In those days men might well pray to be delivered from "plague, pestilence, and famine." Hull suffered terribly on both occasions.

We have seen, in comparatively recent times, the effect of the cholera upon large towns, and the plague was worse than the cholera many times over.

The Hull preacher, despite the stigma of _facetiousness_, which still clings to him, stuck to his post, visiting the sick, burying the dead, and even, which seems a little superfluous, preaching and afterwards printing "by request" their funeral sermons.

A brave man, indeed, and one reserved for a tragic end.
In April 1638 the poet's mother died.

In the following November the elder Marvell married a widow lady, but his own end was close upon him.
The earliest consecutive account of this strange event is in Gent's _History of Hull_ (1735):--"This year, 1640, the Rev.Mr.Andrew Marvell, Lecturer of Hull, sailing over the Humber in company with Madame Skinner of Thornton College and a young beautiful couple who were going to be wedded; a speedy Fate prevented the designed happy union thro' a violent storm which overset the boat and put a period to all their lives, nor were there any remains of them or the vessel ever after found, tho' earnestly sought for on distant shores." Thus died by drowning a brave man, a good Christian, and an excellent clergyman of the Reformed Church of England.