Notes to Chapter 1sought justice for an English captain being defrauded of his ship and goods in a Livorno
court; another (August, 1658) to the King of Portugal asks the appointment of a con-
servator to aid an English merchant captured by pirates whose goods are being unjustly
withheld by the Portuguese (CPW V.2, 818, 821–2, 848–9).
130 The letter to Mazarin also thanks him for sending his own nephew with the French
embassy and praises the “supreme courage and prudence, for which you are so re-
nowned” as a model for all would-be governors of nations (842–3).
131 CPW V.2, 838–9. Fallon, Milton in Government, 171, argues that Milton may well have
written more letters to and about Sweden and the Protestant League in these months,
as well as, perhaps, preparing the diplomatic packets for Jephson and Meadows.
132 LR IV, 200–11. The documents were signed on Milton’s behalf and also witnessed by
Jeremy Picard, who was then acting as Milton’s amanuensis; another witness was Eliza-
beth Woodcock, Milton’s mother-in-law. See James Holly Hanford, “Rosenbach
Milton Documents,” PMLA 38 (1923), 290–6. Masson calculates that before 1660
Milton had about £4,000 variously invested. He had income from rentals of about
£150 a year, from Maundy £30, and his salary of £200 from the secretaryship (Masson,
VI, 444–5).
133 LR IV, 215. Thomas Birch reports this correction from Mrs Elizabeth Foster, Milton’s
granddaughter. Cf John Ward (BL Add Ms 4320, 232).
134 Memorials of St. Margaret’s Church, Westminster: The Parish Registers, 1539–1660, ed. A.
M. Burke (London, 1914), 651.
135 Milton’s Bible, BL Add Ms 32,360. The entry is in the hand of Jeremy Picard. The
Parish Registers of St Margarets, 651, report the burial March 20 of “Mrs Katherin
Milton, ch[ild].”
136 The counterargument, put by Parker (II, 1,945) and others, rests on the assumption
that lines 5–6 refer to a wife who died in childbirth, as Mary Powell did and Katherine
(literally) did not. But in fact the lines are an elaborate comparison, and do not ascribe
her death to childbirth: the dream–vision appeared “like” Alcestis, and “as” one puri-
fied in the Old Law from childbed taint. If that last comparison has any literal force it
could only refer to Katherine, for whom the requisite 66 days for such purification had
elapsed; Mary died three days after giving birth. Moreover, the whole sonnet describes
an image with veiled face, who will only be seen in “full sight” in heaven, in refer-
ence, it seems, to the wife never seen physically. The fact that the sonnet was entered
into TM by Jeremy Picard, Milton’s amanuensis at this time, further reinforces the
case for Katherine. Moreover, nothing suggests that Milton thought of Mary Powell
in such tender terms as these, and his nuncupative will reinforces that fact (see chapter
14, pp. 537–8). See Anthony Low, “Milton’s Last Sonnet,” MQ 9 (1975), 80–2, for a
convincing restatement of the case for Katherine. I cite the version of the sonnet in
TM.
137 Bodin’s Colloquium Heptaplomeres was first published in part in 1841 and then in a
complete edition (Schwerin, 1857). Hartlib’s comment is from a letter to Robert
Boyle in Boyle’s Works, 6 vols (London, 1772), VI, 100. See LR IV, 371–4 and Louis
Bredvold, “Milton and Bodin’s Heptaplomeres,” Studies in Philology 21 (1924), 399–
- Sometime in 1662 Milton sent his copy to an unidentified friend in Germany.
See chapter 12, p. 406.
138 [T. B.], The Cabinet-Council: Containing the Cheif Arts of Empire, and Mysteries of State;
Notes to Chapter 10