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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Biographers of Marvell have found themselves in a curious predicament. Although a considerable number of Marvell's letters have come down to us and evidence of other kinds is at least comparatively extensive, it has proved impossible to arrive at any clear understanding of his character. That fundamental uncertainty is chiefly a result of the fact that at two or three critical points the evidence is limited and enigmatic.
1 Prerogative Court of Canterbury, March, 1679.
2 For an excellent summary of the speculations regarding Mary Marvell see Pierre Legouis, André Marvell, Poète, Puritain, Patriote (Paris, 1928), pp. 228–230.
3 C6/276/48.
4 The Case of Richard Thompson and Company: With Relation to their Creditors (London, 1678), pp. 3–4.
5 C7/581/73, Farrington vs. Thompson.
6 Ibid.
7 Legouis, pp. 234–235, n. 57.
8 Both Mrs. Palmer and Farrington declare that Nelthorpe was related to Marvell (C6/276/48; C7/589/82, Wallis vs. Farrington). Mrs. Palmer also says, however, that Marvell “was very intimate with … Mr Nelthorp & might be some relacoñ to him though this deft cannot tell what” (C6/276/48). One of Thompson's sisters-in-law was married to one of the Popples. In a note of March 30, 1678 (State Papers Dom., Charles II, 402/166), Mrs. Thompson speaks of receiving a letter from “my sister pople.” It is not unlikely that this Popple was William Popple of Bordeaux, Marvell's nephew. Thompson's son Robert was Popple's clerk in Bordeaux for a time (The Poems and Letters of Andrew Marvell, ed. Margoliouth [Oxford, 1927], ii, 357).
9 C7/581/73.
10 A stormy session of the Council was closed suddenly by the Lord Mayor. Thompson, Nelthorpe, Player, and Jeffreys protested against the closing, citing in opposition precedents from Cromwellian times (State Papers Dom., Charles ii, Entry Book 43/19–29). The action of the Lord Mayor apparently brought to a head grave animosities, for on March 19, 1674/5, Williamson wrote to Secretary Coventry that he was none too confident of a peaceful settlement, “knowing well how deep that humor lyes with some, how long it has been breeding, and what farr views and designes, there may be reason to suspect, they have framed to themselves, as to the future” (Ibid., no. 21). On March 20, Williamson wrote: “I doe hope his Mayes own hand may in a great measure heale all, but truly I doubt lesse than yt will not doe it” (Ibid., no. 29). Finally, however, the four malcontents confessed that they had been in the wrong. It is significant that in a letter of a month later, April 24, Marvell refers scathingly to the tyranny and corruption of the Lord Mayor (Margoliouth, ii, 146).
11 Case of Richard Thompson and Company, pp. 5–6.
12 Case of Richard Thompson and Company, p. 7. If Farrington is to be believed, Nelthorpe and Thompson were chiefly responsible for the failure (C7/581/73). Later Mrs. Nelthorpe admitted that her husband “drew out a much greater proporcon of the said banck money then the said John ffarrington had taken out” (C10/216/74, Thompson vs. Nelthorpe et al.).
13 State Papers Dom., Charles II, 379/144.
14 Historical MSS. Commission, Report VII, Part I (1879), 468a.
15 Case of Richard Thompson and Company, p. 11.
16 Case of Richard Thompson and Company, p. 19.
17 Ibid., p. 16.
18 C7/589/82, ans. of Farrington. Wallis asserts that on the 10th or 11th of June, Nelthorpe “came in all diligence and hast unto yor Orator and pretending that he or he and his said partners had very urgent present occasion for the said money requested yor Orator to lett him have the said money againe in Guynnyes whereupon yor orator to pleasure him therein did condescend thereunto” (C6/275/120, Wallis vs. Greene et al.). But Wallis's claim is almost certainly fallacious. Both Farrington and his friend John Greene assert that “there is fifteene pounds indorsed upon the said bill by one E. Chadwell, the CompIts servant as paid for halfe a years Interest,” the entry being dated January 2, 1677/8 (C7/589/82; also C6/275/120, ans. of Greene). Such an entry would not have been made had Wallis finally settled the account on the eleventh of June, 1677. Furthermore, Wallis could present no receipt for the repayment of the £500.
It is interesting to note that on several occasions, apparently, the partners used Marvell's name in this fashion (C6/275/120).
19 C7/581/73; C6/275/120.
20 John Johnson—and presumably Scudamore— was a Commissioner of Bankruptcy (Historical MSS. Commission, Report IX, Part II [1884], 104b). In the previous issue of The Gazette there is a notice that all creditors of the firm are to meet on February 1 to consider a proposal recently advanced by Nelthorpe.
21 C7/581/73. Farrington's being a prisoner did not mean that he was out of touch with his partners. Thompson later testified that Farrington lived “in a very good house in the rules of the Kings Bench and [had] his liberty to be in the Citty allmost every day” (C6/283/87, Thompson vs. Nelthorpe et al.). When Farrington did not want to leave prison, however, it was almost impossible to dislodge him. Eleven times the Marshall had been ordered to produce him for questioning before the Commission and had been able to do so only twice. Several prisoners confessed that they had been engaged by Farrington to attack the Commissioners, and a turnkey admitted that he was afraid to bring Farrington from prison for fear of being knocked on the head (Historical MSS. Commission, Report IX, Part II, 104b).
22 C6/283/87.
23 C7/581/73. Mrs. Palmer's account of the hiring of the house (C6/242/13, Farrington vs. Marvell et al.) is interesting even if not altogether trustworthy: “And about the Month of June One Thousand six hundred seventy and seven and seven [sic] The said Andrew Marvell her husband, told her this Defdt she must putt off the house they dwelt in at Westminster ffor that he intended to go dwell in Russell Street within the parish of St Giles in the ffeilds, And that he had picthed [sic] upon a house there which he would have this Defdt goe take a Lease of in her owne Name, ffurther telling this Defdt That he had a ffreind or Two who would come and Lodge in the house with him and would pay the Rent of the House, and also pay the Charges of Housekeeping and give her this Defdt Ten pounds a yeare for her Trouble.”
24 C7/581/73; C8/252/9, ans. of Farrington.
25 “And this Defdt further sayth That for severall yeares before the yeare One Thousand six hundred seaventy & seven she this Defdt dwelt in and kept a house in Westminster where the sd Andrew Marvell dwelt with her (in truth as her husband) though he might be generally lookt upon only as a Lodger at her house” (C6/242/13). Mrs. Palmer claimed to no one that she was Mrs. Marvell until after Marvell's death (Ibid). Possibly the lodging house that Mrs. Palmer kept until she moved to Great Russell Street was “att the Crowne over against the Greyhound Taverne neere Charing Crosse London.” To that address Trinity House sent a letter for Marvell in 1668/9 (Margoliouth, ii, 345).
26 C6/242/13.
27 See the letter from Mrs. Thompson to Braman of January 7, 1677/8 (State Papers Dom., Charles II, 401/232). Mrs. Thompson, however, was at the time with neither her husband nor Marvell, for in a letter to Mrs. Braman dated March 30, 1678, she speaks of herself as “remote from toune” (Ibid., 402/166)—i.e., as the context indicates, remote from London. By April 6, however, Thompson had left Braman's (Ibid., 232).—Richard Thompson and Braman married sisters (Calendar of State Papers Dom., 1677–78 [1911], p. 693). A third sister, it will be remembered, was the wife of a Popple, possibly Marvell's nephew William (supra, p. 3, n. 8). It is possible also that Braman was related to John Farrington, for his daughter is spoken of as “Elizabeth Faringdon” (State Papers Dom., Charles II, 429/217). Marvell's connections with Braman, Thompson, and Nelthorpe draw him more intimately into the group of anti-Royalist plotters than we had realized before. Braman, “reputed to be a great fanatick” (Historical MSS. Commission, Report XIII, App. VI [1893], p. 13), was constantly under suspicion (e.g., State Papers Dom., Charles II, 425/150; 422/91). In connection with the Rye House Plot he was among those “at first secured, but afterwards dismiss'd by course of Law” (Thomas Sprat, A True Account and Declaration of the Horrid Conspiracy Against the Late King, 3rd ed. [London, 1686], p. 98). Richard Nelthorpe, executed for his complicity in the same plot, was a close relative of Edward Nelthorpe's. See DNB, s.n. Richard Nelthorpe and CIO/484/71, Farrington vs. Nelthorpe and Nelthorpe.
28 C10/216/74.
29 According to Mrs. Palmer—but see below, p. 390—Nelthorpe was in France at the time of Marvell's death (C6/276/48). He had gone very likely to collect money lent by the partners to William Popple in Bordeaux. The money was still unpaid and subject of a suit in 1684 (C6/526/178, Farrington vs. Popple and Stewart).
30 C7/587/95, Marvell vs. Farrington et al. This was undoubtedly “Mr James Shawes house in Maiden Lane in Covent Garden” to which John Fisher addressed a letter for Marvell on January 9, 1676/7 (Margoliouth, ii, 346). A letter of Marvell's of April 21, 1677 (Ibid., p. 193) is dated from Maiden Lane, and several letters between December 4, 1677, and April 25, 1678, are dated from Covent Garden.
31 C6/242/13.
32 Ibid.
33 Ibid.
34 C10/216/74.
35 C7/581/73.
36 Ibid.
37 Journals, House of Commons.
38 Ibid. On March 4, it was ordered that all Members of the House should have a voice in the Committee (Ibid.).
39 Margoliouth, ii, 208.
40 State Papers Dom., Charles II, 404/215.—From the events chronicled in this paper it would not be difficult to derive the impression that Thompson and his friends—including Marvell—were unmitigated scoundrels. If no other evidence were available, this letter of Thompson's to Major Braman would correct that impression. It opens with a reference to a minor domestic tangle, predicting that there will soon be “an exit to this comedy of errors.” Thompson then alludes, as quoted in the text, to his difficulties and those of his partners and passes on to a paragraph which could have been written only by a person of refinement and insight: “The discipline of living well, is the amplest of all Sober arts; & tis not only for an exterior show or ostentation, yt or soule must play her part, but inwardly within or selves, where no eys shine, but ors, then it doth shroud us from feare of death, of sorrows, & of shame, every one may play the iugler, and represent well upon the stage, but that is not so much or nature, as or art; but within & in bosome, where all things are lawfull; because we thinke them conceald, to keep a due rule & decorum, thats the point. but my little witt begins to gadd, I will start a fresh subiect when I haue told you, that I haue now in contemplation, the Idea of yr exquisite life, wch in its owne privacy, keepes it selfe in such awe, & order.”
41 For the date of Nelthorpe's death see C6/276/48. The date and circumstances of Marvell's death are discussed in an appendix to this article.
42 Registers of St. Giles'.—The history of the memorial which the Hull Corporation planned to erect in memory of Marvell has been one of several minor difficulties encountered by Marvell's biographers. The testimony of Mrs. Palmer corroborates the fact that the Hull Corporation paid the expenses of Marvell's funeral and also provides information regarding the monument. In answer to Farrington's charge that she appropriated money given for Marvell's funeral, she “denyes shee begged or had given her any Moneyes towards her Husbands ffuneralls (otherwise then that the Towne of Hull for which he served many yeares as their Representative in Parliam1, were pleased, upon Newes of his death, to order he should be buryed and have a Monument Erected for him at their Charge all which was done accordingly saveing onely the Erecting the Monument for which there is now as she beleiveth money from that Towne in a London Doctors hands” (C6/242/13). Mrs. Palmer's answer was sworn on April 7, 1682. Since the memorial had not then been erected, despite the fact that money was available, the story that John Sharp, Rector of St. Giles' from 1675 to 1691, would not allow it to be placed in his church is probably to be accepted. Whether the memorial was ever erected is doubtful (Legouis, p. 426). The doctor to whom Mrs. Palmer refers is probably Marvell's good friend Robert Witty. He died in the parish of St. Michael's Bassishaw in October, 1684. A copy of his will may be found in the Registers of the Prerogative Court of Canterbury, 132 Hare. On the twenty-sixth of September, 1678, the Hull Corporation voted to give £50 for Marvell's funeral expenses and for the memorial mentioned above (Legouis, p. 425). On the thirtieth of September, the Hull Bench Books note that “fifty pounds is taken out of the iron chest, which Mr. Hardy is to carry unto Mr. Majors, who is desired to see to the disposall of the same, for Mr. Andrew Marvell's funeralle, according to the order of the grant made the 20th [sic] of Sept. instant” (quoted by Edward Thompson, The Works of Andrew Marvell [London, 1776], iii, 480n.). The Cash Book of the Hull Corporation, also under date of September 30, contains the following entry:
“This,” writes Margoliouth, “was six weeks after Marvell's death and shows that his relations in Hull (i.e., the Popples) were acting as his administrators there a year before the grant to ‘Mary Marvell’ and John Greene” (Ibid.). Is it not far more likely that all three of these entries, the one of the twenty-sixth and the two of the thirtieth, refer simply to the fifty pounds for the funeral and memorial? The Corporation apparently turned the money over to Marvell's relatives, and they gave at least a part of it to Dr. Witty. There is no reason to believe that Marvell's relatives ever actually administered his estate. In 1776, Edward Thompson declared that Marvell “left a small paternal estate, on which, and the allowance given him in parliament time by his constituents, he subsisted, being neither extravagant nor expensive” (iii, 480). The records of the Chancery imbroglio reveal pretty clearly, however, that Marvell was financially less comfortable than Edward Thompson implies. Mrs. Palmer, to be sure, asserts that “haueing some discourse with … Mr Nelthorpe concning the estate of her husband in his Life time hee ye said Nelthorp told this Deft that ye sd Mr Marvell had money to his knowledge” (C7/589/82), and that Marvell died “possed of a considerable psonall Estate consisting in money Jewells bonds bills & otherwise to a good value” (C6/276/48). Since Mrs. Palmer was attempting to prove that the Wallis bond for £500 was Marvell's property, it is only to be expected that she should claim that Marvell had money. The testimony of Farrington and Greene, though likewise suspect, is more credible. Farrington asserts that Marvell was “at severall times for severall yeares before his death kepte & mainetained by … Mr. Nelthorpe & Partners” (C8/252/9), that he “was not for the space of five yeares before he dyed worth One hundred pounds at any one time” (Ibid.), that his estate was “not in the whole worth thirty Pounds” (Ibid.), and that he died some £200 in debt to Nelthorpe (Ibid.). Greene concurs: “He was very poor at the time of his death” (Ibid.). As events will show, even Mrs. Palmer probably did not believe that Marvell had any money.
43 C6/276/48; C6/242/13.
44 See above, pp. 9–10.
45 C6/276/48.
46 C7/587/95.
47 C6/276/48.
48 C8/252/9.
49 C6/242/13, ans. of Mary Marvell.
50 Prerogative Court of Canterbury, January, 1679/80.
51 C8/252/9, ans. of Farrington; C7/587/95.
52 C6/242/13.
53 Ibid.
54 C8/252/9.
55 C8/252/9.
56 C6/242/13.
57 C7/587/95. See also C6/242/13 and C6/276/48.
58 C8/252/9.
59 Ibid.
60 C8/252/9.
61 C8/252/9.
62 Ibid.
63 C7/587/95; C8/252/9. See also C7/589/82, ans. of Mary Marvell.
64 C6/242/13.
65 C7/589/82.—In return for Mrs. Palmer's accepting Greene as co-administrator, he was to serve as her attorney without charge. Farrington confesses that “he did promise that the said John Greene should aid & assist the CompIt. in any matters or suites if she had occasion to use him & accordingly the said John Greene did assist the Comp.It in the recovery of Tenn Pounds or thereabouts from one Samuell Chamblett at the suite of her sonne Thomas Palmer in an Accon which was brought against the said Chamblett in the Sheriffes Court in London” (C8/252/9).—Chamblett is probably to be identified with the sea captain of that name who in 1662 commanded a ship called the Prosperous (Historical MSS. Commission, MSS. of A. G. Finch, i [1913], 228, 230–231) and in 1684 was a Deputy Master of Trinity House (Historical MSS. Commission, Report VIII, Part I [1881], 259a). But who was Mary Palmer's son Thomas? I have searched in vain in the few records of the Sheriff's Court that have been preserved for any mention of Thomas Palmer and his suit. Since both Marvell and Chamblett were intimately connected with Trinity House, it is altogether possible that through Marvell's influence Thomas Palmer held some minor position there.
66 C6/275/120.
67 State Papers Dom., Charles II, 382/142.
68 C6/283/87.
69 C8/252/9, ans. of Greene; C7/587/95.
70 State Papers Dom., Charles II, 417/234.
71 C6/275/120.
72 C8/252/9, ans. of Greene.
73 C6/276/48.
74 C6/275/120.
75 Ibid.
76 C7/589/82.
77 C7/589/82; C6/276/48.
78 C7/587/95.
79 C8/252/9.
80 Ibid.
81 Mrs. Palmer later denied that she had been admitted to sue in forma pauperis but said the litigation was proving so expensive that, if it continued, she would have to be so admitted (C6/242/13).
82 C8/252/9. “And this Deft further saith that altho the said Mr. Marvell & Mr. Nelthorpe did dwell in the same house togeather & she the Comp.It did also dwell therein as the housekeeper yet the said Mr. Marvell & the Comp.It did not lodge togeather as man & wife nor dyett togeather that is to say the Comp.It did not sitt at meales with the said Andrew Marvell … but eate her meales after they had done as servants use to doe as this Deft. hath seene & doubts not to proove.”
83 C6/242/13. Mrs. Palmer denies that she played any part in the arrest of Thompson or knew “anything of it, till above a Month after he was soe Arrested.” He left the house on Great Russell Street about Christmas, 1681 (Ibid.). Collins was a John Collins of Grays Inn, one of Thompson's numerous creditors (C7/581/73).
84 C6/242/13.
85 C6/242/13.
86 Ibid.
87 Ibid.
88 Chancery Decree Rolls: C78/1133/2, Farrington vs. Marvell and Greene.
89 Ibid.
90 Chancery Entry Book of Decrees and Orders: C33/261/308.
91 Chancery Reports and Certificates, 1683/A-G.
92 1 have been unable to find any record of this trial.
93 C33/261/560.
94 C78/1133/2.
95 C10/484/71. The Nelthorpes, Farrington complains, threaten to “make dice of yor Oratrs bones.”
96 C6/249/35, Farrington vs. Foach et al., ans. of Thompson.
97 C6/526/178.
98 C7/581/73.
99 C6/283/87.
100 C7/587/95.
101 C8/252/9.
102 C6/242/13.
103 Ibid.
104 Mrs. Palmer's husband must have been dead by 1667, since she pretends that she married Marvell on May 13 of that year. By November 24, 1687, even her youngest child was at least twenty years old.
105 C6/242/13, ans. of Mary Marvell.
106 C6/276/48.
107 C7/587/95. Twice she said only that he died in August (C7/589/82; C6/242/13).
108 Augustine Birrell (Andrew Marvell, [“English Men of Letters Series”; London, 1905] p. 222) declares that “a creditor of a deceased person could not obtain administration without citing the next of kin, but a widow was entitled, under a statute of Henry VIII., as of right, to administration.”
109 C/10/216/74.
110 Farrington attempts to confuse the issue regarding the time when he first became aware of the Wallis bond. On one occasion, for instance, he declares it was not until a year after administration was granted on Marvell—that is to say, late in 1680 or early in 1681 (C7/589/82). He also declares, however, that the bond was in Nelthorpe's possession at the time of his death in 1678 (C6/276/48; C6/242/13). The probability is very strong that Farrington discovered it immediately upon taking over his duties as administrator, if he did not know of it earlier. Wallis, a more or less disinterested third person, certainly implies that Farrington knew of the bond at least from the time he became Nelthorpe's administrator (C6/275/120).
111 C6/242/13, ans. of Mary Marvell.
112 The legal obstacles to the ruse were not formidable. Augustine Birrell states that “the practice of the court required an affidavit from the widow deposing that she was the lawful relict of the deceased, but this assertion on oath seems in ordinary cases to have been sufficient, if the customary fees were forthcoming” (Pages 222–223).
113 It is possible, of course, that Mrs. Palmer herself may have contrived the idea of posing as Mrs. Marvell, but that surely is to put the initiative where it does not belong. It is far more likely that the partners, experienced men of business and desperately in need of money, contrived the plot. Furthermore, the Wallis bond gave them a motive that Mrs. Palmer could have known, if at all, only at secondhand. Wallis says definitely that Mrs. Palmer knew nothing of the bond until Farrington informed her of it (C6/275/120).—The order of events is conjectural. It may be that Farrington, fearing eventualities, filed the caveat before he spoke to Mrs. Palmer. Naturally, not all of this reconstruction of events and motives can pretend to be exactly accurate.
114 So Greene asserts: “She the Compit would not have p'tended any right thereunto [the £500] if the said John ffarington would have given her money in hand” (C8/252/9). Farrington asserts the same (Ibid.).
115 C7/587/95; C8/252/9, ans. of Farrington.
116 Mrs. Palmer's attempts throughout 1683 to stave off the trial may very well indicate that she was still hoping to effect some financial settlement with Farrington out of court.
117 The Works of Andrew Marvell, ed. Thomas Cooke (London, 1772), i, x.
118 Thompson, iii, 491.
119 Quoted by Margoliouth, i, 218. The 1726 edition of Cooke has not been available to me.
120 iii, 489.
