Gervase Markham
Encyclopedia
Gervase Markham (ca. 1568 – February 3, 1637) was an English
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 poet
Poet
A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...

 and writer, best known for his work The English Huswife, Containing the Inward and Outward Virtues Which Ought to Be in a Complete Woman first published in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 in 1615.

Life

Markham was the third son of Sir Robert Markham of Cotham, Nottinghamshire
Nottinghamshire
Nottinghamshire is a county in the East Midlands of England, bordering South Yorkshire to the north-west, Lincolnshire to the east, Leicestershire to the south, and Derbyshire to the west...

, and was probably born in 1568.

He was a soldier of fortune in the Low Countries
Low Countries
The Low Countries are the historical lands around the low-lying delta of the Rhine, Scheldt, and Meuse rivers, including the modern countries of Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and parts of northern France and western Germany....

, and later was a captain under the Earl of Essex
Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex
Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, KG was an English nobleman and a favourite of Elizabeth I. Politically ambitious, and a committed general, he was placed under house arrest following a poor campaign in Ireland during the Nine Years' War in 1599...

's command in Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...

. He was acquainted with Latin and several modern languages, and had an exhaustive practical acquaintance with the arts of forestry
Forestry
Forestry is the interdisciplinary profession embracing the science, art, and craft of creating, managing, using, and conserving forests and associated resources in a sustainable manner to meet desired goals, needs, and values for human benefit. Forestry is practiced in plantations and natural stands...

 and agriculture
Agriculture
Agriculture is the cultivation of animals, plants, fungi and other life forms for food, fiber, and other products used to sustain life. Agriculture was the key implement in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that nurtured the...

. He was a noted horse-breeder, and is said to have imported the first Arabian horse
Arabian horse
The Arabian or Arab horse is a breed of horse that originated on the Arabian Peninsula. With a distinctive head shape and high tail carriage, the Arabian is one of the most easily recognizable horse breeds in the world. It is also one of the oldest breeds, with archaeological evidence of horses...

.

Very little is known of the events of his life. The story of the murderous quarrel between Gervase Markham and Sir John Holles
John Holles, 1st Earl of Clare
John Holles, 1st Earl of Clare was an English nobleman.He was the son of Denzel Holles of Irby upon Humber and Eleanor Sheffield...

 related in the Biographia (s.v. Holles) has been generally connected with him, but in the Dictionary of National Biography
Dictionary of National Biography
The Dictionary of National Biography is a standard work of reference on notable figures from British history, published from 1885...

, Sir Clements R. Markham, a descendant from the same family, refers it to another contemporary of the same name, whose monument is still to be seen in Laneham church. Gervase Markham was buried at St Giles's, Cripplegate
Cripplegate
Cripplegate was a city gate in the London Wall and a name for the region of the City of London outside the gate. The area was almost entirely destroyed by bombing in World War II and today is the site of the Barbican Estate and Barbican Centre...

, London, on 3 February 1637.

Works

He was a voluminous writer on many subjects, but he repeated himself considerably in his works, sometimes reprinting the same books under other titles. His booksellers procured a declaration from him in 1617 that he would produce no more on certain topics. Markham's writings include:
  • 1593: A Discourse of Horsemanship was followed by other popular treatises on horsemanship and farriery;
  • 1595: The most Honorable Tragedy of Sir Richard Grinvile (1595), reprinted (1871) by Professor E. Arber
    Edward Arber
    Edward Arber was an English academic and writer.Arber was born in London. From 1854 be 1878 he worked as a clerk in the Admiralty, and began evening classes at King's College London in 1858. From 1878 to 1881 he lectured in English, under Prof. H...

    , a prolix and euphuistic poem in eight-lined stanzas which was no doubt in Tennyson's mind when he wrote his stirring ballad;
  • 1595: The Poem of Poems, or Syon's Muse, dedicated to Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Philip Sidney
    Philip Sidney
    Sir Philip Sidney was an English poet, courtier and soldier, and is remembered as one of the most prominent figures of the Elizabethan Age...

    ;
  • 1597: Devoreux, Virtue's Tears;
  • 1600: The Teares of the Beloved and Mary Magdalene's Tears (1601), long and rather commonplace poems on the Passion and Resurrection of Christ, both reprinted by Dr. A. B. Grosart
    Alexander Balloch Grosart
    Alexander Balloch Grosart was a Scottish clergyman and literary editor. He is chiefly remembered for reprinting much rare Elizabethan literature, a work which he undertook because of his interest in Puritan theology.-Life:...

     in the Miscellanies of the Fuller Worthies Library (1871);
  • 1602: A translation of the satires of Lodovico Ariosto;
  • 1607: Cavelarice, or The English horseman, featuring secrets of William Bankes, master of the performing horse Marocco
    Marocco
    Marocco , widely known as Bankes's Horse , was the name of a late 16th- and early 17th-century English performing horse...

    ;
  • 1607: The English Arcadia, part 1. A sequel to Sidney's Arcadia. Part 2 appeared in 1613;
  • 1608: The Dumb Knight, a comedy, with Lewis Machin
    Lewis Machin
    -References:...

    ;
  • 1622: Herod and Antipater, a Tragedy, written in conjunction with William Sampson;
  • 1624: Honor in his Perfection, in praise of the earls of Oxford
    Earl of Oxford
    Earl of Oxford is a dormant title in the Peerage of England, held for several centuries by the de Vere family from 1141 until the death of the 20th earl in 1703. The Veres were also hereditary holders of the office of master or Lord Great Chamberlain from 1133 until the death of the 18th Earl in 1625...

    , Southampton and Essex;
  • 1625: Soldier's Accidence turns his military experiences to account;
  • 1634: The Art of Archerie, Shewing how it is most necessary in these times for this Kingdom, both in Peace and War, and how it may be done without Charge to the Country, Trouble to the People, or any Hindrance to Necessary Occasions. Also, of the Discipline, the Postures, and whatsoever else is necessary for the attaining to the Art (London, Ben Fisher, at the Signe of the Talbot without Alders Gate, 1634)

  • He edited Juliana Berners
    Juliana Berners
    Juliana Berners , English writer on heraldry, hawking and hunting, is said to have been prioress of Sopwell nunnery near St Albans...

    's Book of Saint Albans under the title of The Gentleman's Academy (1595), and produced numerous books on husbandry, many of which are catalogued in Lowndes
    William Thomas Lowndes
    William Thomas Lowndes , English bibliographer, was born about 1798, the son of a London bookseller.His principal work, The Bibliographer’s Manual of English Literature—the first systematic work of the kind—was published in four volumes in 1834...

    's Bibliographer's Manual (Bohn's ed., 1857–1864).

Further reading

  • Michael R. Best (editor), The English Housewife, Toronto: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1986. ISBN 0-7735-0582-2.
  • Frederick Noel Lawrence Poynter, A Bibliography of Gervase Markham, 1568?-1637, Oxford: Oxford Bibliographical Society, 1962.
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