Francis Marbury - Later Life

Later Life

For his conviction of heresy, Marbury spent two years in Marshalsea Prison, on the south side of the River Thames, across from London. In 1580, at the age of 25, he was released and was considered sufficiently reformed to preach and teach, and moved to the remote market town of Alford in Lincolnshire, about 140 miles (230 km) north of London, near his ancestral home. He was soon appointed curate (deputy vicar) of Saint Wilfrid's, the local church in Alford. His father died in 1581, leaving the resource-poor Marbury with some welcome income as well as "lawe bookes and a ring of gold."

Sometime about 1582 he married his first wife, Elizabeth Moore, and in 1585 he became the schoolmaster at the Alford Free Grammar School, one of many such public schools, free to the poor, begun by Queen Elizabeth. After bearing three daughters, Marbury's first wife died about 1586, and within a year of her death he married Bridget Dryden, about ten years younger than he, from a prominent Northampton family. Bridget was born in the Canons Ashby House in Northampton, the daughter of John Dryden and Elizabeth Cope. Her brother, Erasmus Dryden, was the grandfather of the famous playwright and Poet Laureate John Dryden.

In 1590 Marbury once again felt emboldened to speak out against his superiors, denouncing the Church of England for selecting poorly educated bishops and poorly trained ministers. The Bishop of Lincoln, calling him an "impudent Puritan," removed him from preaching and teaching, and put him under house arrest. On 15 October 1590 Marbury wrote a letter to the statesman William Cecil, Lord Burleigh, who was the uncle of Marbury's acquaintance, Francis Bacon. In the letter he explained his religious creed and claimed that he was deprived of his preaching license "for causes unknown to him." Without employment, he tended his gardens and tutored his children, reading to them from his own writings, the Bible, and John Foxe's Book of Martyrs. Somehow the family was able to survive, perhaps from borrowing from the Drydens. While this suspension from preaching was thought to be short by historian Lennam, his daughter's biographer, Eve LaPlante, wrote that it lasted nearly four years. Whichever the case, by 1594 he was once again preaching, and from this point forward, Marbury resolved to curb his tongue and not openly question those in positions of authority.

Following this final suspension, both his fame and fortune rose, and at one point Marbury became lecturer at St Saviour, Southwark. In 1602 he was given the honour of delivering the "Spittle sermon" in London on Easter Tuesday, and again at St Paul's Cross in London in June. The following year he had the distinction of delivering a special sermon on the accession of James I to the throne, and at this point several of his sermons were finding their way into print. With the support of Richard Vaughan, the Bishop of London, he was moved to London in 1605, finding a residence in the heart of the city where he was given the position of vicar of the Church of Saint Martin's in the Vintry. Here his Puritan views, though somewhat muffled, were nevertheless present and tolerated, since there was a shortage of pastors.

London was a vibrant and cosmopolitan city, and active playwrights of the time were William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, and Ben Jonson, whose plays were performed just across the river. The Marburys managed to avoid the bubonic plague that occasionally worked its way through the city. Marbury took on additional work in 1608, preaching in the parish of Saint Pancras, several miles northwest of the city, travelling there by horseback twice a week. In 1610 he was able to replace that position with one much closer to home, and became rector of Saint Margaret's, on New Fish Street, only a short walk from Saint Martin in the Vintry. While all seemed to be going well, Marbury died unexpectedly in February 1611, at the age of 55. He had written his will in January 1611, and its brevity suggests that it was written in a hurry following a sudden and serious illness. The will mentions his wife by name and 12 living children, but only his daughter Susan, from his first marriage, is mentioned by name. His widow resided for a time at St Peter, Paul's Wharf, London, but about December 1620 she married Reverend Thomas Newman of Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire, and died in 1645.