England and an answer to all he had in charge lay ready for him before he made his public entry into London in the next place there came a person with a very sumptuous train pretending himself an agent from the Prince of Condé who was then in arms against cardinal misery the Parliament mistrusting him set their instruments so busily at work that in four or five days they had procured intelligence from Paris that he was a spy from King Charles whereupon the very next morning our author's kinsman was sent to him with an order of council commanding him to depart the kingdom within three days or expect the punishment of a spy by these two remarkable passages we make clearly discover the industry and good intelligence of those times End of the Life of Milton written by his nephew Mr. Edward Phillips Recording by Thomas Pochett