Family and Education

b. by 1519, 1st s. of Anthony Marmion of Adwell and Eastington and Upton St. Leonards, Glos. m. ?by 1544, Cecily, da. and h. of William Slythurst (d. 10 Apr. 1555), at least 1s. suc. fa. 6 Dec. 1549.1

Offices Held

Biography

The Marmions had acquired the Oxfordshire manor of Adwell in the mid 15th century, but John Marmion’s grandfather, although he retained his Oxfordshire patrimony, obtained lands in Gloucestershire and apparently settled in that county: he sat for Gloucester in the Parliament of 1491 and died there in 1530. Marmion’s father was living at Upton St. Leonards, three miles from Gloucester, in 1538 and ten years later was described as of Eastington, near Northleach, Gloucestershire, when he leased Adwell to his daughter Dorothy. The other provisions which Anthony Marmion made for his children led after his death to disputes in the Star Chamber and the court of requests between the heir John and the younger son Arthur, who was in possession of most of the family’s Oxfordshire lands, while John Parker of Barnwood, Gloucestershire, who had married Anthony Marmion’s daughter Elizabeth or Isabel, held North Stoke, Oxfordshire, for his wife’s lifetime. The matter was resolved in John Marmion’s favour, although claims were still being made by his brother-in-law as late as 1564, and in November 1553 he sold Adwell to Nicholas Betham. He retained a lease of the mansion house but seems to have made his residence in his wife’s parish of Ewelme: in 1551 with his father-in-law William Slythurst he obtained a lease from Princess Elizabeth of her farm of Cottesmore in Ewelme: in 1566 and in 1574 the lease was renewed to Marmion. He sued out a pardon in 1559 as of Ewelme. He sold a further part of his own inheritance in 1555 and 14 years later he and his wife sold her lands in Benson, Ewelme and Warborough to Magdalen College, Oxford. His affairs were evidently not in good order: the Privy Council intervened in his dispute with Nicholas Gilbert over college lands some six years later, and again in his lengthy quarrel with Sir Robert Doyley and his heirs, during which it described Marmion as ‘a poor man’.2

Through his Gloucestershire connexions, and particularly his relationship to the Arnolds, Lanes and Porters, Marmion could call upon the support of three of the families who had influence at Cricklade in securing his election to the Parliament of 1558, the Berkeleys, the Brydges and the Hungerfords. Sir Walter Hungerford was then sheriff of Wiltshire but Marmion’s immediate patron was probably Edmund Brydges, 2nd Baron Chandos, keeper of the lordship of Cricklade. His fellow-Member William Hampshire, who may have enjoyed both crown and Brydges patronage, may have belonged to the same family as Edmund Hampshire of Oxfordshire, a yeoman of the poultry, whose descendants were to own property at Northleach. Marmion’s brother-in-law John Parker was a cousin of Thomas Parker I who had sat for Cricklade in two previous Marian Parliaments and who may have been connected by marriage with the Ashfields of Ewelme. The names of Hampshire and Marmion are entered on the original list of Members for the Parliament of 1558 but are missing from a copy made during the Parliament.3

Marmion’s dispute with the Doyley family continued at least until February 1580 and either in 1579 or 1581 a creditor procured a proclamation of outlawry against him. No further reference to Marmion has been found.4

Ref Volumes: 1509-1558

Author: Elizabeth McIntyre

Notes

• 1. Date of birth estimated from age at fa.’s i.p.m., C142/92/71. H; Wright, ‘Marmions of Adwell’, Top. Oxon. 1971, pp. 5-8; CPR; 1555-7, p. 212.
• 2. VCH Oxon. viii. 8, 9; C142/51/94; Wright, 5-7, Req. 2/17/67; 217/44; CPR, 1558-60, p. 201; 1563-6, p. 413 1572-5, p. 211; APC, ix. 23, 25, 230, 234, 373; xi. 71, 325, 397.
• 3. Test. Vet. ed. Nicolas, 457; N. and Q. (ser. 11), xi. 106; Vis. Oxon. (Harl. Soc. v), 319, PCC 56 Noodes; Vis. Glos. (Harl. Soc. xxi), 4, 100-1; C193/32/2; Wm. Salt Lib. SMS, 264.
• 4. Req. 2/259/2.