“He died in the year 1673,19 towards the latter end of the summer, and had a very decent interment, according to his quality, in the church of St. Giles, Cripplegate, being attended from his house to the church by several gentlemen then in town, his principal well-wishers and admirers.
“He is said to have died worth £1,500 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 £2,000 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.”
Milton had lost his most valuable property, the Spread Eagle in Bread Street, where he was born, in the Great Fire of 1666.
Late in life he won extraordinary fame for his poems, his champions being John Dryden, the Poet Laureate (who had Milton’s permission to turn Paradise Lost into a rhymed opera) and Andrew Marvell, who honoured him as the new Tiresias. Their opinions outweighed that of Edmund Waller, who had been at Cambridge with Milton: “The old blind schoolmaster hath published a tedious poem on the Fall of Man. If its length be not considered as merit, it hath no other.” In the reign of Charles II Milton was also regarded as the leading authority on Divorce, and consulted by great personages in the matter of the Lord Roos Divorce Bill, which the King personally helped through Parliament because he wanted to divorce his Queen, who was barren.
Milton left a nuncupative will, in which he said:
“The portion due to me from Mr. Powell, my former wife’s father, I leave to the unkind children I had by her, having received no part of it; but my meaning is, they shall have no other benefit of my estate than the said portion and what I have besides done for them, they having been very undutiful to me. All the rest of my estate I leave to disposal of Elizabeth, my wife.”
This will was rejected by the Prerogative Court of Canterbury when the daughters brought a suit against the widow, and they were awarded one-third of the estate to be divided among them, the widow getting the remaining two-thirds; it was clear to the Court that the marriage portion was a hopeless debt. During this suit, Elizabeth Fisher, a maid, testified that when she told Mary Milton (the daughter who so closely resembled her mother) that Milton was to be married again, she replied “that that was no news, to hear of his wedding, but if she could hear of his death, that was something.” It also appeared in evidence that to keep themselves in pocket-money the girls had secretly sold books from Milton’s library to the ragman who called at the door.
The widow, who had beautiful golden hair and had been twenty-four when she married Milton in 1663, paid off the daughters cheaply at £100 each. This bought Ann (the deformed one) a husband, a “master builder”; but she died soon after in childbirth. Deborah had already married Abraham Clarke, a silk weaver of Dublin: she had children and grand-children who emigrated to Madras, where Milton’s line seems to have petered out. Mary did not marry, and was dead by 1682, when her grandmother, Ann Powell, died, worth £343, leaving £10 each to Deborah and Ann. Marie’s sisters had all married. Mrs Powell left £50 each to:
Anne Kinaston, wife of Thomas Kinaston of London, merchant.
Sarah [Zara] Pearson, wife of Richard Pearson, gent.
Elizabeth [Bess] Howell, wife of Thomas Howell, gent.
Elizabeth [Betty] Holloway, wife of Christmas Holloway, gent.
But there is no bequest to any of the brothers except Richard, which was an annulment of a £180 debt he owed her, and it may be supposed that the rest were dead, some perhaps killed in the Commonwealth wars, some swept away by the Great Plague of 1665. Richard was a successful lawyer, one of the Readers of the Inner Temple, and at the Restoration managed to secure a new probate of his father’s will and recover the Forest Hill Manor-house and land from the Pyes. The house was pulled down about 1850. But St. Nicholas’s Church still stands and has not been wholly ruined by Victorian church-restorers.
Lady Cary Gardiner made a happy second marriage with one John Stewkely; she outlived her contemporary, Marie, by fifty-two years, dying at Islington in 1704, much mourned. Robert Pory was one of the Prebendaries of St. Paul’s in the year of the Restoration. Christopher Milton turned Roman Catholic, was knighted in 1686, and became Chief Justice of the Common Pleas: his line is long extinct. The Rev. Luke Proctor appears to have continued as curate of Forest Hill until 1663, when he was succeeded by a man named Foster.
The double-dealing of Richard Powell, Senior, came out a few years after Marie’s death, in a case heard at Oxford in the Chancellor’s Court. All Souls College were the defendants, charged with allowing the Wheatley lands, which they had leased to Richard Powell, to be deceitfully mortgaged to Sir Edward Powell after they had already been mortgaged to Messrs. Bateman and Hearn. The decision absolved All Souls and incriminated:
“Richard Powell the lessee, who wittingly deceived himself that he might cozen20 Sir Edward Powell…. Now deceit is a crime and a body without a soul (although it be All Souls) cannot be guilty of a crime, and so not be charged to pay damage or any way punishable for a crime. And therefore if any suit would have lien it must have been against some natural persons of that body; but to charge them as a body politic, there is no colour.”
Appendix
I
THE SEQUESTRATION OF THE GOODS OF RICHARD POWELL, ESQUIRE, AT FOREST HILL (JUNE 16TH, 1646)
RICHARD POWELL
A copy of the Inventory, with the prices of the goods as they were appraysed the 16 of June, 1646.
In a trunke of linen, as followeth:
1 paire of sheetes, 5 napkins, 6 yards of broad tiffany, 3 paire of pillow beares, 1 hand towell, 1 hollan cubboard cloth, 1 remnant of new hollan
£0
16
0
In the backside:
240 pieces of tymber, 200 loades of fire-wood, 4 carts, 1 wane, 2 old coaches, 1 mare colt, 3 sowes, 1 boare, 2 ewes, 3 parcells of boards
156
12
2
In the wooll-house, hoppes at
2
0
0
In the common, 100 butts at
60
0
0
One bull
1
10
0
Mr. Eldridge hath in his hand as much tymber as he was to give Mr. Powell for it
100
0
0
At Lusher’s farme, the piece of corne in the great field at
42
0
0
The broad meddow eaten up by the souldiers
not praysed.
One greate ground eaten upp
One ground called Pilfrance, at
10
0
0
More, 1 piece of wheate
6
13
4
Mr. Powell hath at Forrest Hill 16 yard land which was usually sett at £8 or £9 yeare, and the tith of all the field
not praysed.
Mr. Powell hath at Wheatley 1 house and 3 yard land free land and 3 yard land and halfe upon lease
£477
0
0
Wee have in money
£23
0
0
32 pieces of silver, 2 little silver spoones, 1 broken silver spoone, 1 clock bell, at
2
0
0
15 quarters of mastline at
14
0
0
5 quarters of malt
5
0
0
6 bushells of wheate
1
2
0
In the studdy or boyes chamber which should have followed next after the little chamber over the pantry:
1
bedstedd with greene curtaines and vallons laced, 1 feather bedd, 1 feather bolster, 1 paire of blanketts, 1 yellow coverlid, 1 old horseman’s coate with silver buttons, 1 great chaire, 1 great chest, 2 court cub-boards, 1 standing presse with drawers
2 13 0
Sold unto Mr. Matthew Appletree all the goods in this inventory appraysed, that is to say the household goods:
£
s.
d.
In the hall
1
4
0
In the great parlour
7
0
0
In the little parlour
3
0
0
In the kitchen
1
4
0
In the pastry
1
10
0
In the pantry
0
10
0
In the bakehouse
3
6
0
In the brewhouse
3
6
0
In the upper daryhouse
1
12
0
In the seller
1
15
0
In the stilling roome
1
1
0
In the cheese-presse house
0
12
6
In the matted chamber
4
16
0
In the chamber over the hall
2
18
0
In the chamber over the little parlour
3
15
0
In the two little chambers over the kitchin
1
0
0
In the servants’ chamber
2
0
0
In the little chamber over the pantry
3
3
0
In the studdy or boyes chamber
2
13
0
In Mrs. Powell’s chamber
8
4
0
In Mrs. Powell’s closet
2
9
6
In the roome next the closet
1
10
0
In the roome over the washhouse
7
9
0
In Mr. Powell’s study
1
14
0
In the same roome more linen
0
16
0
Malt, mastlin, wheate, a clocke and bell
22
2
0
In the backside: 4 hogges, 2 ewes, 1 mare and fold, 3 parcells of board, 240 pieces of tymber, 200 load or thereabouts of firewood, 1 wayne, 4 carts, 2 coaches
156
12
2
Wood lying in the common, 100 butts
60
0
0
In the wool house, hoppes
2
0
0
A bull
1
10
0
£310
12
2
Sold these goods, the 16 of June, 1646, by us whose names are under written, for the sume of three hundred thirty and five pounds, unto the abovesaid Mr. Appletree, and paid the same time to John King, in part of payment, the sume of twenty shillings, and the rest to bee paid at the delivery.
JOHN WEBB, RICHARD VIVERS, JOHN KING.
Witnesse [then follow the marks of witnesses who could not sign their names].
27 Feb. 1650–1
Vera copia ext, T. PAUNCEFOTE, Regr.
I make oath this as a true copie, T. PAUNCEFOTE, R.M.
[Side Note].
In the first Cart.
1 Arras worke chayre.
1 Tapestry carpett.
6 Thrum chayres
1 Wrought carpett
6 Wrought stooles
1 Carpett green with fringe.
2 Old greene carpetts
3 Window curtaines.
II
RICHARD POWELL’S COMPOSITION PAPERS AT GOLDSMITHS’ HALL, 21 NOVEMBER 1646
A Particular of the reall and personall Estate of Richard Powell, of Forrest Hill
He is seised of an estate in fee of tythes of Whatley, in the parish of Cudsden, and three yard lands and a halfe there, together with certayne cottages, worth before these times
£40
0
0
This is mortgaged to Mr. Ashworth for ninetye-nine years for a security of four hundred pounds, as appeares by deed bearing the 10th of Jann. in the 7th of King Charles.
A demyse of 99 years defeated by a paymente of £400, the 30 of Jan. 1642; arrears unpaid.
His personall estate, in corne and household-stuffe, amounts too
500
0
0
In timber and wood
400
0
0
In debts upon specialityes and otherwise owing to him
100
0
0
He oweth upon a statute to John Mylton
300
0
0
He is indebted more before these times by specialityes and otherwise to severall persons, as appears by affidavit
1,200
0
0
He lost by reason of these warres three thousand powndes.
This is a true particular of the reall and personall estate that he doth desire to compound for with this honorable Committee, wherein he doth sub-mitt himselfe to such fine as they shall impose according to the Articles of Oxford, wherein he is comprized.
RICHARD POWELL.
Recd. 21 November, 1646.
4 Dec. 1646
These are to certifie, that Richard Powell of Forrest Hill, in the county of Oxford, Esquire, did freely and fully take the Nationall Covenant, and subscribe the same, uppon the fourth, day of December 1646, the sayd covenant being administered unto him according to order, by me,
WILLIAM BARTON,
Minister of John Zecharies, London.
Probat. est.
[Dorso,]—Richard Powell, of Forrest Hill in the county of Oxford, Esq. took the oath this 4th of December, 1646.
THO. VINCENT.
8 Dec. 1646.
Richard Powell, of Forrest Hill, in the County of Oxford, Esq.
His delinquency, that he deserted his dwellinge and went to Oxford, and lived there whiles it was a garrison holden for the Kinge against the Parliamente, and was there at the tyme of the surrender, and to have the benefit of those Articles, as by Sir Thos. Fairfax’s certificate of the 20 of June, 1646, doth appeare.
He hath taken the National Covenant before William Barton, minister of John Zacharies, the 4th of December, 1646, and the Negative Oath heere the same daye.
He compounds upon a Perticuler delivered in, under his hand, by which he doth submit too such fine, &c., and by which it doth appeare:
That he is seized in fee to him and his heirs in possession of and in the tythes of Whatley, in the parish of Cudsden, and other lands and tenements there of the yeerely value before theis troubles, £40.
That he is owner and possessed of a personall estate in goods, and there was oweinge unto him in good debts, in all amountinge unto £600; and there is £400 more in tymber, which is alledged to be questionable.
That he is endebted by statutes and bonds £1,500. He hath lost by reason of theis warrs £3,000.
He craves to be allowed £400 which, by a demise and lease, dated the 30th of January, 1642, of the lands and tenements aforesaid, is secured to be pai
d unto one Thomas Ashworth, gentleman, and is deposed to be still oweinge.
Fine at 2 yeeres value, £180.
[Signed] D. WATKINS,
JEROM ALEXANDER.
III
MILTON’S PETITION TO THE COMMISSIONERS FOR SEQUESTRATION AT HABERDASHERS’ HALL
Wife to Mr. Milton Page 46