“Domestic or Personal Liberty” 1642–1645tion to her husband probably led him to suppose that, once married, Mary would
be eager to share his interests and conform herself to his ways. Richard Powell,
whose numerous family included five daughters to find marriage portions for, was
no doubt eager to encourage a prospective son-in-law who might afford him some
needed forbearance in financial matters. Their political differences – the Powells
were royalists and Milton a staunch parliamentarian – would not have seemed in-
surmountable in mid-summer, 1642. Negotiations were in hand between the king
and parliament and most Englishmen thought that if war broke out it would be
soon over. Powell paid the interest he owed Milton and promised him a dowry of
£1,000 with Mary, which was never paid.
Why did Mary return home for a visit so soon after the marriage? Phillips’s
explanation, 52 years later, suggests that, after the excitement of the wedding fes-
tivities wore off, the young bride was lonely in Milton’s sober household, missing
her large family and accustomed social activities.^9 If there were other problems –
temperamental, sexual, political – the young Phillips missed them or refrained from
discussing them. But his rather circumstantial narrative is the only first-hand ac-
count we have:
Michaelmas being come, 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 dispatch’d down a Foot-Messenger with a Letter, desiring her return;
but that 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 ingaged in the King’s Service, who by this
time had his Head Quarters 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, when ever that Court should come to Flourish again. (EL 64–5)The Powells would likely have sent Mary home to her husband soon had not
political circumstances dictated otherwise, once war had begun and the king’s party
at first had the better of it. Mary was evidently quite willing to stay, especially after
the king’s army and court (with its attendant society) took up quarters in Oxford in
late October. On January 16, 1643, traffic with Oxford was prohibited and Milton
could no longer write or send messengers. Deeply disappointed by his brief experi-
ence with an incompatible wife, he had now to deal with the disgrace and sexual
frustration of being a deserted husband.
One of parliament’s first acts after hostilities began on August 22, 1642 was to
abolish public sports and stage plays, as unsuited to the calamitous times, “being
Spectacles of Pleasure, too commonly expressing lascivious Mirth and levity.”^10 In
the early skirmishes the king’s forces, led by Prince Rupert and other commanders