Notes to Chapter 1Rous,” and some entries in the Commonplace Book; very likely he did a good deal of
transcribing for Milton in 1652 and before, but Peter Beal finds the single known
sample of his hand insufficient to make comparisons and finds several hands in the texts
Shawcross ascribes to him. Unknown amanuenses transcribed other Commonplace
Book entries, personal letters, and some sonnets in TM, including those to Cromwell
and Vane.
2 In the Pro Se Defensio (CPW IV.2, 860). However, he indicates in the Defensio Secunda
that he attended some meetings with the various European ambassadors who descended
on England after Worcester: “Certainly other men in Parliament, and I myself in the
Council, have often heard their ambassadors and legates... asking of their own free
will for our friendship and alliance” (CPW IV.1, 652).
3 PRO, SP 25/66, p. 287. For example, Theodore Haak for Dutch and Weckherlin for
German.
4 Beginning in July, 1652, Thurloe was attending and preparing correspondence for the
Committee on Foreign Affairs; on December 1 the council appointed him “Clerk to
the Council and the Committee for Foreign Affairs.”
5 LR III, 220–1. Milton managed somehow to write the first two, possibly three, words
of the entry regarding Deborah’s birth himself; it was completed by another hand. The
lines about the deaths of Milton’s wife and his son John are in the hand of Jeremy
Picard; he began this entry with “Hir,” crossed it out and wrote “my wife hir mother.”
6 Picard seems to have added the note about the death of Mary and John in February,
1658, at the time he recorded the birth and death of Milton’s daughter Katherine and
the death of his second wife, Katherine Woodcock.
7 See chapter 8, p. 255.
8 Miller, Anglo-Dutch Negotiations, 31.
9 Miller, Anglo-Dutch Negotiations, 22–30, and pp. 112–53 for the documents. An earlier
version of the demands, drafted by Milton for the Hague negotiations the previous
year, was published in the 1676 Literae Pseudo-Senatus Anglicani, 70–4.
10 Miller, Anglo-Dutch Negotiations, 37–40 and (for the document) 180–4.
11 EL 79: “The Dutch sent away a Plenipotentiary, to offer Peace upon much milder terms,
or at least to gain more time. But... the Parliament had procured a Copy of their
Instructions in Holland, which were delivered by our Author to his Kinsman that was
then with him, to Translate for the Council to view, before the said Plenipotentiary had
taken Shipping for England; an Answer to all he had in Charge lay ready for him, before
he made his publick entry into London.”
12 A Declaration of the Parliament... Relating to the Affairs and Proceedings between this Com-
monwealth and the States General of the United Provinces (London, 1652).
13 A council order of July 13 directed “That Mr. Thurloe doe appoint fitt persons to
translate ye Parliaments Declaration into Latine ffrench and Dutch.” The Hanse ambas-
sador, Lieuwe van Aitzema, notes in his journal sometime after July 9/19, “The Decla-
ration enactment was set into French by Rosin, and into Latin by Milton”: Miller,
Anglo-Dutch Negotiations, 45. A council order of July 20 (LR III, 233) directing the
printer Dugard to “speake with Mr Milton Concerning the printing the Declaration”
indicates that Milton had primary responsibility for the Latin document, Scriptum
Parlamenti Reipublicae Angliae (London, 1652). Thomason’s date is August, but it was
probably ready by July 28, since it was included with a letter to the Grand Duke of
Notes to Chapter 9