My husband was about to interpose some harsh and contradictory sentence, but thought better of it, and contented himself by answering drily: “Yes, sir, my wife leaves us this morning; and I hope that she returns to us with a greater love for Aldersgate than I have yet found in her.”
The old gentleman cried in his chirping voice: “I applaud your good nature, John. And I warrant her mother will be sensible of your kindness to her. For you know how the case is: whereas in the city the labour of a house is light in the summer but heavy in the winter, in the country it is clean contrariwise.” Then turning to me he said: “Dear Child, I hope that you do not hate our reserved and philosophical manner of life here, or sigh for your hawking and hunting and other country joys. John is a noble man, and if he proves no less honest a husband to you than he has been a son to me, you are the most fortunate of women.”
I replied: “Father, I will think of you with great kindness and affection while I am away.”
My coffer was already packed with my ends and awls and Trunco soon had her bundle ready. She was not loath to depart by any means; and, my husband excusing himself that he expected learned company that morning, the old gentleman undertook to see us to the coach, and a man was found to fetch the coffer away on a barrow. My husband, just before we went off, called me into his study as if to kiss me farewell; but instead he set a paper before me which he required that I should sign before he would release me. In this paper it was written that “Whereas I, Marie Powell, alias Mary Milton, do this day, the fifth day of July of the year 1642, of my own free will and consent, depart the house and abode of John Milton Esquire, Junior, situated in the Second Precinct of St. Botolph’s Parish in the Aldersgate Ward of the City of London, I, the same Marie Powell, do hereby solemnly declare that I now return under sufficient escort, to the house of my father, Richard Powell of Forest Hill in the County of Oxon, Esquire, Justice of the Peace, and acknowledge myself to be no less a virgin than the aforesaid John Milton Esquire, Junior, found me when I first came to his house, and furthermore I declare that the same John Milton has used me well and has not withheld or kept back from me any part or parcel of the goods and moneys that I brought with me when I first came of my own free will to the same house.”
This paper I signed and sealed in the presence of Jane Yates, who put her mark to it in witness; but since she could not read, and since my husband did not communicate to her the matter of my declaration, the secret was well kept. I believe that I would have signed any declaration, almost, to be enlarged from that rose-white prison, and since the words written there were no more than the truth I thought no harm of them. I supposed that he doubted my truthfulness and that the purpose of the paper was to prevent me either from vilely complaining to my father that he had used me against kind or otherwise abused me, or from taking a casual lover on the way.
It was delightful for me to walk down the alley and out again to freedom in Aldersgate Street, and through the bustling streets to Bishopsgate. The old man walked beside me very briskly, and continually pointed and mourned how London was changed since he first came there in the middle years of Queen Elizabeth’s reign.
I had the curiosity to ask him his opinion of my husband’s poems; but he would say no more than that his John was an ingenious boy with a good control of words; and that, for himself, he held not the skill and art of poetry in base account, but only the abusers of it, and that poetry might well make a pleasant remission from the bent of graver affairs and studies.
“Why, Father, I understand you perfectly,” said I. “You would that John had consented to be bred in some useful profession?”
“Tell him not so,” he answered smiling, “but pity my lost ambition for him. Poetry will never butter his parsnips or his toasts.”
There were no vacant seats for us on the public coach, but in the yard I espied a horse-racing gentleman whom I knew, Captain Windebank by name, son to Secretary Windebank, who had a great house at Bletchingdon, to the north of Oxford, and was returning thither within the hour with his aunt and a servant. He agreed to take Trunco and me for the usual coach-fare, which the old gentleman paid him.
So we said our good-byes, and presently the coach rolled out of the yard, which was a comfortable coach with well-fed cattle harnessed to it, and away we went with crack of whip and bawling coachmen. I told the gentleman’s aunt that I was lately married and now returning home for a few weeks to my mother, who was sick and needed me at her side. The old lady was not inquisitive, and treated me kindly, but she said: “I wonder that in times like these your good old husband is content to let you go from his side for even a short space of days.”
“Nay,” I answered, laughing, “that is my father-in-law, not my husband.”
“Well,” said she, “no matter. Have you not heard the news? There is a ship sailed from Holland, sent by the Queen, with arms and ammunitions of war for the King at York. To-day his ship is expected in the Humber, and soon enough the ordnance will roar, the pikes chatter and the pistols pop; for yesterday Parliament appointed a Committee of Safety, which is as good as to levy war against His Majesty. Yea, though the flames of war have not yet broke out in the chimney-tops, yet the black smoke ascends everywhere. It is on this account that my nephew and I are returning at once to his house at Bletchingdon, though our business here in London is not yet concluded. I pray God will raise up some good hearts about the King to second the desires of his Parliament. For I know the temper of the Commons at Westminster, which is very stubborn.”
Captain Windebank, who was a Cavalier, but civil to his Puritanical aunt, said: “Madam, for my part, I pray God will change the hearts of those mean-spirited worsted-stocking men in Parliament, that they may abate their desires.”
“Amen,” said I. “Let there be an accommodation found. A civil war is nonsensical policy.”
“That I deny not,” cried the old lady, “nor that God can turn it all in a moment, if we turn again to Him. It will be from want of our prayers if this judgment comes upon the nation. Let us women especially pray with great earnestness and fervour, forasmuch as war is an ill time for us, of all creatures, being exposed to so many villainies.”
Captain Windebank said: “Madam, I agree that Papist, Puritan and Protestant will be brought to common ruin, if matters continue as they do; yet I believe that the cause of this ruin will not be a want of praying but rather over-much praying in perverse forms of prayer.”
I marvelled to see how many soldiers there were upon the roads, both horse and foot, coming and going; and before we were well passed out of London into the country we heard a distant booming sound—then another and another; which startled the horses and ourselves alike. Captain Windebank said that the sound proceeded from iron cannons, which the Parliamentarians were shooting off to try them. “God grant they shiver in pieces!” said he.
“And that nobody be hurt!” cried his aunt hastily.
Then the Captain said that, because of these warlike preparations, almost every mechanical trade throughout the country but those of armourer, cannon-founder, saddlemaker and the like was already much neglected and interrupted; and that the coffer upon the roof of the coach was filled with gold and silver plate, which he was fetching from London for the King, to be coined into money for his wars. Yet when the Captain alighted for a moment to untruss by the roadside, the old lady whispered to me: “He is no fool, in truth, and though doubtless we shall eat off pewter in his house until these unnatural times be passed, I assure you that the silver, the greater part of which is mine, will be safely buried under the roots of an old oak, or under a stone in the cellar.” I was surprised that no Parliament officer stopped our coach to search it.
We lay that night at Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire, and Captain Windebank was good enough to pay the landlord with the fare that old Mr. Milton had paid him, else Trunco and I must have remained in the coach and gone hungry; and the next day about supper time we passed through Thame and were back in a country that I knew well; and
after a few miles more Trunco and I saw the bell-gable of St. Nicholas’s Church and the smoking chimneys of the Manor-house.
“Why, Trunco,” I cried, as she and I went in at the gate, after I had taken grateful leave of my friends, “it is good to be back in Christendom again out of Heathenness. But in God’s name, say nothing to your fellow-servants against either my husband or his household. Remember that (as I told the old gentlewoman in the coach) my mother made earnest suit by letter that she might enjoy my company for the residue of this summer; which my husband has affectionately granted. If I come to hear that you have said one word more than this, I will tear out your tongue.”
“You may trust poor Trunco,” she answered, “who lives only to serve you.”
***
A sealed letter which my husband had entrusted to me for my father’s hand I sent into the house by Trunco, for perhaps he might refuse me entrance when he had read it; but my mother came running out from the little parlour to embrace me, so soon as ever she heard my voice. Then she held me at arm’s length and cried out in a loud voice: “Why, alack, the girl has lost all her colour! Daughter, surely you cannot already be breeding?” She also remarked the thinness of my cheeks and asked me: “Has he abused you? Has he beaten you? How have you come back to the house like a sick cat, without warning?”
She drew me into the parlour and sent Trunco out for Spanish wine for me and a piece of cold roast breast of veal with sweet pickle and salads and bread and butter; and then in came my father. I could see at once from his looks that I was welcome, despite what might have been written about me by my husband. Then while I ate and drank as greedily as a militia-horse he read the letter out as follows:
“WORSHIPFUL SIR,
“Your daughter Mary, with my free permission (and in earnest of my continued kindness) is now coached back to your house, in like manner as Mrs. Powell in her letter desired, intending to continue with you until Michaelmas. I confide that before that same Feast has passed you will have duly paid me the marriage portion agreed upon in the paper lately signed by our two pens and that you will also have made your promised quittance of the elder debt of £500 contracted upon statute-staple while your daughter was yet in swaddling clothes. She (unless I am to believe the common buzz that she was debauched before ever she came to me) remains virgin; and I pray, now that she is returned under your governance, that, for my sake, you will keep her guarded and secure from all scandals and intemperate follies. With the blessing of Heaven I will beget you grandsons upon her body when she is restored to me, and when the cheerful performance of your undertaking shall have enabled me to bear the expenses naturally contingent upon their generation and genteel rearing.
“That you will remember me most affectionately to your Lady beseeches
“Tour Worship’s most sincere and faithful servant and well-wisher,
“JOHN MILTON.”
My mother cried out at the close, and railed against Mr. Milton, calling him a whoreson Ibis and saying that if indeed he had failed in his duty by me (unless he were impotent) he deserved to be whipped with a bull’s pizzle through the longest street in Saint Botolph’s parish. She bade me tell my tale in a plain manner, which I did; and when at last I came to the paper that I had been instructed to sign, my father was as wroth as she. “Though he has wedded you by lawful ceremonies of the Church,” said he, “and duly bedded with you, for which fact there are witnesses enough, he is in hopes, I believe, to discard you and slide out of his bargain, as though he were a barbarous Russian. He will doubtless seek a flaw in the marriage contract, which for a shrewd canon-lawyer is never difficult. Marie, you acted unwisely when you signed that paper, for a marriage that has not been consummated by copula carnalis is easier to break than one that has been so consummated. Yet I believe that in a court of law your avowal of present virginity would carry little weight, if it were pleaded on your behalf that you signed it under duress. Have no care, my child: I will see you are not further abused. And I am mighty glad that you are home with us again. Let nobody know but that you come hither for your health, the foul London airs not agreeing with you—the paleness of your cheeks will, so to say, give colour to this explanation—and nobody will think much upon the matter, and at Michaelmas-tide we shall see what we shall see.”
“Indeed, sir,” said I, “I do not altogether mislike my husband. I believe that he doted upon me at first, but his impetuous virgin passion unbalanced him so that he tripped over his own spurs, as it were, and fell headlong. Nor would he then laugh against himself but, starting up again to his feet, accused me of contriving his mischance.”
“Ay,” said my father. “Or you may call him the fabled bear with the kettle. He burns his chops upon it, and in rage hugs it to his bosom so that it burns him the more.”
“Or like the Emperor’s Indian ape,” said my mother, “who was splashed on the belly with a little gout of mud. He scratched and scratched at it to cleanse himself, until with his sharp nails he had scratched through the tender skin and was mauling his own guts.”
“Well,” said I, “similitudes enlighten, but do not mend. Moreover, I heartily regret that you are obliged to sell your Welsh lands and pay so great a portion to my husband, when in this letter, as also in the paper that I signed, he has not even acknowledged me to be his wife. I might well, as you know, have married a fortune and helped to repair yours, had it not been for the rank tattling tongue of your mad curate. If my husband will not beget children upon me until he has your golden Jacobuses jingling in his canvas bag, or piled up in little heaps upon his study table, I cannot believe that what he wrote in his book concerning the ‘virgin of mean fortunes honestly bred,’ was meant sincerely. However, I have now the honourable name of wife in this town, which he cannot easily take from me; and nothing will please me better than to continue awhile with you in my old way of life; and I warrant that you will have no complaint against me for idleness. Come now, let me sing you a song upon my guitar, the playing of which was forbidden me in Aldersgate Street! I’ll give you The Lament of the New Wedded Wife—the one that goes:
‘Of scouring and sweeping I’ll never complain,
Were I safe home at York with my mother again.’”
So they kissed me, and bade me good night and gave me the little chamber over the kitchen, to have for my own; for Zara and Ann now shared the bed in my former chamber. I had my vellum book with me still, and in the morning I would mount my nag and take my gerfalcon on my fist and clip away at full gallop over Red Hill.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The Beginning of the War
In more peaceful times, I doubt not, this sudden return to my parents’ house would have occasioned no end of cruel gossip in Forest Hill, where (as the rhyme says) “tongues are never still.” But now it wanted a few weeks only before the ordnance boomed in earnest and the muskets were discharged without false fires. Already in July there was in our town little talk or thought of anything but civil war; and signs were observed that portended the country’s ruin. That summer the white gilliflowers would not bloom, but there was unusual abundance of poppies in the fields, blood red, and in our cellar three hogsheads of good beer were turned to vinegar by a storm of thunder.
Our county of Oxfordshire was divided in its allegiance, three of the nine Members sent to Parliament inclining towards King Charles and six towards King Pym; in Oxford itself, the University was for King Charles, but the Town against him. On the King’s side, Commissions of Array were granted to noblemen and knights, empowering them to raise troops “in protection of the Kingdom”; on the Parliamentary side, the Militia Ordinance was voted, by which Lords-Lieutenant were appointed to raise troops for the very same purpose. The Lord Saye and Sele, nicknamed Old Subtlety, was the Lord-Lieutenant appointed for Oxfordshire who, though of most ancient lineage, was a grave Puritan who hated Court manners and had been foremost of the nobility in his resistance to the King’s arbitrary rule. Of the other noblemen, knights and gentlemen of good estate in our
county the greater part favoured the King: as, for example, the Tyrrells and the Gardiners, Sir Timothy Tyrrell being granted a colonel’s commission in the Royal service.
When at last the King’s proclamation from his Court at York was read at Oxford by the public magistrate, many houses of our neighbours were found to be divided against themselves—sons against fathers, and brothers against brothers. In this proclamation, for the suppressing of what was termed “a rebellion under the conduct and command of Robert, Earl of Essex” (who had accepted the supreme authority over the Army of Parliament), His Majesty inveighed against “the malice and pernicious designs of men, tending to the utter ruin of our Person, the true Protestant religion, the Laws established, the property and liberty of the subject and the very being of Parliaments.” On the other side, the Parliamentary proclamation which made traitors of all who took up arms to oppose the Earl of Essex, was written in terms very loyal and tender towards His Majesty: he was represented by them as “led astray by Papists and other evil counsellors, who design by these means to bring about the utter ruin of the Crown.” However, both sides equally called upon all good people to contribute their assistance, in their persons, servants and money, with all alacrity and cheerfulness, the King therewithal offering to protect Parliament against its enemies and Parliament offering to protect the King against his. All seemed inside out and arsy-varsy.
Mun’s sister, the Lady Cary Gardiner, rode over to ask my father’s help in some small matter of a warrant. She told us that her husband (whom she dearly loved) was already gone from her to the King’s Court at York; that her brother Mun was fighting for his life against the rebellious Irish, with Parliament as his paymaster, though no man living was more loyal to the King; and that her brother Ralph was of Mr. John Pym’s party in the Commons. Now her father was sent for by the King to play his part as hereditary Knight-Marshal, and to raise the Royal Standard with ancient ceremony—though where it should be raised was not yet settled, because of much envy and jealousy between the great Lords for this honour. The Lady Cary asked my father, very ingenuously, to which side he himself inclined; who replied with a laugh that he was a convert to Kyhoysasism. When she inquired what this strange new profession might be, he answered that the word was spelt out by the lines of the ballad “Keep Your Head On Your Shoulders, And So I Shall Mine.” In short he was a Neuter. He would obey all orders that came to him lawfully, but would undertake nothing voluntarily; and if he fell between two stools he hoped he would fall soft. The Lady Cary was then emboldened to discover to us that her father, the Knight-Marshal, had no reverence for the Bishops for whom the whole quarrel subsisted. He had written to her that he heartily wished that His Majesty would yield to Parliament, but that he had eaten the Royal bread for thirty years and therefore would not desert him in his need. Indeed, he had declared that he would rather lose his life to preserve and defend things which were against his conscience to preserve and defend, than renounce his allegiance and his duty. To this my father replied that, as he heard, the Lord Falkland also, though he had been an enemy of Ship-Money and of prelatic rule, had taken up arms for His Majesty—secretly detesting the cause in which he was engaged, yet unable in honour to abandon it.
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