Henry Marten (1602–1680) is a figure familiar to students of early modern history as the “revolutionary rogue” of the period of the British civil wars. A member of the Long Parliament, Marten advocated for an uncompromising stance in the prosecution of Parliament's war against Charles I. In 1649, Marten was one of Charles's judges, signing his death warrant at the same time as Oliver Cromwell. He was a major contributor to the establishment of the English Commonwealth, sitting on the new republic's council of state and designing its great seal, declaring that freedom had been restored to England after centuries of tyrannical rule. Marten has often been fashioned by his biographers, particularly royalists, as a glutton, a womanizer, and a drunkard. Yet, his quick wit, his concerns for the poor, and his fair dealing with opponents meant that Marten was often treated with a begrudging admiration by those, most notably John Aubrey, who reconstructed his life in the century after his death.
In more recent times, Marten's life has been renovated by scholars seeking to provide a history of an English radical tradition. Marten was an unbending republican whose connections to Levellers like John Lilburne and John Wildman mark him out as an exemplar of this tradition. John Worthen's study, pitched at the non-specialist and specialist reader alike, covers the period of Marten's life that is usually reserved for the final chapter, his (literal) trials and tribulations from the fall of republican government in England to his death as a prisoner in Chepstow Castle in 1680 from old age. Although the post-1660 period is the main focus of the book, it nevertheless delves back into Marten's past to provide context and narrative to the life of one of English history's more interesting political figures.
Worthen's study is built around two main sources. The first is Marten's prison correspondence with Mary Ward, a younger woman (“his lady of delight” (26)) with whom Marten had begun a relationship after the collapse of his second marriage, and the mother of three of his children. The second set of source materials comprise the legal records surrounding Marten's trial for treason during the first years of the Restoration.
Marten's letters to Mary Ward have survived because they were stolen and then edited by Edmund Gayton, a ne'er-do-well royalist hack writer who hoped to profit from revealing the salacious private details of such a notorious regicide. The letters, as Worthen admirably explores, in fact show the deep interiority of Marten’s love for Ward “my last and only love” (107) and their “little brats” Margaret, Sarah, and Henryetta, affectionately nick-named “Peggie,” “Poppet,” and “Bacon-hog,” respectively (the last due to the young girl's habit of chewing on bacon rinds to alleviate teething). Worthen brings out the tragedy of the Marten-Ward relationship, with Marten doing what increasingly little he could as a prisoner in the Tower of London to provide for his young family. Ultimately, Marten's penury and the uncertainties over his impending execution led him to implore Mary to find “a new dear” (117) and move on from their relationship. Worthen's sensitive exploration of this material shows a side to Marten, and indeed, early modern relationships in general, that is rarely touched upon in studies of such political figures.
The second main theme of Worthen's book is the legal process through which the newly installed royal government of Charles II carried out its desire for vengeance on those who had been closest to the execution of his father as “a tyrant, traitor, murderer and public enemy to the good people” of England in January 1649. Worthen uses the published court accounts, and reconstructs the architecture of the Old Bailey, to provide a fascinating account of what most of those participating in the events must have known were effectively show trials. The horrific execution of the first batch of regicides is accounted in all their vicious and horrifying detail. Marten's wit and lack of repentance for the English republic at his own trial is handled by Worthen with a deep understanding of Marten's bravery. Worthen convincingly suggests that the bill for the execution of Marten, and other regicides was purposely lost in parliamentary business in order to save the King from being the author of their death, while offering the regicides no chance of pardon.
A third major theme in the book is the nature of imprisonment in the seventeenth century, whether for treason or debt. Worthen explores Marten's time in the Tower, and the threat that Mary Ward would be incarcerated in the King's Bench debtor's prison in Southwark. The corruption in the Tower under its lieutenant Sir John Robinson (a man found to be odious by parliamentarians such as Marten and royalists such as Samuel Pepys alike) meant that Marten could indulge in a few pleasures (such as good food and drink, or night-time visits from Mary or his children) when money was available. Conversely, life became miserable for Marten when cash for bribery was in short supply.
Worthen's study is therefore a lively and sympathetic account that captures Marten's warmth and wit, as well the spiteful revanchism of the restored Kingly government. Of particular note is Worthen's attention to the subtleties of early modern language. Worthen's discussion of the use of uncommon words and phrases helps the reader get into the interiority of Marten's thoughts, or the legal processes that he faced. Regicide: The Trials of Henry Marten is to be commended as a well-written and cogent work that reveals aspects of Marten's life that are often missed but will be fascinating to scholars and general readers alike.
