Edward Jones
Because of his older sibling, a famous poet, Christopher Milton (1615–93) has received predictable but rarely positive attention. Over three decades ago, he was declared an unworthy research subject on the grounds of insufficient evidence (Patrick 1978, 6).1 And, among those who have written about him, it is hard to find a discussion of his life not concerned with his brother, even though in his later years Christopher was knighted and thereby surpassed John Milton in terms of social standing.2 As questionable as it may seem to build a case study around such a potentially unpromising subject, the following chapter will do just that. The aim is not to elevate the status of either man but to focus upon the manuscript records created by the parishes in which Christopher Milton lived and those produced by government officials using the parish as an organizing unit. Examining such materials reveals their ability to verify, correct, and distort discoveries about an early modern parishioner. Moreover, because his professional life and political allegiances required Christopher Milton to live away from his family for extended periods of time, his case proves especially challenging. For months at a time, his whereabouts and activities remain uncertain, defy efforts of discovery, and explicitly challenge the view that parish records can answer biographical questions. In the end, his life stands apart as a cautionary tale, but one that tells much about the value and potential of manuscript records created in seventeenth-century England.
Born in London in 1615, Christopher Milton was baptized on 3 December in the parish of All Hallows, Bread Street (London Metropolitan Archives, MS 5031), but the first surviving record we have about him proves prophetic about much of what is to follow: the date of his birth remains undetermined. The most often cited evidence for establishing it comes from his older brother’s entry in his family bible: 'Christofer Milton was born on Friday about a month before Christmass at 5 in the morning 1615' (British Library, Add MS 32,310). The imprecision of this statement is not helped by depositions in 1658 (National Archives, C24/825/89), 1663 (C24/877/45), and 1672 (C24/974/13) in which Christopher gives a different year for his birth in each instance.3 Not surprisingly, for a child from a gentry family, there is no evidence to report aside from records relating to his education.4 According to his nephew Edward Phillips, the brothers attended St Paul’s school 'together', which suggests in the most tentative way 1622 as the year the seven-year-old Christopher’s schooling may have begun (1932, 53). But since the records of St Paul’s were lost in the Great Fire of London in the 1660s, the first definitive record concerning Christopher’s life dates from 15 February 1631 (Christ’s College, Cambridge, Admissions Book). The sixteen-year-old younger son of the London scrivener John Milton pays ten shillings as his older brother did six years earlier to gain admission into the same Cambridge college (Christ’s) where both later studied under the same tutor (Nathaniel Tovey).5 These initial similarities prove short-lived. While John Milton achieves high marks as a student at Christ’s and graduates MA in July 1632, Christopher leaves the university after six terms with no evidence of notice or distinction. On 22 September 1632, he is admitted to the Inner Temple as a student of law and begins his long association with the Inns of Court and the Holborn area (Inner Temple Archive, Admissions Book, 1571–1640, 593). For the remainder of the 1630s, the Inner Temple’s archives provide glimpses into Christopher’s progress in the legal profession, while the parishes of St Michael in Horton, St Andrew Holborn in London, and St Lawrence in Reading furnish the next life records of note.
The first legal action of Christopher Milton’s professional career concerns his immediate family and the implication of that action deserves more attention than it has received. On 1 April 1637, Christopher files an affidavit in London on behalf of his father declaring the senior Milton too infirm to travel to London to appear in court (National Archives, Req 1/141, fol. 218). The case at issue, which dates from 28 May 1636 when Sir Thomas Cotton brings an action against the scrivener and his partner Thomas Bower in the Court of Requests, is problematic for the defendants and will not be resolved until 1638.6 The timing of the affidavit – filed just two days before the death of Christopher’s mother Sarah Milton (Centre for Buckinghamshire Studies, PR 107/1/1) – raises legitimate doubt regarding the health of her husband who would live for another decade. If he was 'infirm' as Christopher reported, evidence of the scrivener’s disability remains to be found.
Still unexplored is the possibility that Christopher entered the law as younger sons in the early modern period occasionally did – to protect the family’s property and financial interests. While we know from John Milton’s Ad Patrem that he appreciated his father’s willingness to allow him to pursue his academic and poetic interests instead of a professional career in business, law, or the church, it is hard to ignore evidence that suggests Christopher’s career path was part of a strategic family plan. It can be glimpsed in that first legal act, one he initiates but other family members complete within a fortnight (his brother-in-law Thomas Agar and John Agar witness the scrivener’s answer to Cotton’s bill in London on 13 April).7 In the years ahead, support for such a theory develops: John Milton employs his brother to represent him in property disputes with the Powell and Cope families in the 1640s and 1650s; three of Christopher’s sons choose the career path of their father during the Restoration, with two of them granted special admission to the Inner Temple because of their father (Inderwick 1896–1901, 3: 3, 3: 45). Arguably the clearest evidence of a family strategy can be seen in 1673 when a member of the extended Milton family once again fills the position of Deputy Clerk in the Crown Office. According to Edward Phillips, Thomas Agar, who dies in that year, is replaced by his nephew Thomas Milton, son of Christopher. Years before Agar had succeeded Edward Phillips, the husband of Milton’s sister Ann, not only as Deputy Clerk but as Anne’s second husband.
Such coincidences suggest something more than a series of happy accidents. Indeed, with John Milton’s business being conducted in the family home, it is not far-fetched to assume that both sons were exposed to and eventually witnessed the litigious nature of their father’s livelihood and remained mindful of the benefits and needs that could accrue from having a lawyer in the family. As the younger son, Christopher would be an obvious choice. While scholars have noted the appearance of all three men in the immediate Milton family in the court records of the Chancery, Common Pleas, and Court of Requests, a thorough search of these records has not been completed.8 Until that happens, an understanding of Christopher Milton’s accomplishments as the family’s legal counsellor must remain partial. The absence of John Milton senior’s will and the lingering controversy regarding Christopher Milton’s handling of his brother’s nuncupative will are but two of several legal matters which need further study.
While the Inner Temple must be kept in mind because it determines Christopher’s whereabouts at select times in the 1630s – for example, on 26 November 1637 he is 'restored into commons', meaning he has taken up residence during the term – an inattention to parish records for the same period has resulted in an imaginative account of the domestic situation in the Milton household in Horton following the death of Sarah Milton in April 1637. The long-held view that John Milton would never leave England without an arrangement in place for the care of his father, and that his decision to travel to the continent in 1638 was undertaken only because Christopher Milton and his wife Thomasine Webber were living with the recently widowed scrivener in Horton, turns out to be colourful fiction, contradicted by the hard evidence found in the parish registers from St Andrew, Holborn and St Michael, Horton. The first clearly records that 'Cristor Milton and Tomizen Webber weare married the 13: day' of September 1638 (London Metropolitan Archives, GLMS 6668/1). A notation to the entry indicates that the couple received a marriage license issued by the Faculty Office. The date of the marriage first appeared in a genealogical chart of the Milton family published in a nineteenth-century history of the parish of Wraysbury and its surrounding area which included Horton and Colnbrook (Gyll 1862, 242). Scholars simply overlooked it. If they had examined it, they would have recognized that Milton did not require his unmarried brother and his wife to be residing with his father before he left England in May 1638, four months before their wedding. The unlikelihood that anything of this nature happened is further supported by an entry from the Horton registers dated 26 May 1639 which reports the burial of an infant son of Christopher and Thomasine Milton (Centre for Buckinghamshire Studies, PR 107/1/1). By that date, the couple had certainly moved to Horton, but the timing of the burial raises three possibilities: a miscarriage, a premature birth, or conception before marriage. If the last of these, the relocation of Thomasine from her mother’s home in Kingsbury would have required discretion and would not have taken place until the evidence of her pregnancy was beyond reproach.9 In any event, it would have occurred months after the speculative account proposed by previous commentators. The error that has ensued from overlooking a readily available London parish register is palpable.
Unfortunately, such oversight continues in the 1640s and makes the next seven years of Christopher Milton’s life – the first years marked by separation from his family and constant relocation required by his service to the crown – the most challenging to establish with any degree of confidence despite the presence of parish records that can ascertain the family’s circumstances on several occasions. The parish registers do their part. They confirm the Miltons as residents of Horton until 11 August 1640, the day their first daughter Sarah is born, and a little over a year later, they reveal through the baptism of a second daughter Anne on 27 August 1641 that the couple with their children and grandfather have relocated to the parish of St Laurence in Reading (Berkshire Record Office, D/P97). The reason for the move remains unknown, but two other records originating in the Reading parish reduce the time between the two births during which the relocation took place by at least four months. A tax assessment levied in April 1641 (National Archives, E 179/75/355) for St Laurence records Christopher among its parishioners, and one of the first entries in the parish’s churchwarden account for the same year (Berkshire Record Office, D/P97/5/3) corroborates that the family was in the parish by April if not earlier. The entry notes payment by Mr Milton for 'the fixing of his seat and the one next to it' (fol. 131). One of the first indications that an individual of means was joining a new parish involved the securing of a church seat or pew, and the entry at the very beginning of the new year suggests a date of 25 March or soon after it.
Two additional records from the parish chest of St Laurence help determine the other end of the residency – how long the five members of the Milton family remained in Reading. 'Mr John Milton sen. Gent' and 'Mr Christopher Milton Counsellor at lawe' take the Protestation Oath in early 1642 (House of Lords Record Office, House of Lords Papers 1641–42, 146), and on 21 October 1642 Christopher appears on the muster roll for Reading as a supporter of the King (Berkshire Record Office, MS/R/HMC XXXIX). Since Reading eventually fell to Parliamentary forces on 27 April 1643, at some point during this six-month period (with March again being most likely), Milton senior relocated to his son John’s London home on Aldersgate Street, Thomasine moved to her mother’s residence in the Westminster parish of St Clement Danes, and Christopher began an itinerant lifestyle, living in various places while fulfilling his duties as the King’s Commissioner for the Excise. From this time forward, the state records pertaining to Christopher increase and create uncertainty about his activities and whereabouts, while parish records continue to verify the location of his family and the nature of significant events involving them. It is fair to say that with the fall of Reading, Christopher Milton successfully eludes the grasp of contemporary government officials who want to determine what he is doing. It is the same question anyone familiar with his life story repeatedly asks. Answers have been hard to come by.
With the beginning of the Civil War, Christopher’s life as a lawyer is subordinated to service to Charles I and will only be resuscitated after he relocates to Ipswich for the last years of the 1640s and all of the 1650s. During this time, his association with the Inner Temple is negligible. But the country’s return to monarchy in 1660 also restored status to the inns around Chancery Lane, and for the next three decades Christopher practises law in London as well as Ipswich with modest success, success predicated upon lessons learned through the turbulent 1640s, when his unpredictable decision making marks his conduct and renders his character enigmatic. Until the very end of his life, a sentiment found in Propertius – Sollicitae tu causa, pecunia, vitae (money – borrowed, spent, or loaned to others) –never appears far from the centre of his activities, and it generates the majority of the surviving evidence about him.
Seven years of constant mobility – whether in service to his family, the state, or the church – make it difficult to determine Christopher’s allegiances and beliefs. Sometimes his young family accompanied him, but more often they were apart from him. In contemporary terms, Christopher can be aptly described in these years as a man on the run, following the fortunes of the beleaguered King he supported. Over the span of eight years, in addition to the residencies in Horton and Reading, others were established in Exeter, Wells, Westminster, and Ipswich. The conventional view, supported initially by the muster rolls in Reading in 1642 and later by delinquent payments, fines, and related interactions with the Committee of Sequestrations, is that by declaring himself a Royalist, Christopher encountered the financial difficulties that ensue from supporting a lost cause. Doubt and uncertainty clearly characterize various records from Parliamentary Committees that question whether he has declared his full assets for compounding and dispute the amount of tax he paid for a house on Ludgate Hill that he most likely received from his father’s will. Its relationship to his overall estate has yet to be determined. Payments made to his mother-in-law Isabel Webber for the maintenance of his children were not at all typical,10 and they create the possibility that Christopher allowed his mother-in-law to shield him temporarily from the London authorities. His relocation to Ipswich a few years later can be understood similarly, an attempt to get out from under his financial problems, though they will follow him. The constant relocation and the taking of the Protestation Oath in Reading in 1642 (Berkshire Record Office, T/A 40), and four years later his taking of the Covenant in London but declaring his address still to be in Reading effectively keep most of what we know about Christopher’s state of affairs ambiguous. The eight years of relative calm that will follow his remove to Ipswich are worth noting in one other way: by 1647, Christopher’s loyalist efforts on behalf of the King have ceased.
From the standpoint of evidence, then, the 1640s chart Christopher Milton’s economic struggles fairly well by means of a body of state records containing mixed evidence: at times he is subjected to inquiries by Parliamentary officials who question the veracity of his claims; at other times, financial transactions involving him are handled with such speed and efficiency that they suggest other parties (such as his brother) may have interceded for lesser penalties. While these activities are going on, Christopher’s family has been spared some of his own difficulties by living apart from him in the well-to-do, traditionally Royalist Westminster parish of St Clement Danes where his mother-in-law Isabel Webber resides. The Widow Webber is most remembered for taking Mary Powell into her home while her husband John Milton prepares a new home for his estranged wife as part of their reconciliation. But Mrs Webber, as has been already noted, had taken in her daughter Thomasine’s family sometime before or after the fall of Reading in April 1643 and most certainly by 29 June when the parish registers for St Clement Danes record the baptism of John Milton, the son of Christopher and Thomasine (City of Westminster Archive Centre, Parish Registers, Vol. 2, 1639–1653, St Clement Danes). By 1 July 1644, the Committee of Sequestrations, which in the previous year had seized some of Christopher Milton’s goods as delinquent and fined him as a holder of Royalist property, had begun paying his mother-in-law for taking care of his children with additional payments being provided until 1645 (British Library, Add MS 24,501). A plausible explanation for these events does not put Christopher in the best of light, but it does speak to his determination to keep some semblance of financial security for his family: his mother-in-law provides a way of safeguarding him from additional penalties and her payments from the Parliamentary government offset at least in a small way some of the fines incurred by her son-in-law. All the while, the Westminster parish records note additional life-cycle events: the long unnoticed death of Christopher’s first daughter Sarah on 26 May 1645 in the unpublished burial registers corroborated by churchwarden accounts recording the funeral expenses, and the birth of another son Thomas on 2 February 1647 (City of Westminster Archive Centre, B11, Churchwarden Accounts, 1633–1653, St Clement Danes; Parish Registers, Vol. 2, 1639–1653, St Clement Danes). This latter event indicates that the family had remained in London while Christopher himself had been living in Exeter from September 1645 until April 1646. It also suggests that by the time of Thomas’s birth, his father has essentially finished his service to the now captured Charles I and will soon begin making plans for his relocation to Suffolk.
If the London and Civil War years of Christopher Milton reflect disruption and instability resulting from continuous movement, the second half of his adult life, spent in the Suffolk town of Ipswich, establishes more stability but no less mobility. Especially after 1660 and the restored conditions of the Inns of Court, Christopher will split his time between Ipswich and London, residing during term time in the Holborn area. His initial reasons for relocating to the county of Suffolk have not been discovered, though cautious speculation could cite the wish to be away from Parliamentary investigations into his personal estate. The choice of Ipswich remains an even bigger puzzle. Its history in the seventeenth century was decidedly Parliamentarian rather than Royalist, and so for one who was recently employed by the King the decision to take up residence there is unusual. More significant than either of these matters are recently discovered documents in Ipswich that indicate the traditional understanding of Christopher Milton’s forty-year residency has been based primarily upon inaccurate parish records.
By relying upon the only Ipswich parish registers that have been published – those from St Nicholas, Ipswich – scholars have mistakenly concluded that the relocation of Christopher Milton and his family from Westminster took place around the time of the baptism of his daughter Mary in March 1656 (Suffolk Record Office, FB 94/D1/1). Citing no evidence other than this record, the scholarly consensus has assumed the Milton family relocated from Westminster to Ipswich eight years later than they did. A search of unpublished registers from a neighbouring Ipswich parish – St Margaret – records the christening of Richard Milton, son of Christopher and Thomasine on 2 May 1648 (Suffolk Record Office, FB 93/D2/2). Two years later, the same register notes the baptism of another child, Thomasine, on 11 June 1650. These two records make clear that Mary Milton was not the first but the third child born to Christopher and Thomasine Milton in Ipswich. While such mistakes can be explained, their underlying cause – the failure to perform the task essential to the study and examination of original documents – cannot be excused. Such oversight allowed error to proliferate. Christopher Milton’s time in Ipswich was not what it was thought to be. For those consulting a companion to the study of manuscripts, this point cannot be overstressed.
By starting with a false assumption – that the birth of Mary Milton in 1656 locates the Milton family in the parish of St Nicholas – all commentators have been outwitted by Christopher Milton’s decision to live in one parish and baptize and bury his family members in another. Whether this was an unusual practice of his time is hard to say with confidence, but it was clearly what he did. Even though his family lived in the parish of St Margaret for the majority of their time in Ipswich, Christopher selected St Nicholas as the place to bury two of his sons (Christopher in 1668 and John in 1669), one daughter (Thomasine in 1675), his wife Thomasine (sometime before 1686), and himself (1693), even though by the time of his death and that of his wife he had moved to the parish of St Andrew in Rushmere, a village outside Ipswich. Because the registers for St Nicholas are the only Ipswich parish records that have been published, the convenience of access has resulted in them being the most often consulted and therefore the information contained within them has gone unquestioned and unverified. Such prominent Milton scholars as French, Parker, Shawcross, and Campbell have plausibly concluded that their information is correct, and their conclusions, in all fairness, have not been altogether unmerited. For among the parish chest records for this parish are churchwarden accounts indicating that for a period of time Christopher and his family were indeed members of that parish. On 9 April 1654 and 24 March 1655, Christopher served as a member of the parish vestry and in that role approved the audit of the churchwarden accounts for the previous year (Suffolk Record Office, HD 1538/274/1). While no other records of him or his family have been found in the parish until the birth of Mary Milton, this mixed evidence allowed scholars to miss or overlook changes in the living situation of the Miltons. Nonetheless, the message to those using early manuscript records should be clear: assumptions are calculated risks scholars take at their own peril, not all assumptions are created equal, but all scholars must make them. Transcriptions and published copies of parish registers cannot be taken on faith, and city and town locations where many parishes exist side by side require special attention because adjoining parishes often contain records for the same person or family.
The second group of parish chest records for Ipswich that has hitherto not been considered in regard to the life of Christopher Milton originates from the state records created by the hearth tax. These documents offer ways to resolve some of the problems found in the parish records while simultaneously posing additional challenges of their own. The first hearth tax record concerning Christopher Milton illustrates how difficult it can be to establish his whereabouts. On the basis of the evidence found in the parish records, this tax document should confirm that he lived in either the parish of St Nicholas or St Margaret, but it instead locates him in a third Ipswich parish, that of St Mary at the Elms, where he is assessed for six hearths on 25 March 1664 (National Archives, E 179/257/12). As the only record so far discovered that associates the family with this parish, it introduces new questions, none of which is easily resolved: did a second individual named Christopher Milton live in the Ipswich area? Is this Christopher Milton the son of Christopher and nephew to John Milton? The first possibility can be answered with a degree of confidence after a check of the parish registers and records for the Ipswich area: there is no other individual named Christopher Milton but the one described as an attorney or Esquire in the records, designations that have appeared in records for Christopher Milton dating back to his early years in Reading. Such details suggest that the Christopher Milton living in St Mary at the Elms is the man born in the City of London. As for the second possibility, less certainty exists. In 1664, Christopher Milton, the son of Christopher and Thomasine whose age has not been definitively settled, would have been in his twenties regardless of which one of the proposed dates (1637–38 or 1642) for his birth is accepted. That age would also not be too young to be the head of a household, but the size of the house, large enough to contain six hearths, would be unusual for a man of his age. In any event, there is no corroborating evidence to support such a theory, although a Christopher Milton entered King’s College, Cambridge as a pensioner in the Easter term of 1663, and Shawcross has suggested that this may very well be Christopher’s son (2004, 27). Thus the most reasonable conclusion, based upon the extant evidence, is that the Christopher Milton residing in St Mary at the Elms in 1664 is the second son of the London scrivener John Milton.
Within a year of his residency in St Mary at the Elms, Christopher Milton has moved back to St Margaret, the parish to which he probably initially relocated from Westminster, as evidenced by the two births in 1648 and 1650. Here he was assessed on Lady Day 1665 for seven hearths (National Archives, E 179/257/13). The following year, again on Lady Day, he was assessed for nine hearths (National Archives, E 179/186/616), and so he has either changed residences again or added two hearths to the same home. In any event, he remained within the same parish and will do so for some duration. He was assessed for nine hearths on Michaelmas 1669 (National Archives, E 179/367/19), and again on 16 October 1675 for the Michaelmas 1673 and Lady Day 1674 assessments (National Archives, E 179/257/14). From 1665 until October 1675 Christopher appears finally to have settled down.
For the St Margaret residency, at least for what appears to be his second period of time in the parish, corroborative evidence establishes stability, though once again it does not prevent questions from being raised. For at least the two-year period 1666–67, the parish registers for St Margaret attest to Christopher’s service as a churchwarden. His signatures appear on each of the baptism, marriage, and burial registers for these two years alongside those of the parish curate Cave Beck. The last entry among these records confirms the pattern thus far described, that is, an offspring dies in one place but is buried in another (here his son Christopher). The solution not available in the published registers for St Nicholas has finally been made explicit here. These were years of note in another respect, for by May 1665 the results of a serious outbreak of the plague begin to show up in the St Margaret burial registers (Suffolk Record Office, FB 93/D2/2). By September 1666, burials reach 251 and 283 in October before subsiding (128 for November). These remain the highest recorded numbers of monthly burials in the parish’s history, and they took place during Christopher’s watch as churchwarden, a post that adds to the persistent intrigue around him. Since Christopher does not appear to sever his ties with the Inner Temple until the 1680s, one must wonder how he carried out his parish duties since it does not appear he resided in Ipswich when term was in session. The split residency in London and Ipswich is perhaps the final indication of a consistent pattern over such a long period of time: it is hard to resist the conclusion that all was by design.
Even if Christopher’s initial decision to relocate to Ipswich was prompted by financial difficulties, that decision does not appear to make much sense for a former supporter of the King. Ipswich in the early seventeenth century was a Puritan stronghold with its Town Lecturer, Samuel Ward, clearly not one who had much patience with either Archbishop Laud or his jurisdictional superior the Bishop of Norwich. Ward runs into trouble with both. And while it is true that by 1645, a settling of the religious persuasion of the area toward Presbyterianism takes place, notable clergy were offered the Town Lectureship in future years: Simeon Ashe who declined, Stephen Marshall who accepted the post in 1653, and Matthew Newcomen who also declined.11 Equally interesting is the presence of Roger Young, the son of John Milton’s tutor Thomas, who was the curate of St Nicholas from 1654 to 1662 in the very years that Christopher was associated with that parish. Is this just another remarkable coincidence or does it point to a possible ongoing relationship between the Milton and Young families that played a part in Christopher’s decision after the defeat of the King in the Second Civil War to relocate to Suffolk?
Evidence to support such a view is available: Christopher Milton more than likely had known Thomas Young since his childhood when the latter tutored his brother in the Milton home or elsewhere. John Milton and Thomas Young participated in the debates in the 1640s over church government with the former pupil supporting the Smectymnuan group led by his childhood tutor. Affinities between Young’s fast-day sermon 'Hope’s Encouragement' and Milton’s Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce suggest that in February 1644 when the sermon was delivered, they maintained contact. Moreover, as a member of the Westminster Assembly, Young may have interceded on Milton’s behalf in December 1644 when the latter was summoned with Hezekiah Woodward to answer charges of unlicensed printing (while Woodward was imprisoned for three days before the charges were dropped, Milton received no penalties of any kind);12 Young’s moderate religious positions in the mid-1640s accommodate Christopher’s conservative tendencies (though not his brother’s). All of these possibilities invite further study.
The question of why Christopher moved to Ipswich and the speculation that has ensued in its wake bring this chapter back to its opening remarks, in particular, how parish records can illuminate the life story of Christopher at the same time that they add to our knowledge of his brother. The Ipswich records, besides revealing that two of the five clergy who figured in John Milton’s past have links to Ipswich and that the son of his former tutor was in charge of the parish his brother resided in for a few years, alert us to Christopher’s acquaintance with Cave Beck, the curate for many years of St Margaret. Could there be some connection between this acquaintance and the repeated claim that Christopher authored The State of Church Affairs published in 1687? While it is reasonable to agree with Gordon Campbell that 'the attribution is simply a surmise that has been hardened into fact by constant repetition' (2008), the presence of Beck in Ipswich justifies another look, for he oversaw a private theological library in the town established on grounds similar to the Kedermister Library with which John Milton has been linked in Langley Marish during his Horton years.13 Certainly the resources in this library would allow such an effort, and, as for Christopher being an author, the enigmatic nature of his profile can support such a notion. Christopher is the same man who, while often reported to be a Catholic, served as an Anglican churchwarden. He is the declared Royalist who relocated to a community with a decidedly Puritan history. If such a pattern holds, the unlikelihood of authorship becomes simply one more imponderable for Christopher’s character to accommodate.
Aside from a study of the various parish accounts in which Christopher Milton could appear, the other environment that can deepen an understanding of him and his brother involves the seventeenth-century court system where both consistently and repeatedly appear. Land purchases, leases, law suits, and complicated transactions underpin the financial affairs of both men and attest to how the financial world of their father to which they were exposed in the Bread Street home prepared them for legal procedures such as giving testimony, interrogating witnesses, and filing affidavits. Some inroads have been made in regard to John Milton, but a full study of Christopher’s legal career and accomplishments as a lawyer for this family and others remains to be written. In the case of John Milton, Gordon Campbell and Tom Corns have written about Milton’s money (2008); John Shawcross has discussed the various uses of the term 'convey' (2008, 26–27, 29–34, 41–46, 155–58). David Hawkes (2010) and Nicholas von Maltzahn (2008) have examined Milton and usury. With some of the evidence offered in this chapter, there appear to be sufficient records to develop parts of Christopher’s life story by juxtaposing records created in one context with those from another. Recently discovered documents in the parish chest of St Clement Danes include four decades of records concerning Christopher’s in-laws the Webber family.14 They allow unexplored vantage points from which to understand how Christopher fends off Parliamentary investigations into his estate during the 1640s. These same records also furnish new information about Isabel Webber’s part in the care of Christopher’s children and his brother’s estranged wife in 1644 and 1645. Such studies will require care, patience, and additional research, but in the end they endorse the impetus behind this chapter: to insure scholars have reliable resources for information about Christopher and John Milton, archival work that engages with manuscript materials created by English parishes needs to continue.
Berkshire Record Office, Reading
D/P97, Baptism Registers, 1605–2005, St Laurence
D/P97/5/3, Churchwarden Accounts, 1641, St Laurence
MS/R/HMC, Muster Rolls, St Laurence
T/A 40, Protestations for St Laurence
British Library, London
Add MS 24,501, Collections of Joseph Hunter Relating to the Milton Family
Add MS 32,310, Milton’s Family Bible
Centre for Buckinghamshire Studies, Aylesbury
PR 107/1/1, Parish Registers, St Michael, Horton
Christ’s College, Cambridge
Admissions Book
City of Westminster Archive Centre, London
Parish Registers, Vol. 1, 1558–1639, St Clement Danes
Parish Registers, Vol. 2, 1639–1653, St Clement Danes
B1, Surveyors' Accounts, 1581–1621, St Clement Danes
B2, Surveyors' Accounts, 1621–1638, St Clement Danes
B3, Surveyors' Accounts, 1638–1658, St Clement Danes
B10, Churchwarden Accounts, Vol. 1, 1609–1625, St Clement Danes
B10, Churchwarden Accounts, Vol. 2, 1625–1633, St Clement Danes
B11, Churchwarden Accounts, 1633–1653, St Clement Danes
B19, Overseer Accounts, 1604–1611, St Clement Danes
B20, Overseer Accounts, 1611–1626, St Clement Danes
B21, Overseer Accounts, 1617–1618, St Clement Danes
B24, Overseer Accounts, 1627–1650, St Clement Danes
House of Lords Record Office, London
House of Lords Papers 1641–42, Protestations, Berkshire
Inner Temple Archive, London
Admissions Book, 1571–1640
London Metropolitan Archives, London
GL MS 6668/1, Parish Register, 1559–1698, St Andrew, Holborn
National Archives, London
C24/825/89, Chancery Town Depositions (1658)
C24/877/45, Chancery Town Depositions (1663)
C24/974/13, Chancery Town Depositions (1672)
E 179/75/355, Lay Subsidy Roll, 1641, St Laurence, Reading
E 179/257/12, Lay Subsidy Roll (Hearth Tax Assessment), 1664, St Mary at the Elms, Ipswich
E 179/257/13, Lay Subsidy Roll (Hearth Tax Assessment), 1665, St Margaret, Ipswich
E 179/186/616, Lay Subsidy Roll (Hearth Tax Assessment), 1666, St Margaret, Ipswich
E 179/367/19, Lay Subsidy Roll (Hearth Tax Assessment), 1669, St Margaret, Ipswich
E 179/257/14, Lay Subsidy Roll (Hearth Tax Assessment), 1675, St Margaret, Ipswich
Req 1/141, Court of Requests, Miscellaneous Books
Req 2/630, Court of Requests, Proceedings
Suffolk Record Office, Ipswich
FB 93/D2/2, Parish Registers, St Margaret, Ipswich
FB 94/D1/1, Parish Registers, St Nicholas, Ipswich
HD 1538/274/1, Churchwarden Accounts, St Nicholas, Ipswich
| Date | Parish name | Description of evidence |
| 2 May 1648 | St Margaret, Ipswich | Birth notice of Richard Milton |
| 11 June 1650 | St Margaret, Ipswich | Birth notice of Thomasine Milton |
| 9 April 1654 | St Nicholas, Ipswich | CM signs audit of Churchwarden Accounts |
| 24 March 1655 | St Nicholas, Ipswich | CM signs audit of Churchwarden Accounts |
| 29 March 1656 | St Nicholas, Ipswich | Birth notice of Mary Milton |
| 25 March 1664 | St Mary at the Elms, Ipswich | Hearth Tax Assessment of CM |
| 24 March 1665 | St Margaret, Ipswich | CM signs marriage register as churchwarden |
| 25 March 1665 | St Margaret, Ipswich | Hearth Tax Assessment of CM |
| 1666–67 | St Margaret, Ipswich | CM serves as churchwarden |
| 25 March 1666 | St Margaret, Ipswich | Hearth Tax Assessment of CM |
| 25 March 1667 | St Margaret, Ipswich | CM signs 1666/67 parish registers as churchwarden |
| 12 March 1668 | St Margaret, Ipswich | Burial notice of son Christopher, 'buried at St Nicholas' |
| 29 Sept. 1669 | St Margaret, Ipswich | Hearth Tax Assessment of CM |
| 29 Dec. 1669 | St Margaret, Ipswich | Burial notice of son John, 'buried at St Nicholas' |
| 6 July 1675 | St Margaret, Ipswich | Burial notice of daughter Thomasine, 'buried at St Nicholas' |
| 16 Oct. 1675 | St Margaret, Ipswich | Hearth Tax Assessment of CM |
| 22 March 1693 | St Nicholas, Ipswich | Burial notice of Sr CM, resident of Rushmere, 'buried at St Nicholas' |