Parliament tried to carry matters with a high hand, ordering the disbanding of most of the horse and nearly all the foot, with only six weeks’ arrears of pay and the removal of every officer who would not conform to the Presbyterial Church Discipline, with other indignities. It was also voted by them to enlist a new army for service in Ireland, at a good rate of pay, under the same Presbyterial command. The Army quartered in Essex roundly refused to be disbanded; whereat the Generals Cromwell, Skippon and Ireton were sent out by Parliament to be mediators. Yet when they found how determined were the common soldiers to follow their new course, esteeming themselves The People and therefore the masters of Parliament, and how all the officers sustained them, except for a very few Presbyterians (as Colonel Richard Graves and Colonel Sir Robert Pye, who were among those appointed by Parliament to have charge of the King’s person), they threw in their lot with the Army, and so did General Fairfax. They showed little displeasure, or none at all, when Cornet Joyce with a few bold horsemen rode to Holmby in Northamptonshire, where the King was kept prisoner, and stole him from Parliament: for it was known that the Presbyterians were treating privily with the King against the interest of the Army in general and of the Independents in particular. Then, having put His Majesty into a safe place, the Army under General Fairfax began slowly to march towards London.
Parliament itself was affrighted and willing to treat with the Army—for where the sword is, there is power; but the Presbyterial London popular (encouraged by General Massey, he who had held Gloucester so staunchly against the King, and by General Browne the Faggot-monger) raised an uproar and forced Parliament to make opposition. Then General Fairfax marched upon London with speed, as if against a town held by the enemy, and these we’re great days for my husband: for the Presbyterians, his enemies, were over-awed, and made a most cowardly show. They boldly shouted their war cry “One and all” whenever the Army was reported to be halted; but “Treat, Treat!” whenever it was reported to be on the march again. At last the Tower was yielded peaceably to General Fairfax, and he and his men marched through the city in orderly fashion with laurel wreaths in their hats. Parliament behaved very obligingly to them, and set aside the Bishops’ lands and a large part of the estates forfeited by delinquents to be sold to pay their arrears. The men were encouraged by their success and began to ask: “Who were the first Peers of England but William the Conqueror’s colonels? Or the knights but his captains? Or the gentry but his common soldiers?”
My husband during this time had written a sonnet against the Presbyterians, as Forcers of Consciences, in which he declared that the new presbyters were worse than any of the bishops whom they had driven out; and in many other ways he showed himself very hot against them. Yet this was the same John Milton who, not six years before, had written:
So little is it that I fear lest any crookedness, any wrinkle or spot should be found in Presbyterial Government that I dare assure myself that every true Protestant will admire the integrity, the uprightness, the divine and gracious purposes thereof, and, even for the reason of it (so coherent with the doctrine of the Gospel, besides the evident command of Scripture), will confess it to be the only true Church government.
We now employed Tom Tanner, a man-servant, to run messages, and to do work about the house not proper for women. His true name was Fly-fornication Tanner, but my husband renamed him plain Tom. He was a dismal Presbyterian who called himself “a mere winter’s dust” and “a worm five foot long” and was continually blessing God for His mercies and rolling his eyes back into his head to show the whites. Trunco and I found his discourse terribly tedious, especially as he was always confessing to us the infirmities of his flesh—one day a quinsy, and the next a flux hepaticus, and the third a common pleurisy, for each of which in turn he begged our extemporate prayers; and, when these were successful, he stood blessing and praising the Lord like a lunatic. But my husband would often divert himself by asking Tom Tanner, when he came back from a meeting at the Church of St. Anne’s, Aldersgate, what he had heard.
Tom would make answer: “Oh, Master, I heard a most godly preachment, which truly I would you had been there to hear!” And once he added: “For it would have lifted your soul out of its vile body.”
“How now, Sirrah?” cried my husband. “Do you dare call my body vile? Have a care, have a care!”
“Nay, Master,” said Tom, “you are a very handsome, proper gentleman, which is God’s providence to bless you, but my meaning is that the preachment—”
“Come now,” my husband said, in interruption, “what was the text?”
“The text, Master? What, the text?” Tom replied. “Why, it concerned a king of the Jews who took a pen-knife and cut the pages of a book and cast it upon the fire; and our minister, who is wondrous eloquent, undertook with the same pen-knife to cut into ribbons—”
“What, the same pen-knife!” cried my husband with mock gravity. “Was it yet extant?”
“I know not whether it was an Extant pen-knife or a Sheffield one,” says Tom, “but the preacher used it to cut to ribbons those idolatrous poets now living among us who seek to adorn their verses with the names of heathen gods and goddesses, and with lewd tales of nymphs and such.”
“He should have kept that knife to cut off his own ears, trimming them as close to the head as Mr. Marginal Prynne’s, who first guided your foolish young preacher’s feet into this way of knavery.”
“Oh, Master, that I should ever hear you speak evil of that godly man, the Reverend Christopher Love, M.A., our minister,” said Tom, “who is a wonderful comfortable preacher to all poor wretches who labour under soul concern: for he speaks from the very bottom of his heart, blessed be the Lord’s name!”
“Ay, Tom,” said my husband, “I warrant your Reverend Cupid preaches from so deep down in his body that the words incontinently break out by a short cut. But come now, how was the text divided?”
“Why, Master, the preacher took his little pen-knife—” began Tom.
“What, the same little pen-knife,” cried my husband, in affected surprise. “Was it not blunted by being awkwardly dashed against the adamantine hardness of certain immortal poems?”
He continued so to tease poor Tom, absurdly imitating the Welsh ding-dong of the minister’s voice, and ridiculing the fooleries of his congregation, that Tom found it grievous and left his service at last.
The Presbyterial discipline, which had been instituted according to the Scottish model and imposed upon all the parishes of London, my husband found most incommodious to him. However, his house in the Barbican happened to lie within the Parish of St. John Zachary, which was a prime reason why he had removed thither, and the minister was one William Barton who stood under an obligation to my husband, which was this. The old manner of chanting the Psalms of David, in plain-song, just as they stood in the Psalter, was to be abolished as papistical, and they were now to be rendered into verse and sung as prick-song hymns. To this end the Reverend Barton had made a careful metrical version of the Psalms (in rivalry to Mr. George Wither’s tuneful but careless one and the out-worn version of Sternhold and Hopkins), and my husband had mended some of the verses for him, and had also prevailed upon the Earl of Bridgewater and other noblemen of his acquaintance to recommend this book to the House of Lords in preference to that published by Mr. Francis Rous, M.P.13 which the Commons naturally favoured. When the Lords were by this means persuaded, the Reverend Barton, frankly telling my husband that “one hand washes the other,” protected him from an uncomfortable inquisition into his religious beliefs: answering for his doctrinal soundness to the elders of the Parochial Court, and (I believe) assuring them that he had at last done with his pamphlets upon divorce and had signalized his change of heart by receiving me back into his bosom. However, my husband would not hide behind any minister’s cassock, as he said. He wrote out a plain confession of faith for the Reverend Barton to show the Triers, but wrote it in the Aramaic tongue which (though our Saviour is not recorded
to have spoken in any other, and therefore it was the best possible for my husband’s purpose) he was confident to be clean above their capacity to understand as also above the Reverend Barton’s.
Now that the Army was in control of affairs, my husband had little cause to fear the presbyters, and upon his removal this year to a new house in High Holborn, which lay in the parish of St. Andrew, he boldly avowed himself an Independent. When one day Mr. Agar brought General Ireton to our new house, the minister was soon informed of the visit and learned to treat my husband with awe. For General Ireton, since his marriage with General Cromwell’s daughter, had become a man of very great note; and General Cromwell loved him so much that, it is said, hearing one day that the estate and town of Ireton in Derbyshire was owned by a Captain Saunders, he made him Colonel of a regiment, to flatter him into the sale of this place, which he wished to give to his son-in-law. When Colonel Saunders was stubborn and would not sell, the regiment was taken from him again.
The reason for our new change of dwelling was this. Two months after the death of my poor father, there died in our house that worthy old man, Mr. John Milton, Senior, who was always the least trouble imaginable, and left my husband a good sum of money in rents and the like, so that he found it no longer needful to keep so large a swarm of pupils. He would seek out a smaller house and dismiss all his boys but one or two of the older ones, who would be of more service than vexation to him: for lately he had been troubled by his left eye, which he had strained by overmuch reading; and these remaining pupils might read aloud to him, and also make digests of books that he could not himself find the time to peruse.
My husband, though he had recommended the Reverend Barton’s version of the Psalms above that of Mr. Rous, considered that he could outgo both; and seeing that these Psalms were designed to be sung in Churches every Sunday, by the whole population of England, for a thousand years or more, he thought it pity that, merely for the Reverend Barton’s sake, he should be denied the glory of composing these verses himself. For not only had he a better ear for the music and harmony of words than any man living—and this I say without fear of contradiction—but he was a scholar of the Hebrew and would translate from the original. Mr. Agar encouraged him in the labour, and asked him for samples of his translation, and suggested that (if the Lords and Commons could not agree as to which was the better of the other two) my husband’s superior version might be urged upon them, by General Ireton or some other, as a third and best choice.
Our new house, which we entered about Michaelmas, 1647, was a pleasant one, opening upon Lincoln’s Inn Fields; and in it my husband busied himself for two or three months upon these Psalms. He sent about translations of nine of them, copied into a book, and if none was found to press them upon Parliament, this was perhaps because they were too nobly and perfectly composed: for, as I told my husband, the Presbyterian naturally seeks and holds to what is but second-best, holding it presumptuous in himself to love perfection.
In this year of 1647 provisions were at a rate as had never before been in our days—beef 3d. a lb., butter 6½d. a lb., cheese 4d. a lb., candles 7d. a lb., sugar 1s 6d. a lb. and everything whatsoever proportionately dear. It was a time of great sickness and illness, more fevers than ever I remember (especially the spotted fever), plague again abroad in London, little sun, much rain, the fruit rotting on the trees, and so many cattle dying from the infected grass that milk was scarce to be got. There was a song that ran often in my head about this time, called The World Turned Upside Down:
Good men, I’ll tell you news that’s right:
Christmas was killed at Naseby fight.
Charity was slain at that same time,
Jack Tell-Truth too, a friend of mine.
Likewise did die
Roast beef and mince-pie,
Pig, Goose and Capon no quarter found.
Yet let’s be content
And the times lament.
You see that the world is quite turned round.
In this November, with my mother’s consent, my husband entered into possession of our freehold property at Wheatley and Mrs. Elizabeth Ashworth (relict of Edward Ashworth, who had the elder lease), being left friendless and in poverty by the cruelties of war, could not eject him. For, as the phrase is, present possession is nine parts of the Law, and he could show his statute-staple bond, which was elder than her lease, in justification. The rents that he took in were £80 a year, and of these he allowed my mother the third part customarily due to the widow, namely £26 13s. 4d. This was all the money that she had for her livelihood, except for the few shillings a month which my brother Richard allowed her, and a few pence from poor starved James, and once a sum brought her as a free gift by our former tenants and humble acquaintances of Forest Hill, who loved her dearly, as Tomlins of the Mill, Boys of the brick-kiln, Martin the Woodman, Goodman Mathadee and Tom Messenger, who himself brought the money, near £15, with a letter and account. As executrix for my father, my mother was now sued in several courts of justice for divers debts due to divers persons, £2,000 or £3,000 in all—and was in no way able either to satisfy these or to provide a decent subsistence for herself and Zara and the three little ones. She even was reduced to working like a mechanic, agreeing with a pedlar to make him nets for kitchen-service, to boil herbs in, and with a hosier to make women’s night-waistcoats of red and yellow flannel. I gave her my christening silver to sell for her needs.
My husband could do nothing for my mother, he said, because his own household and acquaintance must be first considered. And though in one way or another he was worth £250 a year, of which he spent £80 at least upon books for his library, and put by £50, what could I say or do? He owed no regard to my mother, who had never treated him with the civility due him. Moreover, my promised portion of £1,000 had not been paid and would never be paid; and I had borne him a crippled Ann to vex him, not a stalwart Arthur (“King once, and King again to be,” as he had hoped) who should glorify and perpetuate his line. And how would my poor child make a good match, with her lameness, unless he provided for her a handsome portion? These thoughts vexed me continually so that often I lay awake at night and could not sleep.
I used to hide beneath my skirt lumps of cheese and brawn saved from my own ration and give them privily to Zara who came to meet me in Lincoln’s Inn Fields. My husband would not suffer me to visit my mother in her lodgings, because when once he went there himself upon business he judged the air to be infected, and would not have me exposed to the plague.
However, Trunco came to my mother’s relief. There was an honest man who fell in love with Trunco, for she was still a good-looking woman, though near thirty years of age, and it so chanced that his father, a distiller of strong waters, had died and left him his distillery on Ludgate Hill. This man did not understand the stilling business, for he had been at the wars, a cannoneer in the artillery train, but was now discharged, having lost an arm when a great gun burst its breech. Trunco therefore, giving notice to my husband that she would leave him, married her distiller upon condition that he should be the master in name but that she should have the real management of the business and a third share of the profits. It must not be forgotten that before she came to us she was a brewer’s wife at Abingdon, and had managed his accounts. Her skill was such that in the first two years she put near £400 in her purse, though the distillery was in a poor way when first she entered into possession of it; and in the New Year of 1648, so soon as she married, she allowed my mother, in grateful recompense (as she said) for her kindness when she was herself in distress, two indifferent good rooms in her husband’s house, with commons of beer and bread. I missed Trunco’s company sadly, but would not have had her do otherwise than marry, and was content to see her thrive as Goodwife Fairacre, which was now her name. She had good clothes and fine linen and a brave little footboy, dressed in a plush jerkin, plodding behind her with a gilt-leaved prayer-book when she went to Church on Sunday.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
It were vexatious to recount every event in the three-sided quarrel that now ensued: the King playing off the Army Sectaries, in whose custody he lay, against the Presbyterians of London and their Scottish allies, and at the same time gathering up his broken forces for another attempt to impose his own will (and the rule of his Bishops) upon both parties when their leaders should have extirpated one another. Bishops were still his maggot: he might yield in all else, but here he took his stand. It is said that one day, about this time, he cast a bone between his two spaniels that followed him, and laughed to see how currishly they contested for it; which some thought that he intended as a representation of that bone of contention he had cast between the parties, namely the promise of his royal favour. For it was generally believed that without a monarchy the country could not possibly be governed; wherefore the King himself repeated oftentimes to the Army Grandees: “You cannot be without me, I say: you will fall to ruin if I do not sustain you.” These were anxious and uncertain times, hardly any man obliging his neighbour with the loan of a shilling, or daring to give him more than “good-day” or “perhaps we shall have fine weather to-morrow,” so mistrustful were all become.
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