I.

The Allegation propounding the Will, on which Allegation the Witnesses be examined.

Negotium Testamentarium, sive probacionis Testamenti nuncupativi, sive ultimæ Voluntatis, JOHANNIS MILTON, nuper dum vixit parochiæ S. Egidii Cripplegate London generosi, defuncti, habent, &c. promotum per Elizabetham MILTON' Relictam, et Legatariam principalem nominatam in Testamento nuncupativo, sive ultima Voluntate, dicti defuncti, contra Mariam, Annam, et Deboram MILTON, filias dicti defuncti.

THOMPSON. CLEMENTS.

Secundo Andreæ, A. D. 1674. Quo die. . . . Thompson, nomine, procuratione, ac ultimus procurator legitimus, dictæ Elizabethæ MILTON, omnibus melioribus et effectualioribus

Deborah, and Anne Milton, daughters of the poet's first wife Mary, daughter of Mr. Richard Powell, of Forresthill in Oxfordshire. The cause came to a regular sentence, which was given against the Will; and the widow, Elizabeth, was ordered to take Administration instead of a Probate. I must add here, that this cause, the subject of which needed no additional lustre from great names, was tried by that upright and able statesman, Sir Leoline Jenkins, Judge of the Prerogative Court, and Secretary of State; and that the depositions were taken in part before Dr. Trumbull, afterwards Sir William Trumbull, Secretary of State, and the celebrated friend of Pope. As a circumstantial and authentic history of this process, the following instruments, which were otherwise thought too curious to be suppressed, are subjoined.

Viz. Christopher Milton, and John Milton's two servant-maids Elizabeth and Mary Fisher. Witnesses on the part of the widow.

a

This was his third wife, Elizabeth Minshull, of a gentleman's family in Cheshire. The elder Richardson insinuates, that this lady, being no poet or philosopher like her husband, used frequently to teaze him for his carelessness or ignorance about money-matters, and that she was termagant. From these papers, however, it appears, that she consulted her husband's humours, and treated his infirmities with tenderness. After his death in 1674, she retired to Namptwich in Cheshire, where she died about 1729. Mr. Penant says, her father, Mr. Minshull, lived at Stoke in that neighbourhood. W. Tour, and Gough's Camden, Cheshire, p. 436.

[efficacioribus] via, modo, et meliori forma, necnon ad omnem juris effectum, exhibuit Testamentum nuncupativum dicti JOHANNIS MILTON defuncti, sic incipiens, " MEMORANDUM, "that JOHN MILTON, late of the parish of S. Giles, Cripplegate, &c." Which words, or words to the same effect, were spoken in the presence of Christopher MILTON, and Elizabeth Fisher; et allegavit consimiliter, et dicens prout sequitur. I. Quod præfatus JOHANNES MILTON, dum vixit, mentis compos, ac in sua sana memoria existens, Testamentum suum nuncupativum modo in hoc negotio exhibitum . . . tenoris schedulæ ... testamentariæ condidit, nuncupavit, et declaravit; cæteraque omnia et singula dedit, donavit, reliquit, et disposuit, in omnibus, et per omnia, vel similiter in effectum, prout in dicto Testamento nuncupativo continetur, ac postea mortem obiit: ac Principalis Pars ista proponit conjunctim, divisim, et de quolibet. II. Item, quod tempore conditionis, declarationis, nuncupationis Testamenti, in hoc negotio exhibiti, præfatus JOHANNES MILTON perfecta fruebatur memoria; ac proponit ut supra.

II.

Interrogatories addressed to the Witnesses examined upon the Allegation.

Decemb. 5, 1674. Interrogatoria ministrata et ministranda ex parte Annæ Mariæ et Deboræ MILTON, testibus ex parte Elizabethæ MILTON productis sive producendis sequuntur.

Imprimis, Aɛke each witnesse, what relation to, or depend ance on, the producent, they, or either of them, have; and to which of the parties they would give the victory were it in their power? Et interrogatur quilibit testis conjunctim, et divisim, et de quolibet.

2. Item, Aske each witnesse, what day, and what time of the day, the Will nuncupative was declared; what positive

Registr. Cur. Prærog. Cant. ut supr.

words did the Deceased use in the declaring thereof? Can you positively sweare, that the deceased did declare that hee did leave the residue of his estate to the disposall of his wife, or did hee not say, "I will leave the residue of my estate to my "wife?" Et fiat ut supra.

3. Item, Upon what occasion did the Deceased declare the said Will? Was not the Deceased in perfect health at the same time? Doe you not think, that the Deceased, if he declared any such Will, declared it in a present passion, or some angry humour against some or one of his children by his former [first] wife? Et fiat ut supra.

4. Item, Aşke each witnesse, whether the parties ministrant were not and are not greate frequenters of the Church", and good livers; and what cause of displeasure had the Deceased against them? Et fiat ut supra.

5. Item, Aske Mr. [Christopher] MILTON, and each other witnesse, whether the Deceased's Will, if any such was made, was not, that the Deceased's wife should have £1000, and the children of the said Christopher MILTON the residue; and whether she hath not promised him that they should have it, if shee prevailed in this Cause? Whether the said Mr. MILTON hath not since the Deceased's death confessed soe much, or some part thereof? Et fiat ut supra.

6. Item, Aske each witnesse, whether what is left to the Ministrants by the said Will, is not reputed a very bad or altogether desperate debt'? Et fiat ut supra.

general and proper sense, which could not have offended Milton; but as arising from what went before, and meaning much the same thing, that is, regular in their attendance on the established worship.

Here seems to be an insinu is not to be understood in its ation, that our poet's displeasure against those three daughters, arose partly from their adherence to those principles, which, in preference to his own, they had received, or rather inherited, from their mother's family, who were noted and active royalists. Afterwards, the description good livers

That is, the marriage portion, promised, but never paid, to

7. Aske the said Mr. MILTON, whether he did not gett the said Will drawn upp, and inform the writer to what effect he should draw it? And did he not enquire of the other witnesses, what they would or could depose? And whether he hath not solicited this Cause, and payd fees to the Proctour about it? Et fiat ut supra.

8. Item, Aske each witnesse, what fortune the Deceased did in his life-time bestow on the Ministrants? And whether the said Anne MILTON is not lame, and almost helplesse*? Et fiat ut supra.

9. Item, Aske each witnesse, what value is the Deceased's estate of, as neare as they can guess? Et fiat ut supra'.

John Milton, by Mr. Richard Powell, the father of his first wife; and which the said John bequeathed to the daughters of that match, the ministrants, Anne, Mary, and Deborah.

They were married in 1643. I have now before me an original "Inventorie of the goods of Mr. "Richard Powell of Forresthill, "in the county of Oxon, taken "the 10th of June, A. D. 1646." This seems to have been taken in consequence of a seizure of Mr. Powell's house by the rebels. His distresses in the royal cause probably prevented the payment of his daughter's marriage portion. By the number, order, and furniture of the rooms, he appears to have lived as a country gentleman, in a very extensive and liberal style of house-keeping. This I mention to confirm what is said by Philips, that Mr. Powell's daughter abruptly left her husband within a month after their marriage, disgusted with

his spare diet and hard study, "after having been used at home "to a great house, and much "company and joviality, &c." I have also seen in Mr. Powell's house at Forresthill many papers, which shew the active part he took in favour of the Royalists. With some others relating to the Rangership of the Shotover forest, bearing his signature.

Mr. Mickle, the ingenious translator of the Lusiad, searched in vain for any of Milton's letters or papers at Forresthill. The Powells were sharers of Abbeyland in Oxfordshire. They were seated in the dissolved monastery of Sandford near Oxford; and one of them, in the reign of Elizabeth, built the gothic manerial stone-house, now standing at that village.

She was deformed, and had an impediment in her speech. Registr. Cur. Prærog. Cant. ut supr.

Depositions and cross-examinations of the said witnesses.

Elizabetha MILTON, Relicta et Legataria principalis JoHANNIS MILTON defuncti, contra Annam, Mariam, et Deboram MILTON, filias ejusdem defuncti. Super Allegatione articulata et Testamento nuncupativo JOHANNIS MILTON defuncti, ex parte Elizabethæ MILTON predictæ, in hoc negotio, secundo Andreæ, 1674, dato" et exhibitis.

Quinto Decembris 1674. Christopherus MILTON, villæ Gipwici in com. Suffolcia ortus infra parochiam Omnium Sanctorum Bredstreete, London, ætat. 58 annor. aut eo circiter, testis, &c. Ad omnes articulos dictæ Allegationis, et ad Testamentum nuncupativum JOHANNIS MILTON, generosi, defuncti, in hoc negotio dat. et exhibit. deponit et dicit, That on or about the twentieth day of July, 1674, the day certaine he now remembreth not, this Deponent being a practicer in the Law, and a Bencher in the Inner Temple, but living in vacations at Ipswich, did usually at the end of the Terme visit JOHN MILTON, his this Deponent's brother the Testator articulate, deceased, before his going home; and soe at the end of Midsummer Terme last past, he this deponent went to visit his said brother, and then found him in his chamber within his owne house, scituate on Bunhill" within the parish of S. Giles, Crepelgate, London: And at that tyme, he the said Testator, being not well, (and this Deponent being then goeing into the country,) in a serious manner, with an intent, (as he believes,) that what he then spoke should be his WILL, if he dyed before his this Deponent's comeing the next time to London, declared his Will in these very words as neare as this Deponent cann now call to mynd. Viz. "Brother, the porcion due to me from Mr. Powell, my former [first] wife's "father, I leave to the unkind children I had by her: but I

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Sic, ut et in infra, pro Millon. "Sometimes called the Artillery-walk, leading to Bunhill

fields. This was his last settled place of abode, and where he lived longest.