Andrew Marvell

by Augustine Birrell

The embassy left Moscow on the 24th of June for Novgorod and Riga, and after visiting Stockholm and Copenhagen, Lord Carlisle and Marvell reached London on the 30th of January 1665.

During Marvell’s absence war had been declared with the Dutch. It was never difficult to go to war with the Dutch. The king was always in want of money, and as no proper check existed over war supplies, he took what he wanted out of them. The merchants on ’Change desired war, saying that the trade of the world was too little for both England and Holland, and that one or the other “must down.” The English manufacturers, who felt the sting of their Dutch competitors, were always in favour of war. Then the growing insolence of the Dutch in the Indies was not to be borne. Stories were circulated how the Hollanders had proclaimed themselves “Lords of the Southern Seas,” and meant to deny English ships the right of entry in that quarter of the globe. A baronet called on Pepys and pulled out of his pocket letters from the East Indies, full of sad tales of Englishmen having been actually thrashed inside their own factory at Surat by swaggering Dutchmen, who had insulted the flag of St. George, and swore they were going to be the masters “out there.” Pepys, who knew a little about the state of the royal navy, listened sorrowfully and was content to hope that the war would not come until “we are more ready for it.”

In the House of Commons the prudent men were against the war, and were at once accused of being in the pay of the Dutch. The king’s friends were all for the war, and nobody doubted that some of the money voted for it would find its way into their pockets, or at all events that pensions would reward their fidelity. A third group who favoured the war were supposed to do so because their disloyalty and fanaticism always disposed them to trouble the waters in which they wished to fish.

The war began in November 1664, and on the 24th of that month the king opened Parliament and demanded money. He got it. Clarendon describes how Sir Robert Paston from Norfolk, a back-bench man, “who was no frequent speaker, but delivered what he had a mind to say very clearly,” stood up and proposed a grant of two and a half million pounds, to be spread over three years. So huge a sum took the House by surprise. Nobody spoke; “they sat in amazement.” Somebody at last found his voice and moved a much smaller sum, but no one seconded him. Sir Robert Paston ultimately found supporters, “no man who had any relation to the Court speaking a word.” The Speaker put Sir Robert Paston’s motion as the question, “and the affirmative made a good sound, and very few gave their negative aloud.” But Clarendon adds, “it was notorious very many sat silent.”

The war was not in its early stages unpopular, being for the control of the sea, for the right of search, for the fishing trade, for mastery of the “gorgeous East.” The Admiralty had been busy, and a hundred frigates, well gunned, were ready for the blue water by February 1665. The Duke of York, who took the command, was a keen sailor, though his unhappy notions as to patronage, and its exercise, were fatal to an efficient service. On the 3rd of June the duke had his one victory; it was off the roadstead of Harwich, and the roar of his artillery was heard in Westminster. It was a fierce fight; the king’s great friend, Charles Berkeley, just made a peer and about to be made a duke, Lord Muskerry and young Richard Boyle, all on the duke’s ship the Royal Charles, were killed by one shot, their blood and brains flying in the duke’s face. The Earls of Marlborough and Portland were killed. The gallant Lawson, who rose from the ranks in Cromwell’s time, an Anabaptist and a Republican, but still in high command, received on board his ship, the Royal Oak, a fatal wound. On the other side the Dutch admiral, Opdam, was blown into the air with his ship and crew. The Dutch fleet was scattered, and fled, after a loss estimated at twenty-four ships and eight thousand men killed and wounded; England lost no ship and but six hundred men.

The victory was not followed up. Some say the duke lost nerve. Tromp was allowed to lead a great part of the fleet away in safety, and when the great De Ruyter was recalled from the West Indies he was soon able to assume the command of a formidable number of fighting craft.

In less than ten days after this great engagement the plague appeared in London, a terrible and a solemnising affliction, lasting the rest of the year. It was at its worst in September, when in one week more than seven thousand died of it. The total number of its dead is estimated at sixty-eight thousand five hundred and ninety-six.

On account of the plague Parliament was summoned to meet at Oxford in October 1665.

Marvell must have reached Oxford in good time, for the Admission Book of the Bodleian records his visit to the library on the last day of September. His first letter from Oxford is dated 15th October, and in it he tells the corporation that the House, “upon His Majesty’s representation of the necessity of further supplies in reference to the Dutch War and probability of the French embracing their interests, hath voted the King £1,250,000 additional to be levied in two years.” The king, who was the frankest of mortals in speech, though false as Belial in action, told the House that he had already spent all the money previously voted and must have more, especially if France was to prefer the friendship of Holland to his. Amidst loud acclamations the money was voted. The French ambassadors, who were in Oxford, saw for themselves the temper of Parliament.

Notwithstanding the terrible plight of the capital, Oxford was gaiety itself. The king was accompanied by his consort, who then was hopeful of an heir, and also by Lady Castlemaine and Miss Stewart. Lady Castlemaine did not escape the shaft of University wit, for a stinging couplet was set up during the night on her door, for the discovery of the authorship of which a reward of £1000 was offered. It may very well have been Marvell’s.[1]