“In the old age black was not counted fair,” acknowledged Shakespeare in Sonnet CXXVII. It may be a literally incredible coincidence that the two greatest English poets wrote sonnets to a Dark Lady whose name was Emilia. Presumably it was not the same Emilia: unless Milton was drawn to a woman who in 1630 was sixty-one. But they may have been related—the name was very rare in England—and what more plausible than that the same family repeated the name? What has turned up of the first Emilia is negative: she had a son, Henry, and her grandchildren were Henry and Mary. ¹