Francis Marbury (1555-1611) is the progenitor of many imortant religious thinkers. He was a Cambridge educated clergyman and schoolmaster who challenged Anglican authorities which caused his censure, several years of imprisonment, and a trial for heresy in 1578 at London's St. Paul's Cathedral, and he was convicted. ¹

In 1534 King Henry VIII replaced the Catholic church with the Church of England as England's state church. English Puritanism started in the late 1550s in a effort to rid the English church of some of the Catholic practices.

Francis Marbury's first assignment was deacon at a Northampton church. There he criticized the Anglican bishops as uneducated and lacking zeal, and spoke on the need for more qualified ones. He was removed from his post and sent to jail. He was freed after a few months, and forbidden to return to Northampton. He did not stay away and was again arrested. He was sent to London for trial in 1578 at the ecclesiastical Court of High Commission, which heard charges of violations against the church, including heresy. This court did not answer to Parliament or English common law. It answered only to God and the monarch.

The judges were all clergymen and also served as prosecutors. He was convicted of heresy and given a two year jail term. He was released in 1580 and removed to Alford, Lincolnshire, and allowed to resume preaching. He appeared to conform and was appointed deputy vicar.

In 1585 Reverend Marbury also became schoolmaster at the Alford Free Grammar School. The students were all boys. One of them was John Smith, who became Captain John Smith, and helped found Jamestown, the colony in Virginia as well as chart the coastline of New England.

Francis married Elizabeth Moore, and little is known of her. They had three daughters 1581 to 1585, and then Elizabeth died. Within a year, Francis married Bridget Dryden, a midwife, and was from a family of religous dissenters. Their third child was Anne Marbury (1591-1643). They had fifteen children, twelve who reached adulthood.

In 1590, Francis openly denounced poorly trained bishops and ministers. In 1591, the year of Anne's birth, he was forbidden to preach, stripped of his position as a teacher, and put under house arrest. One benefit of that was that he tutored his children, particularly Anne. He continued to fight for his freedom, and in 1594 was given back his license to teach and preach. He made the decision to never again openly question the Church of England, or its head, the monarch.

Eleven years later his conformity lead to a pastoral assignment in a London parish. Anne turned fourteen at this time. His outward conformity to the church, concealing his heart, allowed him to take on more parishes. Other than the internal turmoil, all seemed well. Unfortunately, he passed away suddenly in 1611 at the age of fifty-five.

He had passed on to his daughter Anne, nineteen at the time of his death not only a solid education, unusual for a girl of that time, but also:

"... a willingness to question and even to show
contempt for authority, a confidence in the
rightness of one's own views, a deep faith in God,
and a desire to share the faith through teaching..."
-Eve LaPlante2