44:. Sometime between 1642 and 1645, Milton met and attempted to pursue another woman known only as Miss Davis. During his involvement with her, he attempted to convince her that his marriage should have resulted in a divorce and that it would be appropriate for her to marry him although he was already legally married; this resulted in failure. However, this did not dissuade his campaign to reform the divorce laws, and he continued to pursue the topic until his wife returned to him. This reconciliation could have come in part from the failure of the royalists, including Powell's family, to prevail during the English Civil War and the lack of justification to further distance themselves from Milton.
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Heretic". However, this view was challenged a decade later by George
Williamson, who believed that, in terms of philosophy and not theology or politics, Milton and Hobbes held similar beliefs. These views became two extremes of a debate on the relationship between the two, and Nathaniel Henry, to try to find a compromise between both sides, argued that both were wrong because "Hobbes was no atheist" and that "Milton and Hobbes were in reality somewhat opposed in their views".
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like his first wife, Woodcock died from complications experienced while giving birth. By this time, Milton had fully succumbed to blindness and had to raise his three daughters. This put significant strain on Milton, and matters were only complicated further when Oliver
Cromwell died in 1658 and the Commonwealth fell apart.
33:
from Milton, it is possible that Powell's family, a strong royalist family, caused a political difference that was exacerbated by the
English Civil War. Regardless of her reason, the action motivated Milton towards researching and eventually writing on the topic. During his research, he read a work of
52:
Milton and Powell's marriage lasted until 1652; Powell died while giving birth to
Deborah, the couple's third daughter. Her death was followed by the death of John, their infant and only son. Milton married Katherine Woodcock in 1656. This marriage was far more successful than Milton's previous, but,
56:
Milton was married for a third time on 24 February 1662, this time to
Elizabeth Mynshull (1638-1728). There was a 31-year age-gap between them, but in spite of this Milton's marriage to her seems to have been incredibly happy. Indeed, Elizabeth was described as Milton's "Third and best wife," though
190:
The two were also opposed in their views on how best to prevent
Catholicism to enter into England. Milton believed that the only way to stop Catholicism was to remove all centralised government and liturgical practices and, according to Timothy Rosendale, "he flatly denounces the liturgy as 'evil'"
32:
Milton married Mary Powell in May 1642, and, shortly after, she left him and returned to live with her mother. He wanted to divorce her to marry another, but the legal statutes of
England did not allow for Milton to apply for a divorce. Although it is impossible to know why exactly Powell separated
102:
for a position with the
Commonwealth's Council of State as his assistant after his previous assistant died. It is uncertain when the two first met, but Marvell knew Milton's works and included similar themes within his own poetry a few years prior. Milton liked Marvell, and in his recommendation
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a man whom both by report, & converse I have had with him, of singular desert for the state to make us of; who also offers himselfe, if there by any imployment for him... if upon the death of Mr. Wakerly the
Councell shall think that I shall need any assistant in the performance of my place
166:
This does not stop scholars from wanting to compare these two contemporaries together, especially with their conflicting ideas on politics. To
Marjorie Nicolson, Milton spent his life combating and counteracting the philosophy of Hobbes, an individual that he believed was "The Atheist and Arch
110:(though for my part I find noe encumberances of that which belongs to me, except it be in point of attendance at Conferences with Ambassadors, which I much confesse, in my Condition I am not fit for) it would be hard for them to find a Man soe fit every way for the purpose as this Gentleman
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and as a "popish relic". Hobbes argued that this decentralisation could not have this effect because, as Patricia Springborg points out, the "national religions of the Reformed Church still retained theological doctrines which could give Roman Catholicism a foot-hold in the realm".
170:
Henry argued that the only way to determine an intellectual relationship between the two men was to analyse how their philosophical views, and, particularly, "Milton's views on the soul must be considered from a wider point of view". The view that Milton held of the soul was the
163:: "His widow assures me that Mr. T. Hobbes was not one of his acquaintances, that her husband did not like him at all, but he would acknowledge him to be a man of great parts, and a learned man. There interests and tenets did run counter to each other".
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Until his marriage, Milton was involved in only one close relationship: his friendship with Charles Diodati (1608?–1638). They were schoolboys together at St Paul's School and kept up a correspondence. This exchange prompted Milton's Elegy 1.
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82:. Diodati's father Theodore was a court and fashionable Swiss-Italian physician in England, with a practice in London; he himself became a physician after studying at Oxford, in
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in his friend's memory, and included a headnote saying that they "had pursued the same studies" and that they were the "most intimate friends from childhood on".
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120:, a diplomat, assistant to Milton. By September 1657, Marvell was finally allowed to be Milton's assistant, and the two become close. During this time,
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187:, which "was a tract against the 'Anabaptist' doctrine of the sleep of the soul between death and resurrection, separating the two further.
128:, it was "A remarkable happenstance, that the three best poets of the age should be together at the same time in Cromwell's bureaucracy!"
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some argued that she cheated his children and heirs out of their money upon his death. After Milton's death, Mynshull never remarried.
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discussing divorce, which encouraged him to take up the arguments and pursue a reform of the English divorce laws.
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Paget was a physician, on friendly terms with Milton from around 1651, and a cousin of his third wife Elizabeth.
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was involved in many relationships, romantic and not, that impacted his various works and writings.
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There is little known about a direct relationship, if there was any, between Milton and
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Henry, Nathaniel. "Milton and Hobbes: Mortalism and the Intermediate State,"
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Garrison, John. “Plurality and Amicitia in Milton’s Epitaphium Damonis,”
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and then in London. When Diodati died, Milton composed an elegy entitled
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Rosendale, Timothy. "Milton, Hobbes, and the Liturgical Subject"
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Vol IV Ed. Don Wolfe. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1962.
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Kerrigan, William; Rumrich, John; and Fallon, Stephen (eds.)
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The Council did not accept Marvell, and they instead made
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Williamson, George. "Milton and the Mortalist Heresy,"
493:. Ed. Thomas Corns. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2003.
486:. Ed. Thomas Corns. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2003.
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Patterson, Annabel. "Milton, Marriage and Divorce" in
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The Complete Poetry and Essential Prose of John Milton
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489:Rumrich, John. "Radical Heterodoxy and Heresy" in
124:was employed in the same office and, according to
179:. Hobbes, according to Henry, was a follower of
503:Springborg, Patricia. "Hobbes, Heresy, and the
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475:Nicolson, Marjorie Hope. "Milton and Hobbes,"
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768:Judgement of Martin Bucer Concerning Divorce
307:. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.
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159:except for one passage from John Aubrey's
98:On 21 February 1653, Milton recommended
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889:Methought I Saw my Late Espoused Saint
458:. Oxford: Blackwells Publishers, 2003.
161:Minutes of the Life of Mr. John Milton
875:When I Consider How My Light is Spent
449:. New York: The Modern Library, 2007.
7:
511:, Vol. 55 No. 4 (Oct. 1994): 553–571
463:John Milton among the Polygamophiles
801:The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates
626:On the Morning of Christ's Nativity
470:Complete Prose Works of John Milton
465:. New York: Loewenthal Press, 1974.
763:Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce
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40:Milton began writing a series of
882:On the Late Massacre in Piedmont
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500:1500–1900. Vol. 44 No. 1 (2004).
304:Dictionary of National Biography
740:The Reason of Church-Government
509:Journal of the History of Ideas
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811:Defensio pro Populo Anglicano
435:46.3 (October 2012): 154-173.
940:Milton: A Poem in Two Books
371:Williamson 1935 pp. 553–579
353:qtd in Kerrigan 2007 p. xxx
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442:, Vol. 48 (1951): 234–249.
215:Patterson 2003 pp. 279–281
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74:Diodati was the nephew of
821:A Treatise of Civil Power
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362:Nicolson 1926 pp. 405–433
317:Lewalski 2003 pp. 292–293
286:qtd in Lewalski 2003 p. 9
262:"Milton: Elegy 1 - Notes"
929:Edward Phillips (nephew)
730:Of Prelatical Episcopacy
298:"Diodati, Charles"
745:Apology for Smectymnuus
479:, XXII (1935): 553–579.
456:The Life of John Milton
947:Neo-Miltonic syllabics
934:John Phillips (nephew)
907:De Doctrina Christiana
850:The History of Britain
826:The Ready and Easy Way
518:, XXII (1935): 553–579
505:Historia Ecclesiastica
419:Springborg 1994 p. 555
326:Milton 1962 p. 859–860
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717:Antiprelatical tracts
633:Upon the Circumcision
491:A Companion to Milton
484:A Companion to Milton
410:Rosendale 2004 p. 152
233:Patterson 2003 p. 282
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103:describes Marvell as
924:John Milton (father)
453:Lewalski, Barbara K.
344:Lewalski 2003 p. 344
335:Lewalski 2003 p. 293
251:Rumrich 2003 p. 145
242:Rumrich 2003 p. 154
224:Miller 1974 pp. 3–4
88:Epitaphium Damonis
867:Individual sonnets
268:on 15 October 2008
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433:Milton Quarterly
401:Henry 1951 p. 232
392:Henry 1951 p. 249
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48:Later wives
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17:John Milton
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173:Anabaptist
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577:Religion
175:idea of
146:Literary
23:Marriage
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661:Lycidas
647:Arcades
84:Chester
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560:Topics
272:12 May
705:Poems
654:Comus
618:Poems
195:Notes
80:Lucca
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274:2009
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