MARWOOD, George (1601-80), of Little Busby, Stokesley, Yorks.

The Marwood family appears to have joined the ranks of the Yorkshire gentry in the person of Marwood’s great-uncle, Edward Marwood of Nunthorpe, in Cleveland, who died in 1557.29J. Graves, Hist. of Cleveland, 231. George Marwood acquired the bulk of the family’s estate, including Nunthorpe, the rectory of Ayton and other lands in Cleveland, by inheritance from his uncle, William Marwood, who had died without issue in 1622.30E134/21JAS1/MICH21; N. Yorks. RO, ZDU 2, 39. The family’s principal residence, at least until the mid-1620s, was the manor of Little Busby, in Cleveland. However, in 1626, Marwood and his father either mortgaged or sold the manor to Sir John Jackson† of Hickleton and Sir Henry Savile† of Methley for £2,040.31VCH N. Riding, ii. 304; N. Yorks. RO, ZDU 2. By 1639, the manor was in the hands of the future royalist John Belasyse* and would remain part of his estate until 1650, when he sold it to Marwood for £4,000, who then assigned the property to feoffees to hold in trust for his son.32N. Yorks. RO, ZDU 2. Having sold or mortgaged Little Busby, Marwood leased the manor house at Nun Monkton, near Knaresborough, from Henry Percy, 3rd earl of Northumberland in 1631 and made it his principal residence.33N. Yorks. RO, ZDU 29. Living at Nun Monkton, he was within easy travelling distance of his wife’s family, the Bethells of Alne and her relations, the Slingsbys of Scriven and Redhouse in the neighbouring parish of Moor Monkton. His wife’s grandfather, Sir Henry Slingsby† of Scriven (father of the future royalist Sir Henry Slingesby* of Redhouse), spent his final days at Marwood’s house, dying there in December 1634.34Slingsby Diary ed. D. Parsons, 6.

Marwood was active on the West Riding bench during the Personal Rule as part of a circle of magistrates that included Sir Ferdinando (later 2nd lord) Fairfax*, (Sir) Thomas Fairfax*, Sir Thomas Mauleverer* and Thomas Stockdale*.35W. Riding Sessions Recs. ed. Lister, 32, 343; CSP Dom. 1637-8, p. 433. In the summer of 1640 he joined the Fairfaxes and Yorkshire’s other ‘disaffected’ gentry in their petitions to the king of July and August, complaining about the local impact of the second bishops’ war and pleading poverty in the face of royal orders to mobilize the trained bands against the invading Scots.36Rushworth, Hist. Collns. iii. 1215, 1231. However, he was not among the signatories to the third such petition, in September, requesting that Charles summon a new Parliament.37Cumb. RO (Kendal), Strickland ms vol. 1608-1700, N38 Car. I. Marwood was well known to the godly West Riding squire Thomas Stockdale, who enlisted his support for the return of Lord Fairfax’s nominee, the religious Independent Sir William Constable*, in the Knaresborough by-election of November 1641.38Supra, ‘Knaresborough’; Bodl. Fairfax 32, f. 35; Fairfax Corresp. ed. Johnson, ii. 111, 210, 299, 321, 375. During the first half of 1642, Marwood would emerge as one of Yorkshire’s leading defenders of the authority and liberties of Parliament. In January, he signed a petition to the king from a group of Yorkshire gentry – most of whom would support Parliament in the civil war – protesting at the attempted arrest of the Five Members and expressing support for a ‘perfect reformation in matters of religion’.39Eg. 2546, ff. 23-4. The following month he signed a petition from the county’s gentry to the Lords, asking the peers to work more closely with the Commons for the relief of Ireland’s Protestants.40PA, Main Pprs. 15 Feb. 1642, f. 55; LJ iv. 587a. On 12 May, with the king raising troops in Yorkshire, Marwood and many of the county’s future parliamentarians addressed a letter to Charles, asking him to put his trust in the two Houses and to forbear raising any ‘extraordinary’ guard.41A Letter from the...Committees of the Commons...at Yorke (1642), 7-9 (E.148.4). And he signed another petition from this group in June, complaining about Charles’s abandoning Parliament and drawing together the county’s trained bands – illegally, as the petitioners conceived it.42PA, Main Pprs. 6 June 1642, ff. 84-5.

Marwood was evidently regarded as one of the king’s most active opponents in Yorkshire, for he was among the magistrates removed from the West Riding bench that summer. Among the other victims of this royalist purge were Sir Thomas Fairfax and Stockdale. Their offence, or so it was reported, was that of refusing to put the commission of array in execution.43News from Yorke (1642, 669 f.6.44); Exceeding Good News from Nottingham and Yorkshire (1642), 3 (E.115.18). So well known was Marwood’s support for Parliament by the summer of 1642, that his house at Nun Monkton was singled out for attack by a small party of royalists, who threatened his wife with death ‘to discover where her husband was and swore they would cut him in pieces before her face and called her Protestant whore and puritan whore’. They then made off with £120 in money and all of Marwood’s plate.44OPH xi. 383-4.

Although Marwood played no military role in the civil war, he was named to numerous local parliamentary committees and was an active member of the Northern Association committee, signing several of its letters to Parliament in 1645-6, complaining about the depredations and oppressions of the Scottish army in northern England.45Bodl. Tanner 59, ff. 195, 266, 290, 473; Nalson IV, ff. 244, 309; LJ viii. 135b-136a. As a substantial landowner in Cleveland, where the Scots were often quartered during the mid-1640s, he would have been acutely aware of the heavy burdens that their army imposed upon the region.46Bodl. Tanner 59, f. 238. When the inhabitants of Cleveland petitioned the North Riding magistrates (of whom Marwood was among the most active during the late 1640s) in January 1647, asking that they ‘mediate with some persons of honour, that the Scots’ army may not levy more advance-money’, the bench requested that Marwood approach Philip Skippon* – the commander of the New Model army foot – and request his ‘assistance and mediation’ with the Scots ‘to the relief of this poor exhausted country’.47LJ viii. 701b; N. Riding QS Recs. ed. Jackson (N. Riding Rec. Soc. iv), 247, 267; (N. Riding Rec. Soc. v), 8, 17.

Yet although Marwood was doubtless keen to be rid of the Scots, there is little evidence that he was more generally aligned with the anti-Scottish, Independent interest in national politics. There is certainly nothing in his later career to suggest that he approved of the army and the Rump’s proceedings during the winter of 1648-9. Nevertheless, he continued to serve on the North and West Riding benches in the months surrounding the king’s execution in January 1649 – when many of the more conservative parliamentarians withdrew from local government – and in July 1650 he was added to the County Durham bench.48C231/6, p. 193; W. Yorks. Archives (Wakefield), QS 10/2, pp. 237, 286; N. Riding QS Recs. ed. Jackson (N. Riding Rec. Soc. v), 17. He was also active as an assessment commissioner in the aftermath of the regicide.49Scarborough Recs. 1641-60 ed. M. Y. Ashcroft (N. Yorks. RO publications xlix), 137. On the other hand, he attended only a handful of the North Riding quarter sessions under the Rump and would probably have attended fewer still but for his appointment as sheriff of Yorkshire in November 1651.50N. Riding QS Recs. ed. Jackson (N. Riding Rec. Soc. v), 17, 42, 70, 75, 109, 129. His attendance level picked up again under the protectorate and remained high until his removal from both the North Riding and the County Durham benches in March 1657.51C231/6, pp. 361, 363; N. Riding QS Recs. ed. Jackson (N. Riding Rec. Soc. v), 153, 229. Exactly why he was removed in 1657 is unclear, although several of those removed from the West Riding bench at the same time – namely, Henry Arthington* and Henry Tempest* – had close ties to the Presbyterian interest and were opposed to the army grandees and the sects.52Supra, ‘Henry Arthington’; ‘infra, ‘Henry Tempest’. Marwood was restored to the North Riding bench within a few months (August) and remained an active justice until early 1659.53C231/6, p. 374.

In the elections to Richard Cromwell’s Parliament of 1659, Marwood was returned for the quondam borough of Old Malton in the North Riding, along with the Cromwellian or crypto-royalist Philip Howard*. Marwood had no proprietorial interest at Malton, and he owed his election to his royalist son-in-law (Sir) Thomas Heblethwayte† (the son of Thomas Heblethwayte*), a prominent local landowner. Marwood’s and Howard’s return was contested by the Yorkshire republicans and army supporters Colonel Robert Lilburne* and Luke Robinson*, who had been elected by the voters of the adjacent manor of New Malton, which the Long Parliament had re-enfranchised in 1640. The double return at Malton sparked off a protracted and heated battle in the committee of privileges and on the floor of the House between the republican Members, who backed the return of Lilburne and Robinson, and their Cromwellian and Presbyterian opponents, who supported Marwood and Howard.54Supra, ‘Malton’. When the issue was put to a vote on 7 March, the republican interest was defeated and Marwood’s and Howard’s return was upheld – a result that may well have heightened the army’s fears that Parliament was dominated by its Cromwellian and royalist enemies.55CJ vii. 611a; Burton’s Diary, iv. 46. Yet despite costing Marwood and Howard almost £200 to secure their return, Marwood appears to have contributed little, if anything, to the House’s proceedings and may never even have taken his seat.56Mems. of the Verney Fam. iii. 476. His inactivity at Westminster was consistent with his failure to attend any of the North Riding quarter sessions between January 1659 and the accession of Charles II. He almost certainly welcomed moves towards the restoration of the Stuart monarchy, joining many of Yorkshire’s leading Presbyterian gentry in an address to General George Monck* in February 1660, calling for the return of the Members secluded at Pride’s Purge or a ‘free Parliament’.57A Letter and Declaration of the Nobility and Gentry of the County of York (1660, 669 f.23.48). This declaration was also signed by Marwood’s eldest son Henry, who had married a daughter of the Yorkshire royalist Conyers Darcy†.

Marwood stood for election at Northallerton in July 1660 after the Convention had excluded one of the borough’s MPs, Francis Lascelles*, for his participation in Charles I’s trial.58HP Commons 1660-90, ‘Northallerton’. Marwood, who owned no property in the immediate vicinity of the town, almost certainly relied on the local interest of his son-in-law William Metcalfe, one of Northallerton’s leading inhabitants.59Stokesley par. reg. (marriage entry for 21 May 1657); C. J. D. Ingledew, Hist. and Antiquities of North Allerton, 317-18; VCH N. Riding, i. 420. Once again, he was involved in a double return, this time with the carpet-bagger Sir Francis Holles*, the son of Denzil Holles*. The Convention does not appear to have come to a decision regarding the disputed return, however, and there is no evidence that either candidate ever took his seat.60HP Commons 1660-90, ‘Northallerton’.

Marwood appears to have enjoyed the trust and favour of the Restoration regime, retaining his place on the North Riding bench after 1660. Moreover, in December 1660 he was created a baronet and his creation fee was waived – probably as part of the crown’s attempt to curry favour with the Presbyterian gentry.61CB; CTB i. 244. He remained active as a North Riding JP, but apparently did not stand again for Parliament.62N. Riding QS Recs. ed. Jackson (N. Riding Rec. Soc. v), 28, 253. Like a number of godly Yorkshire gentry during the Restoration period, he remained outwardly conformable to the Church of England while retaining an ejected minister – in Marwood’s case, the Presbyterian, George Ewbank, whom he had installed as rector at Great Ayton – as a private chaplain.63Calamy Revised, 186; J. T. Cliffe, The Puritan Gentry Besieged, 1650-1700, 126, 220. Despite his Presbyterian leanings, Marwood appears to have been on friendly terms during the 1660s with his radical republican kinsman, Slingisby Bethell*.64N. Yorks. RO, ZDU 172, Marwood fam. corresp. (mic. 1298): Marwood to Henry Marwood, 23 Nov. 1667.

At the time of his death, early in 1680, Marwood was living in York and was buried in the civic parish of St Michael le Belfrey on 27 February.65Dugdale’s Vis. Yorks. ii. 180; St Michael le Belfrey Par. Reg. ed. F. Collins (Yorks. Par. Reg. Soc. xi), 120. In his will, he asked to be buried without ‘funeral pomp or solemnity whatsoever’. Believing that his wife’s jointure of £150 a year was insufficient to ‘maintain the reputation of her quality’, he bequeathed her a lease that he had recently purchased from the archbishop of York. He made bequests amounting to about £330.66Borthwick, Prob. Reg. 58, f. 285. Marwood’s eldest son, Sir Henry Marwood, represented Northallerton in the 1685 Parliament as a tory.67HP Commons 1660-90, ‘Sir Henry Marwood’.