Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 36.djvu/270

Marten (, p. 545). D'Ewes describes him as one ' that used to snarl at everybody,' and couples him with Pym and the ' fiery spirits who, accounting their own condition desperate, did not care how they hazarded the whole kingdom to save themselves ' (ib. pp. 532, 540). On 27 Sept. 1642 he attacked William Russell, fifth earl of Bedford, for his not pursuing William Seymour, marquis of Hertford, and on 5 Dec. criticised with equal severity the slowness of his movements. In April 1644 he became involved in a quarrel with Algernon Percy, teuth earl of Northumberland [q. v.], one of the commissioners at the Oxford treaty with the king. Suspecting Northumberland's fidelity to the parliamentary cause, he opened a letter from Northberland to his wife, for which act Northumberland, meeting Marten at a conference in the Painted Chamber, gave him several blows with his cane. Each house took up the cause of its member, and complained of a breach of privilege, but the quarrel was privately made up (ib. p. 546 ; Mercurius Aulicus, 20 April; Lords' Journals, vi. 11; Commons' Journals,'' iii. 51 ). Marten showed as little respect to the House of Lords in general as to individual members of it, and that assembly was greatly indignant at the words used by Marten concerning their delay to pass the ordinance for sequestering the estates of royalists (Lords' Journals, v. 696).

On questions concerning the dealings of the parliament with the King Marten was equally outspoken. At the close of the Oxford treaty, urging the rejection of the king's messages, he bluntly said : 'Let us not trouble ourselves to send away an answer, but rather answer them with scorn, as being unworthy of our further regard' (, Great Civil War, i. 126). The House of Lords wished to respect the king's private property, but Marten seized his horses and refused to return them, alleging that he saw no reason why the king's horses should not be taken as well as his ships (Lords' Journals, vi. 26, 28 ; Mercurius Aulicus, 8 May l^S). He was in his element as a member of the committee for destroying the superstitious images in the Queen's Chapel at Somerset House, and is said to have seized the regalia in Westminster Abbey, declaring that 'there would be no further use of these toys and trifles' (Commons' Journals, iii. 24; Heylyn, History of the Presbyterians, p. 452, ed. 1672; Sanderson, Life of Charles I, p. 623; Mercurius Aulicus, 3 April 1643). His scandalous utterances about the king are frequently commented upon in the royalist newspaper (ib. 26 May, 10 July 1643). On 16 Aug. 1643, defending a pamphlet which proposed the king's deposition, Marten said that he saw no reason to condemn the author, and that 'it were better one family should be destroyed than many.' Pressed to explain himself, he boldly answered that he meant the king and his children; on which he was expelled from the house and committed to the Tower (ib. 19 Aug. 1643 ; Gardiner, Great Civil War, i. 238). He was discharged from his imprisonment on 2 Sept., but not readmitted to parliament till 1643 (Commons' Journals, iii. 226).

Debarred from politics, Marten now returned to military life. By this time his regiment, which had often been complained of for its want of discipline, had been drafted into the armies of Essex and Waller (ib. iii. 124, 195, 212). On 22 May 1644, however, the commons recommended him to Essex to be governor of Aylesbury. In that capacity he did good service during the rest of the war. He also acted as commander-in-chief (under Colonel Dalbier) of the infantry employed in the siege of Dennington Castle during the winter of 1645-6 (ib. iii. 503, iv. 330 ; Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1644-7, pp. 204, 212).

On 6 Jan. 1646 the House of Commons rescinded the vote for Marten's expulsion, and readmitted him to sit (Commons' Journals, iv. 897 ; cf. Somers Tracts, vi. 588). He resumed at once his old position as leader of the extreme party, which had now considerably increased in numbers, and outside the parliament was closely associated with the levellers. To the Scots and the presbyterians he gave great offence by a pamphlet refuting the claims of the Scots to dictate the terms of the parliament's agreement with the king, incidentally comparing the covenant to 'an almanac of the last year.' 'Our condition,' he concluded, 'would be lower and more contemptible if we should suffer you to have your will of us in this particular, than if we had let the king have his. A king is but one master, and therefore likely to sit lighter upon our shoulders than a whole kingdom ; and if he should grow so heavy as cannot well be borne, he may be sooner gotten off than they' (The Independency of England endeavoured to be maintained, 4to, 1647). Equally obnoxious to them was his proposal that the establishment of presbyterianism should be coupled with toleration for even catholics (Gardiner, Great Civil War, iii. 212). On the question of the treatment of the king Marten was as outspoken as before his expulsion. In April 1647, when letters were read in the house from the parliament's commissioners desiring directions how to