"Michaelmas [Sept. 29, 1643] being come," says Phillips, "and no news of his wife's return, he sent for her by letter, and, receiving no answer, sent several other letters, which were also unanswered; so that at last he despatched down a foot-messenger [to Forest Hill] with a letter, desiring her return. But the messenger came back not only without an answer, at least a satisfactory one, but, to the best of my remembrance, reported that he was dismissed with some sort of contempt. This proceeding, in all probability, was grounded upon no other cause but this--viz.: that, the family being generally addicted to the Cavalier party, as they called it, and some of them possibly engaged in the King's service, who by this time had his head-quarters at Oxford and was in some prospect of success, they began to repent them of having matched the eldest daughter of the family to a person so contrary to them in opinion, and thought it would be a blot on their escutcheon whenever that Court should come to flourish again. However, it so incensed our author that he thought it would be dishonourable ever to receive her again, after such a repulse; so that he forthwith prepared to fortify himself with arguments for such a resolution, and accordingly wrote," &c. Here Phillips goes on to enumerate Milton's various Divorce Tracts, the first of which in order of time was his _Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce_. Aubrey corroborates Phillips, but has little on the subject but what he may have picked up from gossip. "She was a ... Royalist, and went to her mother near Oxford: he sent for her after some time, and I think his servant was evilly entreated,"--such are Aubrey's brief notes of the facts; after which come his own reflections on the rupture: "Two opinions do not well on the same bolster;" and "What man, especially contemplative, would like to have a young wife environed and stormed by the sons of Mars, and those of the enemy party?" Finally Wood, in his _Fasti_, does little more than repeat Aubrey: "Though he sent divers pressing invitations, yet he could not prevail upon her to come back;" whereupon "he, being not able to bear this abuse, did therefore, upon consideration, after he had consulted many eminent authors, write the said book of Divorce, with intentions to be separated from her." [Footnote: Phillips's Memoir; Aubrey's Lives; and Wood's Fasti Oxon. I. 482-3.]