Henry
Marten
"Let
that ugly Rascall be gonne out of the Parke, that whore-master, or els I will
not see the sport.[1]
Charles
I
"And
therefore, Sir, to give you your due and right, I must ingenuously a•…
knowledge, that I have for a long time looked upon you, as one of the great
p•…lars of the Liberties of the Commons of England, and your name amongst all
ju•… and unbiassed men, hath been extraordinary famous this present Parliament,
therefore, and for this, you suffered an expulsion of the House, and a
reproachfull a•… unjust imprisonment in the Tower of London, by the guilded men
of the time who (you then discovered) carried two faces under one hood; &
many monet•… (if not some yeares) you continued an ejected person from your
just place in th•… House"[2]
Rash
oaths unwarrantable-John Lilburne
"He
was a great lover of pretty girles, to whom he was so liberall that he spent
the greatest part of his estate". He was a great and faithfull lover of
his Countrey, and Never gott a farthing by Parliament. He was of an
incomparable Witt for Repartes; not at all covetous; not at all Arrogant, as
most of them were; a great cultor of Justice, and did always in the House take
the part of the oppressed".
John Aubrey
John
Worthen's biography of Henry Worthen is both intriguing and illuminating. It is
a sympathetic portrait of one of the leading figures of the English revolution.
Marten was a republican way before it became fashionable, being the only
convinced Republican in the Long Parliament at the outset of the civil war and
was one of the few leaders of the English revolution to be intimately connected
with the Leveller movement.
The
book is deeply researched, drawing extensively on letters Marten wrote while
awaiting trial. He was accused of organising the trial of Charles I and being
one of the signatories of the King's death warrant. Amazingly, these letters
remained intact since, during his captivity, his letters to his mistress Mary
Ward were stolen and published in an attempt to destroy his reputation. However,
their publication revealed a thoughtful, intelligent and tender man. Worthen's
use of them is to be commended. They are an extraordinary source material.
It
would not be an exaggeration to say that the Marten was at the fulcrum of the
English bourgeois revolution. But history has not been kind to Henry Marten. Today,
he is a neglected historical figure. If any person needed to be rescued from
the condescension of history, it was Marten. It has not helped that several
conservative and revisionist historians have heaped a pile of dead dogs on his historical
reputation. Many have repeated old accusations that he was a womaniser and have
tended to downplay his importance or close connection to the Leveller movement.
The
unseriousness of these historians is perhaps encapsulated by the article in the
august publication, The History of Parliament Blog, by Dr David Scott called Sex
in the Long Parliament, in which he writes, "No sex survey of the Long
Parliament, however brief, can omit its supposedly most libidinous member, the
arch-republican MP for Berkshire, Henry Marten. Parliamentarians and royalists
alike denounced him as a libertine and 'whoremaster’. Yet this moral outrage
owed less to his womanising than to the shamelessness with which he abandoned
his wife and lived openly with his mistress, to whom he seems to have remained
faithful to the end of his life in 1680. The greatest sexual offence a Long
Parliamentarian could commit was refusing to acknowledge it as an offence at
all. If this were a defence of Marten's reputation, I would hate to see him
attacking him.[3]
Worthen
does not buy into Marten being a whore-master. Charles I's accusation, alongside
many others, has been largely accepted down through the ages. A far more
reasoned explanation can be found in Sarah Barber's article for the Oxford
Dictionary of National Biography. She writes, "His reputation for whoring
seems to have been generated by the flagrant way in which he breached
conventional mores by openly living with a common-law wife, Mary Ward, whose
brother, Job, was parliamentarian commander of the fort at Tilbury. There is
evidence that they were a couple from as early as 1649 when they lavishly
entertained visiting dignitaries and kept liveried servants together. They may
well have been a couple from Marten's earliest time in London in 1640. If so,
this was a relationship that remained constant for forty years. It was,
however, adulterous, and Marten was quite open about it. Mary referred to
herself and was referred to by others as Mary Marten. There were frequent plays
on the word 'leveller' to argue that Marten's radical political stance was, in
fact, a synonym for the seduction of women, and satires on Mary to imply his
possession of a 'creature', in the same way, that his regiment and his
political power were bought. The couple had three daughters: Peggy, Sarah, and
Henrietta (Bacon-hog).[4]
Perhaps
the most disappointing aspect of Worthen's book is his failure to pursue more
in-depth research into Marten's close connection to the Leveller movement,
particularly his association with its leader John Lilburne. Further research is
needed also regarding Marten’s time in the New Model Army and to the extent of
Leveller's ideas permeating the Army. Did Marten spread Leveller inspired ideas
amongst his troops, and how did he come by the secret codes that the Levellers
used to hide their correspondence?.
According
to Sarah Barber, "Marten developed a close working relationship with the
Leveller leaders during the late 1640s. He was closest to John Wildman, who was
to marry Lucy Lovelace. Wildman was named with Marten in a cypher outlining
sympathetic individuals and regiments, as well as identifying opponents, during
the army agitation of summer 1647. Throughout their lives, Marten and Wildman
retained their cypher letters as pen names. John Lilburne also trusted and
respected Marten. The latter chaired the committee charged with examining
Lilburne's imprisonment, a committee that was unable to secure Lilburne's
release, and in Rash Oaths Unwarrantable. The Leveller published an invective
against Marten. Marten was hurt by Lilburne's personal attack and drafted a
reply, 'Rash censures uncharitable', but did not publish it. The two seem to
have mended their relationship and developed mutual respect. Marten also knew
several minor Leveller figures. He took part in negotiations to draw up an
Agreement of the People and was praised by Lilburne as the only parliamentarian
to actively do so in late 1648. Marten approved of the idea of a fundamental
constitution and was later, with Edward Sexby, to assist the frondeurs in
drawing up a similar agreement for the French rebels".[5]
Despite
Worthen's reluctance to deeply pursue Marten's connection with the Levellers,
this is a much-needed attempt to restore Marten's historical importance. Hopefully,
this book gets a wide readership and opens up a debate about the much-maligned Marten.
Notes
S.
Barber, A revolutionary rogue: Henry Marten and the English republic (2000)
Henry Marten and The Levellers at the National Portrait Gallery-john Rees- www.youtube.com
About
the Author
JOHN
WORTHEN is a biographer and historian. Professor of D. H. Lawrence Studies at
the University of Nottingham from 1994-2003, he is the author of
critically-acclaimed biographies of D. H. Lawrence, T. S. Eliot and Robert
Schumann.
[1]
Aubrey's Brief Lives-By John Aubrey
[2] Early
English Books Online- https://proquest.libguides.com/eebopqp
[3] Sex
in the Long Parliament-
https://thehistoryofparliament.wordpress.com/2019/08/22/sex-in-the-long-parliament/
[4] https://www-oxforddnb-com.
[5] https://www-oxforddnb-com
