“For the Sake of Liberty” 1652–1654by stages also took over some of Weckherlin’s responsibilities in regard to foreign
affairs and diplomatic conferences.^4 These arrangements were evidently satisfactory,
and Milton was reappointed on December 1, 1652, to “bee continued in the Em-
ployment hee had the last Yeare & have the same allowance for it” (LR III, 283).
In the spring of 1652 Milton received another severe blow. His family Bible
carries this cryptic record: “My daughter Deborah was born the 2d of May, being
Sunday somwhat before 3 of the clock in the morning 1652. my wife hir mother
dyed about 3. days after.”^5 Though this marriage was not the ideal union of minds
Milton had hoped for, the loss of Mary following so soon upon the total loss of his
vision surely made his daily life more lonely and more difficult. He was left with
four very young children: Anne (nearly six), Mary (four), John (fifteen months),
and the new infant Deborah. He would have had to make arrangements immedi-
ately for the older children; Deborah would have been with a wet-nurse, and so,
probably, was John. Milton’s Bible entry continues with notice of another tragedy:
“And my son [died] about 6. weeks after his mother” (LR III, 228) – that is, on or
around June 16.^6 The vague dating suggests that Milton did not know or did not
remember when the entry was made some years later, the exact time and circum-
stances of his son’s death, perhaps because John was still with his nurse. Edward
Phillips speculated that the child’s death might have been due to “the ill-usage, or
bad Constitution of an ill-chosen Nurse” (EL 71). There are no records of Deborah’s
baptism or of Mary’s and young John’s death and burial either in Milton’s local
parish, St Margaret, Westminster, or in his former parish, St Giles, Cripplegate.
Milton, a fierce opponent of the parish system, may have been associated with a
congregation whose theology and services were more to his liking but whose records,
like those of many City of London churches, were destroyed in the Great Fire.
Milton surely felt keenly the loss of his only son. He alludes briefly but revealingly
in the Pro Se Defensio (1655) to the difficulties of these months: “At that time
especially, infirm health, distress over two deaths in my family, and the complete
failure of my sight beset me with troubles” (CPW IV.2, 703).
From early 1652 until Cromwell dissolved the Rump Parliament on April 20,
1653, Milton worked on diplomatic correspondence and treaty negotiations with
several nations. His first important duties involved negotiations between England
and the United Provinces. On February 11 the Dutch ambassadors to London sub-
mitted a treaty of 36 articles based on the “Intercursus Magnus” that Milton had
translated for negotiations in The Hague the previous year.^7 The council produced
a “rebuttal” version of all these articles, sending it to Milton on March 8 and 9 to
render into Latin; it refused the Dutch request to void the Navigation Act or to
concede certain rights concerning fishing and trading in the New World.^8 On March
15 that document was sent to the ambassadors along with a “Paper of Demands,”
which required that the Dutch pay over £1.5 million as reparations for incidents
stretching back to 1618: English ships captured or sunk, and English sailors and
merchants killed or abused. Milton was apparently responsible for translating these