John Milton, the elder

MILTON, John, the elder. b. ca. 1563; d. London, 1647 (buried 15 March). He is believed to have been a chorister at Christ Church, Oxford, and may have been born near Oxford. He moved to London in 1585, where his son, the poet John Milton*, was born in 1608. He was a scrivener, who became sufficiently prosperous to retire to Horton, Buckinghamshire, in 1632. He returned to London in 1643. His music was greatly valued by his contemporaries: it is referred to by his son in the affectionate poem ‘Ad Patrem’: ‘mille sonos numeros componis ad aptos,/ Millibus et vocem modulis variare canoram/ Doctus’ (‘a thousand notes fitted to apt rhythms,/ in varying the singing voice to a thousand melodies/...