Gervase Markham

Gervase (or Jervis) Markham (c. 1568 – 3 February 1637) was an English poet and writer. He was 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 in 1615.

Life

Markham was the third son of Sir Robert Markham of Cotham, Nottinghamshire, and his wife, and was probably born in 1568. He was a soldier of fortune in the Low Countries, and later was a captain under the Earl of Essex's command in Ireland. He was acquainted with Latin and several modern languages, and had an exhaustive practical acquaintance with the arts of forestry and agriculture. He was a noted horse-breeder, and is said to have imported the first Arabian horse to England.

Very little is known of the events of his life. The story of the murderous quarrel between Gervase Markham and Sir John Holles related in the Biographia (s.v. Holles) has been generally connected with him, but in the Dictionary of National Biography, 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-without-Cripplegate, London, on 3 February 1637.