from what Phillips thinks he had heard,--"I am much mistaken if
there were not about this time a design in agitation of making him
Adjutant-General in Sir William Waller's army." Phillips very likely
thought that a recruit could enlist as an Adjutant-General, but
it does not appear from Milton's own words that he himself ever
contemplated service in the field. The words "contending for liberty"
(de libertate dimicarent) could not, as said of the winter 1638-39,
mean anything more than the strife of party. And when war did break
out, it must have been obvious to Milton that he could serve the cause
better as a scholar than as a soldier.

That he never took service in the army is certain. If there was a
time when he should have been found in the ranks, it was on the 12th
November, 1642, when every able-bodied citizen turned out to oppose
the march of the king, who had advanced to Brentford. But we have the
evidence of the sonnet--

Captain, or Colonel, or Knight in arms,

that Milton, on this occasion, stayed at home. He had, as he announced
in February, 1642, "taken labour and intent study" to be his portion
in this life. He did not contemplate enlisting his pen in the service
of the Parliament, but the exaltation of his country's glory by the
composition of some monument of the English language, as Dante or
Tasso had done for Italian. But a project ambitious as this lay too
far off to be put in execution as soon as thought of. The ultimate
purpose had to give place to the immediate. One of these interludes,
originating in Milton's personal relations, was his series of tracts
on divorce.