“Teach the Erring Soul” 1669–1674leave his entire estate to her. His maidservant, Elizabeth Fisher, reported an episode
in July when he was having a bad fit of the gout: after Elizabeth had cooked some-
thing for dinner that he especially enjoyed he commented, “God have mercy Betty,
I see thou wilt p[er]forme according to thy promise in providing mee such Dyshes
as I think fitt whilst I live, and when I dye thou knowest that I have left thee all.”^149
He was still resolved to do nothing further for his daughters beyond the provisions
he had already made. About July 20, Milton’s lawyer brother Christopher paid his
customary visit at the end of the court term before going down to the country for
his vacation. Milton was “not well” and, Christopher later deposed, he “spoke
what should be his will” if he should die before his brother returned at the next law
term:
Brother the porcion due to me from mr. Powell, my former wives father, I leave to
the unkind children I had by her but I have receaved noe part of it and my will and
meaning is they shall have noe other benefit of my estate then the said porcion and
what I have beside don for them, they haveing ben very undutiful to me. and all the
residue of my estate I leave to the disposall of Elizabeth my loveing wife.^150Christopher testified further that Milton was at that time “ill of the goute,” and that
he had declared “in a very calme manner... without passion, that his children had
been unkind to him, but that his wife had been very kind and careful of him...
[and that] in former tymes he hath herd him complaine, that they were careless of
him being blind, and made nothing of deserteing him.”^151
It seems strange that Christopher, a lawyer, did not draw the will up in form for
his brother to sign, but his testimony suggests that Milton expected him to return
with it next term; Milton’s death intervened and threw the matter into the courts.^152
Like many people, Milton thought he would have more time than he did have to
put his affairs in order. Leaving his daughters the Powell debt seems like an empty
gesture or even, as Christopher reports it, a calculated slight, but it may not have
been so intended. The Powells had regained their property, the debt was a good
one, and Milton and his brother may have thought that this was a way to force its
payment. The maidservant Elizabeth Fisher gained that impression, testifying that
she often heard Milton say,
that he had made provision for his Children in his life time and had spent the greatest
part of his estate in provideing for them and that hee was resolved hee would doe noe
more for them liveing or dyeing, for that little p[ar]te which hee had left hee had
given it to his wife... And likewise told this Deponent [Elizabeth Fisher] that there
was a thousand pounds left in Mr. Powells hands to be disposed amongst his Children
hereafter... hee was at that time very merry and not in any passion or angry humor
neither at that time spoke any thing against any of his children.... [She] believeth
that what is left the deceased’s children in the will nuncupative... is a good debt; for
that the said Mr. Powell is reputed a rich man.^153