Marmion, SHACKERLEY

Marmion, SHACKERLEY, minor dramatist, was born in Northamptonshire, January 1602, studied at Wadham College, Oxford, and took the degree of M.A. in 1624. He squandered his fortune, fought in the Low Countries, and joined Sir John Suckling's troop for the expedition against the Scots, but fell sick at York and returned to London, where he died early in 1639. He left behind an epic, Cupid and Psyche (reprinted by Singer 1820), and three comedies, Holland's Leaguer, A Fine Companion, and The Antiquary. The last form a volume (1875) in Maidment and Logan's Dramatists of the Restoration. The ancient family of the Marmions of Scrivelsby were the former hereditary champions at English coronations. They came in with the Conqueror and settled at Tamworth, but became extinct with the fifth baron under Edward I. Scott says of the hero of his poem, 'I have not created a new family, but only revived the titles of an old one in an imaginary personage.'