Authors, English -- Early modern, 1500-1700 -- Biography; Marvell, Andrew, 1621-1678
To Mr. Scroggs to attend the Council, L3 6 0
" " " again for the same, 3 6 0
Spent on Mr. Scroggs at dinner, 18 0
To Mr. Scroggs again, 3 0 0
Fees of the Council Table, 1 10 0
Fee to Clerk of the Council, 2 0 0
For dinner for Mr. Scroggs and wine after, 1 0 0
To Mr. Cresset (the Solicitor), 20 0 0
To Mr. Scroggs for a dinner, 1 0 0
The barrister who was so frequently "refreshed" by Marvell lived to
become "the infamous Lord Chief Justice Scroggs" of all school
histories.
A week before the prorogation of Parliament, which happened on the 19th
of May 1662, Marvell went to Holland and remained there for nine months,
for he did not return until the very end of March 1663, more than a
month after the reassembling of the House.
What took him there nobody knows. Writing to the Trinity House about the
lighthouse business on the 8th of May 1662, Marvell says:--
"But that which troubles me is that by the interest of some persons
too potent for me to refuse, and who have a great direction and
influence upon my counsels and fortune, I am obliged to go beyond
sea before I have perfected it (_i.e._ the lighthouse business). But
first I do thereby make my Lord Carlisle (who is a member of the
Privy Council and one of them to whom your business is referred)
absolutely yours. And my journey is but into Holland, from whence I
shall weekly correspond as if I were at London with all the rest of
my friends, towards the affecting your business. Then I leave Col.
Gilbey there, whose ability for business and affection to yours is
such that I cannot be wanted though I am missing."
It is plain from this that Lord Carlisle is one of the powerful persons
referred to--but beyond this we cannot go.
Whilst in Holland Marvell wrote both to the Trinity House and to the
corporation on business matters.
In March 1663 Marvell came back in a hurry, some complaints having been
made in Hull about his absence. He begins his first letter after his
return as follows:--
"Being newly arrived in town and full of business, yet I could not
neglect to give you notice that this day (2nd April 1663) I have been
in the House and found my place empty, though it seems, as I now
hear, that some persons would have been so courteous as to have
filled it for me."
In none of these letters is any reference made to the debates in the
House on the unhappy Bill of Uniformity, nor does any record of those
discussions anywhere exist. The Savoy Conference proved a failure, and
no lay reader of Baxter's account of it can profess wonder. Not a single
point in difference was settled. In the meantime the restored Houses of
Convocation, from which the Presbyterian members were excluded, had
completed their revision of the Book of Common Prayer and presented it
to Parliament.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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