The Marske Paten

Marske Silver.  The history of the “1642” Marske paten.

I put together a talk for the Bellerby Study Group earlier this year on silverware connected with Marske – the original talk can be found here.  I was the asked if I could write something for the parish magazine on the Marske church silver.  Since publishing that article in October 2024¹ it has caused some local interest, and I have modified the published text as below to reflect some new ideas here.

Royalty and landowners

Silverware over the centuries tends to be linked with status and wealth.  Before the emergence of a merchant class in Britain that meant royalty, landowners and the church. 

We start with royalty and landowners.  The oldest Marske silver, The Hutton Cup, was presented by Queen Elizabeth I to her Goddaughter, Elizabeth Bowes, on her marriage to Timothy Hutton in 1592.  At around that time the Hutton family acquired the Marske Estate.  The Estate had been purchased with funds from Archbishop Matthew Hutton (Timothy’s father), who had won the confidence of Queen Elizabeth I.  In a neat twist of history The Hutton Cup was bought back Queen Elizabeth II in the 1960s!  The cup now resides in Windsor.

The Hutton family remained landowners in Marske for over 350 years.  They owned just about the whole of Marske parish (as well as land in the Downholme and Walburn area).  In the eighteenth century they were renowned for breeding racehorses and the Huttons retained at least two horse-racing silver cups until they were put up for auction in the 1960s. 

The seat of power in Marske

The Huttons were the seat of power in Marske – not much happened without their approval.  Until the last century the appointment of the rector was made by the bishop following the recommendation of the Hutton family as “Lord of the Manor”.  The church has a list of rectors going back eight hundred years.  It is perhaps not surprising that many of them since 1600 were related to the Hutton family!

A visit to Ripon Cathedral

To see the oldest Marske church silver you need to venture to Ripon Cathedral.  Our church warden and I went to see it last December.  The Marske silver normally resides in the seventh century crypt but was brought upstairs to the library for us to photograph. 

Church silver in England has had a disrupted history.  In the sixteenth century after Henry VIII broke away from the Pope most church silver was confiscated and destroyed; then again at the time of the Civil War more silver was melted down. 

The Paten: 1642 or 1706?

This paten is a curious piece of silver.  When we saw the item in Ripon the verger casually noted that the item looked out of proportion.  The base of the paten is inscribed with a dedication to “Jere [Jeremy] Mason, born in the parish of Marske, July ye 20.  Anno Dom.  1642”.  I find it amazing that we can look at the parish registers, now on-line, and confirm the birth of a Jeremy Mason to a George Mason in 1642.  So at least we can be sure there has been no mix-up over the years with Marske-next-the Sea. 

The broad dish of the paten is inscribed with the crest of the Mason family.  However, the hallmark is from 1706, rather than the 1642 date inscribed on the base of the paten.  This leads to two possibilities: (a) that the two pieces (from 1642 and 1706) were made separately and grafted together after 1706, or (b) that the whole piece was made as one in/after 1706, and that the inscription celebrating Jeremy Mason’s birth in 1642 was made “after the fact”. 

Who were the Mason family?

But the real mystery for me is who were the Mason family?  They must have had an enduring connection with Marske over at least the 70 years that spanned the dates of the two parts of the paten (1642 and 1706).  Were they land-owners or clergy?  They must also have been important enough to have their emblems and names engraved into the Marske church silver.  

The parish records list around half a dozen Mason family members between 1635 and 1663².  A George Mason, who was possibly a brother of Jeremy, who was a church warden for a very short period around 1663, but no more is known about the Mason family in Marske.  There is no indication that they were likely to have been wealthy enough to bequeath a silver paten. 

The time of the Civil War

The Hutton family owned the Marske Estate from 1597 until the 1960s.  Did the turmoil caused by the Civil War, or the restoration of monarchy in 1660, have any bearing on the history of the paten?  At the time of the Civil War, Matthew Hutton (1597-1666), was a Royalist and probably only escaped losing his life after the Civil War because of family connections. 

It looks like the Mason family members moved away from Marske after the time of the Civil War.  Did their son Jeremy live a long life, and then perhaps towards the end of his life felt he owed a debt of gratitude to the Huttons and Marske?  Did he have the paten made in the early 1700s, have the base inscribed with his 1642 baptismal date, and present it to the church? 

Certainly following the Reformation by 1660 there was probably a need to replace lost elements of the fabric of the church.  For example, we know that the font was provided in 1663, as well as a silver chalice in 1665 (also held for safe-keeping in Ripon Crypt).

Connections to Mason the poet

There is a possible connection between the Hutton family and the family of a Reverend William Mason of Wensley in the early 1700s³.  Had this family descended from Jeremy Mason?  I’ve been unable to date to find a formal link between the Mason family of Wensley, and that George and Jeremy Mason in Marske.  However Barbara, the daughter of Reverend William Mason may have been the first wife of John Hutton II (1691 to 1768) whom she married in 1720.  Could the paten’s dish have been inscribed with the Mason crest to celebrate this union? Alas, Barbara died young, and John Hutton then remarried Elizabeth D’Arcy in 1725⁴.

Notwithstanding any links via the Mason family of Wensley, the Hutton, D’Arcy and Mason families were all close.  Furthermore a nineteenth century commentator on the Marske church silverware links the Mason crest on the paten to the poet Mason, albeit without any evidence⁵.  In 1754 the 4th Earl D’Arcy of Holderness (Robert D’Arcy) nominated a younger William Mason (1729-1797, Barbara’s brother) as the rector of Aston, near Doncaster⁶, as well as chaplain to the Earldom of Holderness.  William Mason was also subsequently favoured in John Hutton’s will in 1768, when he was said to have an income of £1,500 per annum. As well as being clergy, William was a famous poet in his day^7,8. His life is commemorated by monuments both in Poet’s Corner in Westminster Abbey and in York Minster.  William Mason is known to have written a poem critical of the Jacobite Rebellion at around the same time as John Hutton had assembled a militia in Marske to head off any incursion from Scotland.  The landowner had made good with royalty, and the established church, once again.

1. Connections. The Community Benefice Magazine of Richmond with Hudswell, Downholme and Marske. 2024. The Marske Silver. The history of the 1642 Marske Paten.[↩]
2. Ancestry.com. Parish records. Subscription website. Accessed 2024.[↩]
3. Genuki.com. Genealogical website. List of Rectors of Holy Trinity Wensley.  Accessed 2024.[↩]
4. Hatcher, J.. 2020..  Timothy Hutton (1779-1863) of Clifton Castle and Marske-in-Swaledale.[↩]
5. Raine, James. 1880. Marske in Swaledale. Yorkshire Archaelogical Journal, Vol VI, pp172-286 – see p178.[↩]
6. Dictionary of National Biography. 1921-22. Robert D’Arcy. Accessed via Ancestry.com. Vol 5 p497.[↩]
7. Dictionary of National Biography. 1921-22. William Mason. Accessed via Ancestry.com. Vol 12 p1323.[↩]
8. Whittingham C. (Printer). 1822.  The Poems of William Mason, MA – in The British Poets.[↩]