By the side of this grim story the much-written-about incidents of the Oxford Movement seem trivial enough.
Not a few Cambridge scholars of this period, Richard Crashaw among the number, found permanent refuge in Rome.
The story of Marvell’s conversion is emphatic but vague in its details. The “Jesuits,” who were well represented in Cambridge at the time, are said to have persuaded him to leave Cambridge secretly, and to take refuge in one of their houses in London. Thither the elder Marvell followed in pursuit, and after search came across his son in a bookseller’s shop, where he succeeded both in convincing the boy of his errors and in persuading him to return to Trinity. An odd story, and not, as it stands, very credible; but Mr. Grosart discovered among the Marvell papers at Hull a fragment of a letter without signature, address, or date, which throws some sort of light on the incident. This letter was evidently, as Mr. Grosart surmises, sent to the elder Marvell by some similarly afflicted parent. In its fragmentary state the letter reads as follows:—
“Worthy Sr,—Mr Breerecliffe being wth me to-day, I related vnto him a fearfull passage lately at Cambridg touching a sonne of mine, Bachelor of Arts in Katherine Hall, wch was this. He was lately inuited to a supper in towne by a gentlewoman, where was one Mr Nichols a felow of Peterhouse, and another or two masters of arts, I know not directly whether felowes or not: my sonne hauing noe p’ferment, but liuing meerely of my penny, they pressed him much to come to liue at their house, and for chamber and extraordinary bookes they promised farre: and then earnestly moued him to goe to Somerset house, where they could doe much for p’ferring him to some eminent place, and in conclusion to popish arguments to seduce him soe rotten and vnsauory as being ouerheard it was brought in question before the heads of the Uniuersity: Dr. Cosens, being Vice Chancelor noe punishment is inioined him: but on Ash-wednesday next a recantation in regent house of some popish tenets Nicols let fall: I p’ceive by Mr Breercliffe some such prank vsed towards yr sonne: I desire to know what yu did therin: thinking I cannot doe god better seruice then bring it vppon the stage either in Parliament if it hold: or informing some Lords of the Counsail to whom I stand much oblieged if a bill in Starchamber be meete To terrify others by making these some publique spectacle: for if such fearfull practises may goe vnpunished I take care whether I may send a child ... the lord.”[1]
The reference to Dr. Cosens, or Cosin, being Vice-Chancellor gives a clue to the date, for Cosin was chosen Vice-Chancellor on the 4th of November 1639.[2]
Though we can know nothing of the elder Marvell’s methods of re-conversion, they were more successful than the elder Gibbon’s, who, as we know, packed the future historian off to Lausanne and a Swiss pastor’s house. What Gibbon became on leaving off his Romanism we can guess for ourselves, whereas Marvell, once out of the hands of these very shadowy “Jesuits,” remained the staunchest of Christian Protestants to the end of his days.
This strange incident, and two college exercises or poems, one in Greek, the other in Latin, both having reference to an addition to the Royal Family, and appearing in the Musa Cantabrigiensis for 1637, are all the materials that exist for weaving the story of Marvell, the Cambridge undergraduate. The Latin verses, which are Horatian in style, contain one pretty stanza, composed apparently before the sex of the new-born infant was known at Cambridge.
“Sive felici Carolum figurâ
Parvulus princeps imitetur almae
Sive Mariae decoret puellam
Dulcis imago.”
After taking his Bachelor’s degree in 1639, Marvell, being still a Scholar of the college, must have gone away, for the Conclusion Book of Trinity, under date September 24, 1641, records as follows:—
“It is agreed by ye Master and 8 seniors yt Mr Carter and Dr Wakefields, Dr Marvell, Dr Waterhouse, and Dr Maye in regard yt some of them are reported to be married and yt others look not after yeir days nor Acts shall receave no more benefitt of ye Coll and shall be out of yier places unless yei shew just cause to ye Coll for ye contrary in 3 months.”