Shackerley Marmion

Shackerley Marmion (January 1603 – 1639), also Shakerley, Shakerly, Schackerley, Marmyon, Marmyun, or Mermion, was an early 17th-century dramatist, often classed among the Sons of Ben, the followers of Ben Jonson who continued his style of comedy. He was also a friend and perhaps a protégé of Thomas Heywood.

The playwright's father, Shackerley Marmion (son of a London lawyer and member of a junior line of the Marmion Barons of Tamworth), held the manor at Aynho in Northamptonshire but was habitually in debt; in time he would pass his debts on to his son. Shakerley Jnr was baptised on 21 Jan 1603 in Aynho church.

After Lord Williams's School at Thame in Oxfordshire, Marmion graduated from Wadham College, Oxford, with an M.A. in July 1624. (During his years at Oxford, his father Shackerley Marmion was forced to sell his estate an Aynho to pay his debts.) Details of his life after university are unclear, though there are intimations of legal troubles, disorderly affairs, dodging creditors. He fought in the Low Countries during this period, apparently under Sir Sigismund Alexander according to Anthony a Wood, and in 1629 was indicted for assaulting one Edward Moore with his sword and wounding the man's head. He was arrested and released on bail, but did not surrender at the next session; further records of the incident have not been found.

Marmion's first known play was Holland's Leaguer, produced in 1631 at the Salisbury Court theatre and acted six days in succession, "one of the longest known [runs] in the Elizabethan, Jacobean, or Caroline theatre," though perhaps due more to the meagerness of the repertory of Prince Charles's Men than to the play's unusual popularity. Marmion's second play, A Fine Companion, was staged in 1632 or 1633 and published in the latter year, after being performed by the Prince Charles's Men at Salisbury Court Theatre. The Antiquary (c. 1634-36), his third and last play, was acted by Queen Henrietta's Men at the Cockpit Theatre, and published in 1641.

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