Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Marvell, Andrew (1586?-1641)
MARVELL, ANDREW, the elder (1586?–1641), divine, born at Meldreth in Cambridgeshire about 1586, was educated at Emmanuel College, Cambridge. In 1608 he took the degree of M.A. In 1610 he is found signing the registers of Flamborough in Yorkshire as 'minister' and in 1611 as 'curate.' Three years later he was given the living of Winestead in Holderness, to which he was inducted on 23 April 1614. In 1624 he removed to Hull as master of the grammar school there, and became about the same time master of the Charterhouse and lecturer at Holy Trinity Church. He was drowned on 23 Jan. 1640-1, while crossing the Humber (Kippis, Biog. Brit. v. 3052; Gent, Hist. of Hull, ed. 1735, p. 141; Grosart, Works of Andrew Marvell, 1872, vol. i. Pref. pp. xx, xxv, xxxi; Fuller, Worthies, ed. Nichols, i. 165).
Marvell married twice: (1) Anne Pease, 22 Oct. 1612; (2) Lucy, daughter of John Alured, and widow of William Harris, Nov. 1638. By his first wife, who was buried in Holy Trinity Church, Hull, on April 1638, Marvell had three daughters and two sons, viz.: Anne, born 1615, married in 1633 James Blaydes; Mary, born 1617, married Edmond Popple in 1636; Elizabeth, born 1618, married Robert More in 1639; Andrew the poet, born 1621, the subject of a separate article; John, born 1623, died 1624 (Grosart, vol. i. pp. xxxii, xiv; Aitken, Poems of Andrew Marvell, vol. i. pp. xx).
Marvell is described by his son, in the second part of the 'Rehearsal Transprosed,' as 'having lived with some measure of reputation both for piety and learning, and was moreover a conformist to the established rites of the church of England, though none of the most over-running or eager in them' (Grosart, iii. 322). Fuller describes him as i most facetious in his discourse, yet grave in his carriage, a most excellent preacher, who, like a good husband, never broached what he had new-brewed, but preached what he had prestudied some competent time before' (Worthies, ed. Nichols, i. 165). In December 1637, when John Ramsden, the mayor of Hull, was carried off by the plague, Marvell 'ventured to give his corpse Christian burial, and preached a most excellent sermon, which was afterwards printed' (De La Pryme, manuscript 'History of Hull,' quoted in the Diary of Abraham de la Pryme, ed. by C. Jackson, p. 286). No copy of this sermon, however, is in either the Bodleian or the British Museum. A number of manuscript sermons and other papers of Marveil's in the possession of Mr. E. S. Wilson of Hull are described by Dr. Grosart (Marvell, Works, vol. i. p. xxv). Fuller, writing in 1662, says: 'His excellent comment upon St. Peter is daily desired and expected, if the envy and covetousness of pri- vate persons, for their own use, deprive not the public of the benefit thereof (Worthier, i. 165). A portion of an epistolary controversy between Marvell and the Rev. Richard Harrington of Marfleet is printed in Mr. T. T. Wildridge's 'Hull Letters' (p. 164). An elegy on Marvell, said to be from a parish register in the north of Yorkshire, is given in 'Notes and Queries,' 3rd ser. ii. 227.
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