The Political Beliefs of Andrew Marvell

THE POLITICAL BELIEFS OF ANDREW MARVELL DONAL SMITH It is very difficult to place Marvell in a clearly defined political category. The evidence we have as to his views is diverse and often opposing. His letters to his friends, in particular to his nephew William Popple, show him as critical of court and Parliament alike. His Cromwellian poems show a development from royalist views, as expressed in his poem on Tom May's death and his elegy On the death of Francis Villiers, through a detached admiration of Cromwell's skill in the Horation, Ode to an enthusiastic acceptance of him in the First Anniversary and the Elegy on his death. The Restoration poems show an increasing disgust at court and Parliament, leading to a hatred of the Stuarts that at times approaches republicanism. On the other hand, The Rehearsal Transpros'd is moderate and royalist in outlook and is concerned to defend the King, particularly his policy of indulgence, Marvell's one long speech in Parliament ' is similarly a defence of royal prerogative. Finally, the Account of the Growth of Popery written towards the end of his life, while it claims to expose a plot to introduce "Popery" and "Arbitrary Government ," is, nevertheless, constitutional in approach and does not venture upon an attack on the monarchy. Miss I. C. Robbins, in her study of Marvell's political activities, has described Marvell's progression "... from a whole-hearted acceptance of Cromwell's freely conceded position as monarch through a moderate acceptance of the Restoration to a position which can only be described as violently Anti-Stuart.'" This view of Marvell's development had already been expressed by C. H. Firth, in his article on Marvell in the DNB. It is a view which depends on an unqualified acceptance of Marvell's verse satires of the Restoration petiod. The satires show the development of his political opinions. In 1667 he attacked Clarendon and the court party, and hoped that with a change of ministers all would yet go well again. By 1674 he had discovered that the secret of the misgovernment of England was the king's character: flfor one man's weakness a whole nation bleeds", In 1672 he held that Charies, with all his faults, was preferable to his bigoted brother, but in 1675 he had come to the conclusion that things would never be better till the reign of the house Volume XXXVI, Number 1, October, 1966 of Stuart was ended. Instead of constitutional monarchy he preached republicanism , and held up the republics of Rome and Venice as patterns to England.s However, the satires are by no means satisfactorily authenticated. Much of the evidence for Firth's last statement in the passage above depends on the authenticity of Britannia and Rawleigh, which has been seriously attacked by H. F. Brooks, who points out that the author shows a knowledge of two works by Oldham, Satyr against Virtue and Garnet's Ghost, which first appeared in 1679-after Marvell's death! None of the Restoration satires is as certainly Marvell's as is The Rehearsal Transpros'd. Our knowledge of their authorship depends on the ascription of a publisher or a manuscript copyist. Publishers were notoriously haphazard in their ascriptions, being more swayed by considerations of profit than of accuracy. J. H. Wilson cites an extreme example, the 1680 edition of Rochester's poems: ... avowedly published at Antwerp, and lacking any bookseller's name. The volume contains sixty-one poems, all attributed to Rochester. Of these, fifteen were certainly written by other poets: three by Aphra Behn, two by Alexander Radcliffe, two by Etherege, three by Buckhurst, two by Scroope, and three by Oldham. At least two more are almost certainly not by Rochester, and for the rest we must take the word of the nameless publisher' Manuscript ascriptions are little mOre reliable, for Britannia and Rawleigh is ascribed to Marvell by a copyist who has some authority-the hand which, as Margoliouth points out, uniquely and correctly ascribes Advice to a Painter to draw the Duke to Savile.' It would seem unwise, then, to make a dogmatiC statement On Marvell's political beliefs that depended solely on...