John Marlay (MP)

Sir John Marlay (1590-1673) was an English merchant and politician of the seventeenth century. He was the son of William Marlay, a small tradesman in Newcastle. He became an alehouse keeper, then a colliery owner, an occupation which brought him great wealth. He was prominent in local Government: he was three times Mayor of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, his native town, and represented it in the House of Commons from 1661 until his death. He was knighted in 1639.

During the English Civil War he was appointed by King Charles I as military Governor of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, as well as being its Mayor 1642-44, and he defended the town with great spirit during the lengthy siege of 1644. He held off the Scots army for seven months, and on 17 October he refused to surrender the town even after the besieging army had mined the walls. When the town was stormed on 19 October, he and the garrison fought bravely from street to street, then retreated into the Castle. He held out there for another three days, and then surrendered at mercy.

For the offence of having refused the terms of surrender, he was proscribed, banished and driven into exile, living mainly in the Spanish Netherlands. Parliament forfeited his estates, and sold his collieries, and he sank into wretched poverty. He was reduced to such desperate straits that in 1658 he offered to sell to Oliver Cromwell all Royalist plans for the restoration of Charles II, in return for £100 and leave to return home. His reputation never recovered from this betrayal: John Thurloe, Cromwell's head of intelligence, thought it a heavy blow to the Royalist cause. Marlay returned to England, but the Government ignored his pleas for money, and he was clearly still regarded as a Royalist at heart, since he was briefly imprisoned in 1659 in the aftermath of Booth's Rising in favour of the exiled King.

At the Restoration of Charles II Marlay, despite his questionable loyalties, had little to fear from the new regime: the King's promise of mercy in the Declaration of Breda was generously fulfilled in the Indemnity and Oblivion Act 1660. Acts of mercy however could not save his ruined reputation: he was elected to the Commons in 1661 as MP for Newcastle, but quickly found that his betrayal had not been forgiven or forgotten. A petition was sent to the Commons, directly accusing him of treason, and he was suspended from the House. Charles II, true to his policy of reconciliation, sent a message asking the House to forgive Marlay for his "infirmities", and to recover their former "good opinion" of him. He was allowed to resume his seat, but after this disastrous start to his national career he never made his mark as a politician, and for the rest of his life had to endure accusations of being a traitor. Even his conduct during the siege of Newcastle was questioned, and there were wild accusations that he had been bribed to betray the town.

While his courage and determination at Newcastle won him some respect, contemporaries in general had little good to say of him. Sir George Downing said that Marlay "belonged to any one who spoke kindly to him". The Earl of Northumberland dismissed him as a "cuckold and a knave"; and in 1671 Sam Hartlib, a son of the renowned scholar Samuel Hartlib, who apparently blamed Marlay for his father's poverty in old age, insulted him at the door of the House of Commons, calling him "less than the dust beneath my feet". He was noted for his hostility to Puritanism.

He married Mary Mitford, of whose virtue Lord Northumberland spoke unkindly, and had several sons. Of his children, most is know of Anthony, who moved to Ireland and became a prosperous landowner. Many of his Irish descendants achieved distinction, notably Thomas Marlay, Lord Chief Justice of Ireland, and the statesman Henry Grattan. The family name is commemorated in Marlay Park, a popular amenity near Dublin city.

References