A Cyclopaedia of Female Biography/Milton, Mary
MILTON, MARY,
The first wife of the poet Milton, was the eldest daughter of Richard Powell, Esq., a magistrate of Oxfordshire. In 1643, at a very early age, she became the wife of John Milton, a connexion, for many reasons, very unsuitable. Mr. Powell was a zealous royalist, who practised the jovial hospitality of the country gentleman of that period; and the transition from the unrestrained freedom of such a home, to the sombre restraint of Milton's dull residence, in a close and confined street of London—a constraint no doubt increased by his naturally reserved and abstracted nature, and the puritanic influences which surrounded him—so wearied the young creature, that she sought an invitation from her father, and in less than a month from her marriage, returned home on a visit. Here, as the summer passed on, she received repeated messages and letters from her husband, summoning her home, all of which were disregarded. Milton, incensed at her disobedience, viewed her conduct as a deliberate desertion, which broke the marriage contract, and determined to punish it by repudiation. This matrimonial disagreement gave rise to his treatises on the "Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce;" the "Judgment of Martin Bucer concerning Divorce;" and "Tetrachordon, or Expositions upon four chief Places of Scripture which treat of Marriage." Convinced by his own arguments, Milton began to pay his addresses to a lady of great accomplishments, which alarmed the parents of his wife, and, no doubt, awoke her to a sense of the impropriety of her conduct. While on a visit to a neighbour and kinsman, he was surprised by the sudden entrance of his wife, who threw herself at his feet, and expressed her penitence. After a short struggle of resentment, he again received her, and sealed the reconciliation by opening his house to her father and brothers, who had been driven from their home by the triumph of the republican arms.
Mrs. Milton died young, leaving three daughters, who severally filled the office of amanuensis and reader to their father, in his darkened old age.