made him dean of Connor; but Taylor was not consecrated till 27 Jan. 1661, and Marsh obtained the deanery of Connor on 28 Nov. 1660. On 1 June 1661 he resigned his fellowship, writing from Dublin, and on 27 June he became, through Clarendon's influence, dean of Armagh and archdeacon of Dromore. At the end of 1667 (elected 28 Oct.; consecrated at Clonmel 22 Dec.) he succeeded William Fuller, D.D. [q. v.], as bishop of Limerick, Ardfert, and Aghadoe; he was translated in 1672 to Kilmore and Ardagh; and on 14 Feb. 1682 was made archbishop of Dublin. It was in his palace that the privy council assembled on 12 Feb. 1687, when Tyrconnel was sworn in as lord deputy. Early in 1689, feeling his position unsafe, owing to his opposition to the administration of Tyrconnel, Marsh returned to England, having appointed William King, D.D. [q. v.], then dean of St. Patrick's, to act as his commissary. King declined the commission as not legally executed, and prevailed upon the chapters of Christ Church and St. Patrick's to elect Anthony Dopping [q. v.], then bishop of Meath, as administrator of the spiritualities. Marsh, who favoured the transfer of the crown to William of Orange, was included in the act of attainder passed by James's Dublin parliament in June 1689, his name being placed in the first list for forfeiture of life and estate. He returned to Dublin after the battle of the Boyne, but was not present at the thanksgiving service in St. Patrick's on 6 July 1690, excusing his absence on the ground of age and infirmity. In his last years he repaired and enlarged the archiepiscopal palace at his own cost. He died of apoplexy on 16 Nov. 1693, and was buried on 18 Nov. in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, Dopping preaching the funeral sermon. He married Mary, youngest daughter of Jeremy Taylor, and left issue; his son had succeeded him as treasurer of St. Patrick's, and afterwards became dean of Down. He was apparently not related to Narcissus Marsh [q. v.], his successor in the see of Dublin.
[Harris's Ware's Works, 1 764, vol. i.; Bonney's Life of Jeremy Taylor, 1816, pp. 387 sq.; Mant's Hist. of the Church of Ireland, 1840, i. 710, 732, ii. 45 sq.; Wills's Lives of Illustrious Irishmen, 1842, iv. 266 sq.; information from the Master of Emmanuel, and from the Gesta of Caius College, per Dr. Venn.]
MARSH, GEORGE (1515–1555), protestant martyr, born at Dean, near Bolton, Lancashire, about 1515, was educated in some local grammar school, probably Warrington. On leaving school he lived as a farmer, and when about twenty-five years old married, but his wife soon died, where-upon he gave up his farm, left his children in the care of his mother, and went to Cambridge University. There in due course he graduated ('commencing M. A. 1642,' Cooper, Athenæ Cantabr.) He was ordained by the bishops of London and Lincoln, and lived chiefly at Cambridge, but also acted as curate to Laurence Saunders (afterwards martyred) at Langton in Leicestershire and in London. In one of his examinations he said he ' served a cure and taught a school,' In 1554 he entertained the intention of leaving England for Denmark or Germany, and went into Lancashire to take leave of his relations. While there he preached at Dean and elsewhere. His protestant views and teaching soon brought him into trouble. He was informed that Justice Barton, acting for the Earl of Derby, sought to arrest him, and he was advised to fly. He, however, gave himself up at Smithells Hall, near Bolton, to Robert Barton, by whom he was sent to Lathom House, to be tried by the Earl of Derby. Of his two examinations before the earl and his council he has left a most interesting and minute account, as well as of the endeavours that were privately made to persuade him to conform to the Romish church. He was firm in his denial of transubstantiation and other cardinal points, and eventually was committed to prison at Lancaster. At Lancaster Castle he had as his fellow-prisoner one Warburton, with whom, as he 'said, he prayed with 'so high and loud a voice that the people without, in the streets, might hear us, and would oftentimes come and sit down in our sight under the windows and hear us read,' Dr. George Cotes, bishop of the diocese (Chester), came to Lancaster while he was imprisoned, and caused greater restrictions to be enforced. Marsh was afterwards removed to Chester, and again examined in the lady-chapel of the cathedral, being charged with having ' preached and openly published, most heretically and blasphemously, within the parishes of Dean, Eccles, Bolton, and many other parishes . . . directly against the Pope's authority and catholic church of Rome, the blessed mass, the sacrament of the altar, and many other articles,' In the end, after further trial, he was condemned to execution, and the sentence was carried out on 24 April 1555 at Spital Boughton, within the liberties of the city of Chester, where he was burnt at the stake, and his sufferings augmented by a barrel of pitch being placed over his head. His remains were buried at Spital Boughton. Bishop Cotes afterwards preached a sermon in the cathedral, and affirmed that Marsh
