But our Andrew was a determined Protestant.
The poet's father is an interesting figure in our Church history.
Educated at Emmanuel College, from whence he proceeded a Master of Arts in 1608, he took Orders; and after serving as curate at Flamborough, was inducted to the living of Winestead in 1614, where he remained till 1624, in which year he went to Hull as master of the Grammar School and lecturer, that is preacher, of Trinity Church.

The elder Marvell belonged, from the beginning to the end of his useful and even heroic life, to the Reformed Church of England, or, as his son puts it, "a conformist to the Rites and Ceremonies of the Church of England, though I confess none of the most over-running and eager in them." The younger Marvell, with one boyish interval, belonged all through his life to the paternal school of religious thought.
Fuller's account of the elder Marvell is too good to be passed over:-- "He afterwards became Minister at Hull, where for his lifetime he was well beloved.

Most facetious in discourse, yet grave in his carriage, a most excellent preacher who, like a good husband, never broached what he had new brewed, but preached what he had pre-studied some competent time before.

Insomuch that he was wont to say that he would cross the common proverb which called Saturday the working-day and Monday the holyday of preachers.

It happened that Anno Dom.