Background
Nun Appleton Priory was a Cistercian religious house, until the Dissolution of the Monasteries. At that point, or shortly afterwards, it was acquired by the Fairfax family. One of the themes of the poem is a Protestant-slanted account of the circumstances under which Isabel Thwaites left the nunnery. She married William Fairfax of Steeton, in 1518, two decades before the Dissolution. Their son Sir Thomas Fairfax of Denton was a Member of Parliament; and his son was Thomas Fairfax, 1st Lord Fairfax of Cameron. The story of Isabel, released from wardship in the priory by legal order and William Fairfax's intervention, has not been verified independently of Marvell's account.
Thomas Fairfax, the dedicatee of the poem and son of the 1st Lord Fairfax, went to live as a newly-married man with his father at Denton. The domestic arrangements were soon changed, however, and Thomas Fairfax the younger soon moved to Nunappleton (now Nun Appleton), the estate on which Appleton House was built.
Nun Appleton is just north of Ryther, a village south-south-west of York. Local geography enters the poem in the mention of Cawood Castle, within walking distance of Ryther to the east. Both the ruined nunnery and the castle (associated with the Archbishops of York, and in particular with John Williams) are contrasted in the poem with Appleton House.
Read more about this topic: Upon Appleton House
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