World Enough and Time (19 page)

The offer that Marvell was unable to refuse was to carry out some sort of clandestine political mission to Holland at the request of Charles Howard, Earl of Carlisle, a Privy Counsellor. Marvell told the Brethren that Carlisle had been apprised of their business so that during his absence Carlisle would be ‘absolutely yours'. He went on: ‘And my journy is but into Holland from whence I shall weekly correspond euen as if I were at London with all the rest of my friends toward the effecting of your businesse.' On 9 January he did just that, writing from Vianen to assure the Brethren that ‘your businesse shall not receive any detriment by my absence'.
7
He implied that ‘mine own private affairs' – an odd way to refer to what must have been official government business or government-sanctioned activity – were subservient to the needs of his constituents and that he could return in person if it became necessary.

Not everyone was happy about this mission, which took away from Hull, if only temporarily, a useful operator. Throughout Marvell's Parliamentary career there would always be those ready to take advantage of any action that could be turned against him. On this occasion it was the Governor of Hull, Lord Belasyse, a Royalist and a Catholic, who gave voice to the public criticism of this unwarranted excursion by the town's MP. Marvell sailed for Holland probably in May and did not return until perhaps as late as March 1663 in time to be present in Parliament on 2 April. The nature and purpose of the mission is unknown, but on arrival at the Hague he stayed with Sir George Downing, with whom he had corresponded in his first days in Thurloe's office.
8
The involvement of Downing and Carlisle confirms that it was an important mission on behalf of the government. Expanding British colonial trade and the need to protect it against its sea rivals, the Dutch, would lead to war in less than two years. Marvell may have been involved in some form of intelligence work connected with these national rivalries.
9
In February, Belasyse wrote to the Corporation, complaining about the MP's continued absence, with the implication that they should consider replacing him.
10
They were not eager to do so, writing instead to warn Marvell of the resentment building up against him. He took the point and, if he had not already planned to do so, set off back to England. Replying on 12 March to their letter prompted by Belasyse's intervention, Marvell observed that his own conscience made him always put his duties to ‘the publick & your service' above his ‘private concernements' and that he was ‘making all the speed possible back, and that with Gods assistance in a very short time you may expecte to heare of me at the Parliament House'.
11
On 2 April Marvell was indeed back in Parliament, writing this time (rather breathlessly for he was ‘newly arrived in Town and full of businesse')
12
to the new Mayor of Hull, Richard Wilson. He added rather tartly that he had been to the House and ‘found my place empty; though it seems as I now heare that some persons would haue been so courteous as to haue filled it for me'.

Marvell's relationship with Carlisle was not over. Within two months he was off again in his service, presumably having distinguished himself in Holland. Carlisle's politics were as ambivalent as Marvell's. He had originally borne arms for the King but during the Civil War switched to the Parliamentary side, distinguishing himself at the Battle of Worcester where he was wounded. In his twenties he had been captain of Cromwell's bodyguard, although he was later arrested and imprisoned in the Tower for treason, suspected of having been involved in Sir George Booth's insurrection of 1658. He was eventually released without trial. He had been elected as MP for Cumberland at the same time that Marvell was returned for Hull and shortly afterwards made a Privy Counsellor. He was created Earl of Carlisle in April 1661 and later became Governor of Jamaica. It seems likely that Carlisle, eight years younger than Marvell, would have had much in common with the poet. Carlisle would also have been a useful man for Marvell to have on his side.

Marvell's letters both to the Corporation and to Trinity House in the weeks after his return were even more ingratiating than ever, referring to ‘the great delight I take in writing to you'
13
when in fact he was extremely busy and must have found such long letters something of a chore. Not that sittings of the House were long by late twentieth-century standards. ‘We sate which is unusuall with us till 6 at night,'
14
he reported in May, letting fall, as a casual aside: ‘The Earle of Carlisle is going upon an Extraordinary Ambassage to Muscovy in order to setting up the English trade again there: from hence he is to goe to Sweden & Denmark.' That Marvell might have a personal interest in this mission is not yet mentioned; perhaps he was quietly preparing the ground for another controversial absence. The letter in which he reported Carlisle's plans is signed ‘St Jones' instead of his usual ‘Westminster'. This is St John Street, Clerkenwell, where Marvell had lodged in the spring of 1642 (the heroine of Defoe's
Moll Flanders
mentions taking ‘a private lodging in St John Street, or as it is vulgarly called, St Jones's, near Clerkenwell'). Marvell appears to have lodged there again between his return from Holland and his second departure with Carlisle. Many of the anecdotes of Marvell's life after the Restoration appear to be set in these City districts. If there was a dark side to Marvell, a less reputable existence than that of the esteemed poet, diligent Member of Parliament, and defender of true religion, it would have found its expression here, in the taverns, ordinaries and stews of mid-century London. His later detractors, such as Samuel Parker and the tribe of anonymous pamphleteers who responded to his
Rehearsal Transpros'd,
paint a consistent portrait of Marvell the low-life adventurer. Though it gains no warrant from the documentary evidence we have about Marvell, it should not be dismissed out of hand. Scattergun as Parker's approach was, the fact that certain themes keep emerging in his and in the other portraits suggests some possible grounds in fact for these lurid touches. Here is Parker in full flight, caricaturing Marvell on his return from Europe in the 1640s:

and so return'd as accomplish'd as he went out, tries his fortune once more at the Ordinaries, plays too high for a Gentleman of his private condition, and so is at length cheated of all at Picquet. And so having neither Money nor employment, he is forced to loiter up and down about
Charing-Cross
and in
Lincolns-Inn fields,
where he had leisure and opportunity to make Remarques (among other Subjects) upon the wheel of Fortune …
15

Parker also refers to Marvell having ‘been employed in Embassies abroad, and acquainted with Intrigues of State at home' and generally the details in his account conform with the facts where these are known, however derisive the tone (‘Go your way for a smutty lubber,'
16
was one of Parker's more vivid imprecations). Marvell may well, therefore, have been a gambler and a drinker. Aubrey similarly referred to his drinking habits, although implying that they were of a more solitary nature: ‘He kept bottles of wine at his lodgeing, and many times he would drink liberally by himselfe to refresh his spirits, and exalt his Muse.'
17
Parker's ill will towards Marvell grew as the years went by. His attack became more abusive:

Amongst these lewd Revilers, the lewdest was one whose name was
Marvel.
As he had liv'd in all manner of wickedness from his youth, so being of a singular impudence and petulancy of nature, he exercised the province of a Satyrist … A vagabond, ragged, hungry Poetaster, being beaten at every tavern, he daily received the rewards of his sowerness in kicks and blows … But the King being restor'd, this wretched man falling into his former poverty, did, for the sake of a livelihood, procure himself to be chosen Member of Parliament for a Borough … [for the sake of 5s a day, a custom] long antiquated and out of date, Gentlemen despising so vile a stipend that was given like alms to the poor … yet he requir'd it for the sake of a bare subsistence, altho' in this mean poverty he was nevertheless haughty and insolent.
18

Another respondent, Richard Leigh, author of
The Transproser Rehears'd,
mockingly granted Marvell's superior knowledge of ‘Rabble-Affairs … as having been a frequent & assiduous Spectator of these little broyles of the Rascality',
19
but Parker and his associates remain our only witnesses to Marvell's putative low-life activities in Clerkenwell or Covent Garden.

By June 1663 Marvell was dropping heavier and heavier hints about his extra-Parliamentary activity. ‘I am forced by some private occasions but relating to the publick to be something lesse assiduous at the House then heretofore,'
20
he explained to Mayor Wilson. He offered no more elucidation, which suggests that his activities were too secret to be divulged. A fortnight later, he finally anounced his plans:

The relation I haue to your affaires and the intimacy of that affection I ow you do both incline and oblige me to communicate to you that there is a probability I may very shortly haue occasion again to go beyond sea. For my Lord Carlisle being chosen by his Majesty his Embassadour Extraordinary to Muscovy Sweden and Denmarke hath used his power which ought to be very great with me to make me goe along with him Secretary in those Embassages.
21

Marvell's tone with the Corporation was defensive. He explained carefully that it was ‘no new thing for members of our house to be dispens'd with for the service of the King and the Nation in forain parts'. He added that he would not ‘stirre without speciall leave of the House that so you may be free from any possibility of being importuned or tempted to make any other choice in my absence'. Marvell was clearly taking no chances on this occasion. It was to be a longer trip this time – ‘The time allotted for the embassy is not much above a year' – and he wanted to ensure that no attempts would be made to unseat him in his absence. In the event the embassy lasted until the end of January 1665, but there were no attempts this time to take advantage of his removal.

14

Peasants and Mechanicks

Our Liveries were so rich, and so well-trim'd that the Pages Liveries amongst others cost near thirty pounds sterling a piece, being almost covered quite over with silver lace.
1

On 20 July 1663 Marvell was on board a man-of-war at Gravesend, eager to depart for Archangel. According to the nineteen-year-old Swiss undersecretary to the embassy, Guy Miège, the other vessel making up the party, a merchantman, had already attempted to sail on 15 July but, after a week of violent storms during which the Master's refusal to put ashore earned him the title of
‘Amphibium'
from the drenched passengers, it had been driven back to Newcastle to make repairs.
2
In his eve-of-departure letters to the Hull Corporation and to Trinity House, Marvell described ‘taking barge for Grauesend'
3
that day, although the man-of-war did not actually sail until 22 July. He repeated his expectation that the voyage would finish ‘within twelve moneths', which proved to be rather optimistic. His letter to Mayor Wilson was florid and ingratiating, but at the same time careful to make the point that this was an officially sanctioned mission and one that the Corporation had approved: ‘I undertake this voyage with the order and good liking of his Majesty and by leaue given me from the house and entered in the journall, and hauing received moreover your approbation I go therefore with much more ease and satisfaction of mind and augurate to my selfe the happier successe in all my proceedings.' He also left a sly warning to handle Colonel Gilby robustly, so that he might serve them properly in his absence.

To the Brethren of Trinity House he again stressed the official backing for his mission but also indicated that he saw it as personally beneficial – ‘so advantageous to my selfe upon all respects and not unusefull to the public'.
4
This would be the last letter he wrote to either body for more than eighteen months – given the impracticability of doing so while at sea and travelling on land – and he was keen to reassure the Brethren that their business would not suffer in his absence. Indeed, his short disappearance to Holland had proved, in the event, not to have needed his cutting the trip short: ‘Neither do I now go abroade againe but with a probability of coming back before your opposers can haue any hope of effecting their former pretensions.' He suggested that the balance of the money he had asked them to deposit with him to facilitate his work for them in the lighthouse business could now be returned. Will Popple could arrange that for them. And then he was off.

Marvell's certainty that this mission would do his career some good was well founded. His clash in the House with Clifford had taken place more than a year previously but he would be aware that he still had enemies at Westminster who remained suspicious of the past he himself had so easily disowned. A mission on behalf of the King to a foreign power, in the company of a favoured young aristocrat, would surely remove once and for all any doubts about his loyalty. Further commissions might follow.

The voyage from Gravesend to the port of Archangel took a month, the frigate making much quicker progress than the merchantman which did not arrive until 5 September. Guy Miège described the whole embassy in often very vivid detail in
A Relation of Three Embassies from His Sacred Majesty Charles II to the Great Duke of Muscovie, The King of Sweden and the King of Denmark Performed by the Right Ho'ble the Earle of Carlisle in the Years 1663 & 1664,
which was published anonymously in 1669, ‘with his Lordships approbation'. It was a popular work that went through several editions and translations. Miège, who was born in Lausanne in 1644, went on to publish in 1691 a
New State of England
– a sort of anatomy of Britain – and various French dictionaries and grammars. He was a shrewd and observant writer. The purpose of the embassy he described was to bring about the restoration of certain trade privileges that English merchants had previously enjoyed in Russia but which the Tsar had cancelled after the execution of the King. Miège wrote that the present ruler of ‘Moscovy', Alexey Michailovitz, had a great ‘abhorrency of the murther of King Charles the First' so the embassy would have its work cut out. Back in England, the King had already held a lavish reception for the Russian ambassadors, but a personal visit of his representatives was necessary. Another aim of the embassy was to restore a special English privilege of paying no impost when using the port of Archangel in recognition of their having originally discovered the port. Two reasons were proffered for winning back these privileges: the fact that the rebellion was over and that ‘these very Priviledges were the basis and foundation, upon which the Amity betwixt the two Crowns of England and Moscovy were superstructures'.