Shakerley Marmion
Shakerley Marmion was an English playwright and poet, born as the second of four children to Shakerley Marmion, Sr. and Mary Lukin Marmion. His lineage traces back to Baron Robert Marmion I, who fought at the Battle of Hastings in 1066. Despite his family's aristocratic background, Marmion's early life was marked by financial difficulties due to his father's mismanagement. Educated in the classics at the Free School at Thame and Wadham College, Oxford, he earned both a bachelor's and master's degree.
Marmion's career began with his comedy *Holland's Leaguer*, which opened the season for the Prince Charles's Men in 1631 and enjoyed notable success. He is also recognized for his association with the playwright Ben Jonson, for whom he penned an elegy in 1638. Throughout his writing, Marmion adhered to the classical rules promoted by Jonson, particularly in works that reflected the cultural ideals of the court. After a brief but impactful period as a playwright, he shifted his focus to poetry, producing significant works including *The Legend of Cupid and Psyche*. Marmion's life ended in 1639 due to illness while serving in the cavalry, leaving behind a legacy that intertwines with the theatrical and poetic traditions of his time.
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Subject Terms
Shakerley Marmion
Playwright
- Born: January 21, 1603
- Birthplace: Aynho, Northamptonshire, England
- Died: January 1, 1639
- Place of death: London, England
Biography
The son of Shakerley Marmion, Sr., and his wife, Mary Lukin Marmion, Shakerley Marmion, Jr., was the second of four children born to the couple. The Marmions were linear descendants of Baron Robert Marmion I who came to England with William the Conqueror and distinguished himself at the Battle of Hastings in 1066. Sir Robert received sprawling estates in gratitude for his military service.
The elder Shakerley Marmion grew up in an affluent atmosphere, but he managed his affairs badly, so his fortunes declined steadily in the early years of his marriage. Mary Lukin’s father had given his daughter an annual pension of eight hundred pounds upon her marriage, an income considered substantial in its day. Mary’s eldest son, Shakerley, received a solid education in the classics at the Free School at Thame in Oxfordshire. In 1617, when he was fourteen, he enrolled in Oxford University’s Wadham College from which he received a bachelor’s degree in 1622 and, two years later, a master’s degree.
Existing records suggest that around 1624 Marmion was in some sort of legal difficulty, which perhaps explains why very little is known about his activities between 1624 and 1629. He probably kept a low profile to avoid legal entanglements, living in London for part of that time and serving in foreign military service, probably in 1626. At some time during this period, Marmion met playwright Ben Jonson, for whom he was to write an elegy in 1638. Jonson is clearly the model for a character that appears in Marmion’s A Fine Companion in 1633, which must have been based upon Marmion’s personal association with Jonson.
Shakerley’s first play to be performed in London was Holland’s Leaguer, a comedy, which predates A Fine Companion by two years. The play, licensed in December, 1631, was presented by the Prince Charles’s Men at the Salisbury Court Theatre as the opening production by the company. The fact that this play was selected to launch the Charles’s Men season and ran for six days, among the longest runs of that period, suggests that the play was well received and highly regarded.
It is clear that Marmion’s plays followed the classical rules that Ben Jonson espoused to promote the notion of the Platonic love cult that prevailed at court during the period in which Marmion was writing. For his final play, The Antiquary, Marmion changed companies, this time having the play performed by the Queen’s Company, probably during the winter of 1634-1635. By the time the play was published in 1641, Marmion had been dead for two years.
The existing evidence suggests that Marmion decided to abandon his career as a playwright in 1637 to write poetry. His only extant work between 1637 and his death in 1639 after he fell ill while serving in the cavalry is his elegy for Ben Jonson. His last major poetry was the long mythological poem The Legend of Cupid and Psyche. Marmion wrote this work that exceeded two thousand lines in 1637.