And Serjeants Wife serves him for Partelott.
ll 866–84
Marvell’s love of ‘reverend Chaucer’23 is once again attested in this passage. The poem would appear anonymously and for now he had no choice but to defer to the power of the Speaker and reflect on the extent of the animosity towards him in parts of the House.
13
Beyond Sea
If one were to choose a date for the beginning of the modern world, probably July 15, 1662, would be the best to fix upon. For on that day the Royal Society was founded, and the place of Science in civilization became a definite and recognized thing.
Lytton Strachey1
Marvell’s education had been in the classics and, just as in politics he seems to have been happiest occupying the middle ground, his intellect seems to have been poised between the old and the new, between the traditional values of a classicist and a student of the Bible and the scientific values of the new age of inquiry. There is evidence in his writing of familiarity with Hobbes ‘whose half-mediaeval, half-modern mind was the dominating influence over intellects which came to maturity in the middle years of the century’, according to Strachey. Hobbes’s materialist philosophy – ‘The universe, that is, the whole mass of things that are, is corporeal’, as he put it in his famous work, Leviathan (1651) – did not naturally consort with the idealist tendency of Marvell’s thought. The poet who wrote of a dialogue between the soul and the body would have few points of contact with a philosopher who rejected the notion of the soul as mediaeval ‘vain philosophy’. ‘The accepted tradition of centuries past, blended out of Platonic, Aristotelian, Neoplatonic, Stoic and Christian elements, spoke with seemingly overwhelming authority for the soul as a spiritual and even divine essence, informing the body, but existing in its own right, separable, and consequently immortal,’ wrote Basil Willey, a modern historian of seventeenth-century thought.2
At the dawning of the great age of modern science and reason, Marvell – though he lived at the centre of the turbulent political events of his epoch – was not wholly emancipated from the old philosophy nor eager to seize the role of buccinator novi temporis. He was, however, according to Aubrey, a friend of the mathematician John Pell, who invented the division sign in mathematics. Pell was a precocious scholar favoured by Cromwell, who sent him on a political mission to Switzerland in 1654. He later took orders and, like John Aubrey, was not greatly competent in managing his affairs and never quite lived up to his initial promise. The new science, as well as the contemporary confusion of astrology and astronomy, entered into Marvell’s poems where mathematical and geometrical metaphors abound, such as the ‘perfect Hemisphere’ of Bilborough Hill or the ‘holy Mathematicks’ of ‘Upon Appleton House’.
Whatever his appetite for intellectual exploration, Marvell was always a keen physical traveller. By the spring of 1662, he had been at home for at least five years and would have been getting restless. Malicious gossip in the House, made worse by his recent public dressing-down from the Speaker, may well have persuaded him to look for a change of scene and the opportunity now appeared to present itself. The mission that he undertook was a mysterious one. Marvell’s references to it at this time are brief and enigmatic. Writing to the Brethren of Trinity House on 22 March, he apologised for managing only a brief letter, citing in excuse ‘some avocations lately in mine own particular’3 that had preoccupied him. A week later he asked for ‘a dormant credit for an hundred pound’4 to oil the wheels of their business – the beginnings of the long-running Spurn Head lighthouse project.
One of the navigational duties of Trinity House was the provision of aids to navigation. In the sixteenth century a beacon was set up, later followed by a buoy that enabled the House to collect buoyage charges. There had been a light on Spurn Head as early as 1427, when it was maintained by a hermit, but it was not until the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries that speculators began to be attracted to the idea of seeking patents to erect a lighthouse and charge tolls on passing ships. Such schemes were consistently opposed by Trinity House, although their colleagues in Newcastle supported the idea to help their coal trade. In 1618, 1637 and 1657 the House opposed schemes, until in 1660 Philip Frowde was given leave to promote a bill in Parliament, then in 1662 Trinity House introduced its own bill to erect a lighthouse on Spurn Head. Its principal argument was that the revenues would benefit the poor. The House was joined by various other speculators including Justinian Angell, who later actually managed to erect lights with voluntary support. Both Trinity House Hull and Deptford objected to this on the grounds that the lights were badly sited, trying in 1675 to get them extinguished. Hull Corporation, however, opposed this move. Later, in 1675, Angell obtained a patent giving him the right to charge a farthing a ton on all passing ships. This rose to a halfpenny in 1678, the year of Marvell’s death.5
Marvell made this apparently very ordinary scheme take on an air of delicate intrigue, warning the Brethren on 8 May that it was not ‘safe … to speake too cleare by the Post’.6 He was hopeful of completing his work on their behalf soon but had an announcement to make:
But that whch troubles me is that by the interest of some persons too potent for me to refuse & who haue a great direction & influence upon my counsells & fortune I am obliged to go beyond sea before I haue perfected it [i.e. their business].
The offer that Marvell was unable to refuse was to carry out some sort of clandestine political mission to Holland at the request of Charles Howard, Earl of Carlisle, a Privy Counsellor. Marvell told the Brethren that Carlisle had been apprised of their business so that during his absence Carlisle would be ‘absolutely yours’. He went on: ‘And my journy is but into Holland from whence I shall weekly correspond euen as if I were at London with all the rest of my friends toward the effecting of your businesse.’ On 9 January he did just that, writing from Vianen to assure the Brethren that ‘your businesse shall not receive any detriment by my absence’.7 He implied that ‘mine own private affairs’ – an odd way to refer to what must have been official government business or government-sanctioned activity – were subservient to the needs of his constituents and that he could return in person if it became necessary.
Not everyone was happy about this mission, which took away from Hull, if only temporarily, a useful operator. Throughout Marvell’s Parliamentary career there would always be those ready to take advantage of any action that could be turned against him. On this occasion it was the Governor of Hull, Lord Belasyse, a Royalist and a Catholic, who gave voice to the public criticism of this unwarranted excursion by the town’s MP. Marvell sailed for Holland probably in May and did not return until perhaps as late as March 1663 in time to be present in Parliament on 2 April. The nature and purpose of the mission is unknown, but on arrival at the Hague he stayed with Sir George Downing, with whom he had corresponded in his first days in Thurloe’s office.8 The involvement of Downing and Carlisle confirms that it was an important mission on behalf of the government. Expanding British colonial trade and the need to protect it against its sea rivals, the Dutch, would lead to war in less than two years. Marvell may have been involved in some form of intelligence work connected with these national rivalries.9 In February, Belasyse wrote to the Corporation, complaining about the MP’s continued absence, with the implication that they should consider replacing him.10 They were not eager to do so, writing instead to warn Marvell of the resentment building up against him. He took the point and, if he had not already planned to do so, set off back to England. Replying on 12 March to their letter prompted by Belasyse’s intervention, Marvell observed that his own conscience made him always put his duties to ‘the publick & your service’ above his ‘private concernements’ and that he was ‘making all the speed possible back, and that with Gods assistance in a very short time you may expecte to heare of me at the Parliament House’.11 On 2 April Marvell was indeed back in Parliament, writing this time (rather breathlessly for he was ‘newly arrived in Town and full of busi
nesse’)12 to the new Mayor of Hull, Richard Wilson. He added rather tartly that he had been to the House and ‘found my place empty; though it seems as I now heare that some persons would haue been so courteous as to haue filled it for me’.
Marvell’s relationship with Carlisle was not over. Within two months he was off again in his service, presumably having distinguished himself in Holland. Carlisle’s politics were as ambivalent as Marvell’s. He had originally borne arms for the King but during the Civil War switched to the Parliamentary side, distinguishing himself at the Battle of Worcester where he was wounded. In his twenties he had been captain of Cromwell’s bodyguard, although he was later arrested and imprisoned in the Tower for treason, suspected of having been involved in Sir George Booth’s insurrection of 1658. He was eventually released without trial. He had been elected as MP for Cumberland at the same time that Marvell was returned for Hull and shortly afterwards made a Privy Counsellor. He was created Earl of Carlisle in April 1661 and later became Governor of Jamaica. It seems likely that Carlisle, eight years younger than Marvell, would have had much in common with the poet. Carlisle would also have been a useful man for Marvell to have on his side.
Marvell’s letters both to the Corporation and to Trinity House in the weeks after his return were even more ingratiating than ever, referring to ‘the great delight I take in writing to you’13 when in fact he was extremely busy and must have found such long letters something of a chore. Not that sittings of the House were long by late twentieth-century standards. ‘We sate which is unusuall with us till 6 at night,’14 he reported in May, letting fall, as a casual aside: ‘The Earle of Carlisle is going upon an Extraordinary Ambassage to Muscovy in order to setting up the English trade again there: from hence he is to goe to Sweden & Denmark.’ That Marvell might have a personal interest in this mission is not yet mentioned; perhaps he was quietly preparing the ground for another controversial absence. The letter in which he reported Carlisle’s plans is signed ‘St Jones’ instead of his usual ‘Westminster’. This is St John Street, Clerkenwell, where Marvell had lodged in the spring of 1642 (the heroine of Defoe’s Moll Flanders mentions taking ‘a private lodging in St John Street, or as it is vulgarly called, St Jones’s, near Clerkenwell’). Marvell appears to have lodged there again between his return from Holland and his second departure with Carlisle. Many of the anecdotes of Marvell’s life after the Restoration appear to be set in these City districts. If there was a dark side to Marvell, a less reputable existence than that of the esteemed poet, diligent Member of Parliament, and defender of true religion, it would have found its expression here, in the taverns, ordinaries and stews of mid-century London. His later detractors, such as Samuel Parker and the tribe of anonymous pamphleteers who responded to his Rehearsal Transpros’d, paint a consistent portrait of Marvell the low-life adventurer. Though it gains no warrant from the documentary evidence we have about Marvell, it should not be dismissed out of hand. Scattergun as Parker’s approach was, the fact that certain themes keep emerging in his and in the other portraits suggests some possible grounds in fact for these lurid touches. Here is Parker in full flight, caricaturing Marvell on his return from Europe in the 1640s:
and so return’d as accomplish’d as he went out, tries his fortune once more at the Ordinaries, plays too high for a Gentleman of his private condition, and so is at length cheated of all at Picquet. And so having neither Money nor employment, he is forced to loiter up and down about Charing-Cross and in Lincolns-Inn fields, where he had leisure and opportunity to make Remarques (among other Subjects) upon the wheel of Fortune …15
Parker also refers to Marvell having ‘been employed in Embassies abroad, and acquainted with Intrigues of State at home’ and generally the details in his account conform with the facts where these are known, however derisive the tone (‘Go your way for a smutty lubber,’16 was one of Parker’s more vivid imprecations). Marvell may well, therefore, have been a gambler and a drinker. Aubrey similarly referred to his drinking habits, although implying that they were of a more solitary nature: ‘He kept bottles of wine at his lodgeing, and many times he would drink liberally by himselfe to refresh his spirits, and exalt his Muse.’17 Parker’s ill will towards Marvell grew as the years went by. His attack became more abusive:
Amongst these lewd Revilers, the lewdest was one whose name was Marvel. As he had liv’d in all manner of wickedness from his youth, so being of a singular impudence and petulancy of nature, he exercised the province of a Satyrist … A vagabond, ragged, hungry Poetaster, being beaten at every tavern, he daily received the rewards of his sowerness in kicks and blows … But the King being restor’d, this wretched man falling into his former poverty, did, for the sake of a livelihood, procure himself to be chosen Member of Parliament for a Borough … [for the sake of 5s a day, a custom] long antiquated and out of date, Gentlemen despising so vile a stipend that was given like alms to the poor … yet he requir’d it for the sake of a bare subsistence, altho’ in this mean poverty he was nevertheless haughty and insolent.18
Another respondent, Richard Leigh, author of The Transproser Rehears’d, mockingly granted Marvell’s superior knowledge of ‘Rabble-Affairs … as having been a frequent & assiduous Spectator of these little broyles of the Rascality’,19 but Parker and his associates remain our only witnesses to Marvell’s putative low-life activities in Clerkenwell or Covent Garden.
By June 1663 Marvell was dropping heavier and heavier hints about his extra-Parliamentary activity. ‘I am forced by some private occasions but relating to the publick to be something lesse assiduous at the House then heretofore,’20 he explained to Mayor Wilson. He offered no more elucidation, which suggests that his activities were too secret to be divulged. A fortnight later, he finally anounced his plans:
The relation I haue to your affaires and the intimacy of that affection I ow you do both incline and oblige me to communicate to you that there is a probability I may very shortly haue occasion again to go beyond sea. For my Lord Carlisle being chosen by his Majesty his Embassadour Extraordinary to Muscovy Sweden and Denmarke hath used his power which ought to be very great with me to make me goe along with him Secretary in those Embassages.21
Marvell’s tone with the Corporation was defensive. He explained carefully that it was ‘no new thing for members of our house to be dispens’d with for the service of the King and the Nation in forain parts’. He added that he would not ‘stirre without speciall leave of the House that so you may be free from any possibility of being importuned or tempted to make any other choice in my absence’. Marvell was clearly taking no chances on this occasion. It was to be a longer trip this time – ‘The time allotted for the embassy is not much above a year’ – and he wanted to ensure that no attempts would be made to unseat him in his absence. In the event the embassy lasted until the end of January 1665, but there were no attempts this time to take advantage of his removal.
14
Peasants and Mechanicks
Our Liveries were so rich, and so well-trim’d that the Pages Liveries amongst others cost near thirty pounds sterling a piece, being almost covered quite over with silver lace.1
On 20 July 1663 Marvell was on board a man-of-war at Gravesend, eager to depart for Archangel. According to the nineteen-year-old Swiss undersecretary to the embassy, Guy Miège, the other vessel making up the party, a merchantman, had already attempted to sail on 15 July but, after a week of violent storms during which the Master’s refusal to put ashore earned him the title of ‘Amphibium’ from the drenched passengers, it had been driven back to Newcastle to make repairs.2 In his eve-of-departure letters to the Hull Corporation and to Trinity House, Marvell described ‘taking barge for Grauesend’3 that day, although the man-of-war did not actually sail until 22 July. He repeated his expectation that the voyage would finish ‘within twelve moneths’, which proved to be rather optimistic. His letter to Mayor Wilson was florid and ingratiating, but at the same time careful to make the point that this was an officially sa
nctioned mission and one that the Corporation had approved: ‘I undertake this voyage with the order and good liking of his Majesty and by leaue given me from the house and entered in the journall, and hauing received moreover your approbation I go therefore with much more ease and satisfaction of mind and augurate to my selfe the happier successe in all my proceedings.’ He also left a sly warning to handle Colonel Gilby robustly, so that he might serve them properly in his absence.
To the Brethren of Trinity House he again stressed the official backing for his mission but also indicated that he saw it as personally beneficial – ‘so advantageous to my selfe upon all respects and not unusefull to the public’.4 This would be the last letter he wrote to either body for more than eighteen months – given the impracticability of doing so while at sea and travelling on land – and he was keen to reassure the Brethren that their business would not suffer in his absence. Indeed, his short disappearance to Holland had proved, in the event, not to have needed his cutting the trip short: ‘Neither do I now go abroade againe but with a probability of coming back before your opposers can haue any hope of effecting their former pretensions.’ He suggested that the balance of the money he had asked them to deposit with him to facilitate his work for them in the lighthouse business could now be returned. Will Popple could arrange that for them. And then he was off.
Marvell’s certainty that this mission would do his career some good was well founded. His clash in the House with Clifford had taken place more than a year previously but he would be aware that he still had enemies at Westminster who remained suspicious of the past he himself had so easily disowned. A mission on behalf of the King to a foreign power, in the company of a favoured young aristocrat, would surely remove once and for all any doubts about his loyalty. Further commissions might follow.
World Enough and Time Page 14
