Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Martiall, John
MARTIALL or MARSHALL, JOHN (1534–1597), Roman catholic divine, was born in 1534 at Daylesford, Worcestershire, according to the Oxford records, though the admission-book of Winchester College states that he was a native of Defford, in that county (Kirby, Winchester Scholars, p. 124). He was admitted into Winchester College in 1545, and was elected to New College, Oxford, where he became a probationary fellow 24 Aug. 1549, and a perpetual fellow in 1551. On 8 July 1550 he graduated B.C.L. (Wood, Fasti Oxon. ed. Bliss, i. 149), and about the same time he was appointed usher, or second master, of Winchester School, under Thomas Hyde (1524-1597) [q. v.] Being attached to the Roman catholic religion he retired to Louvain soon after the accession of Elizabeth, and studied divinity. In 1568 he was invited to Douay by William (afterwards cardinal) Alien, and graduated B.D. in the university there, 6 July 1568. Martiall was one of the six persons who were first engaged in establishing the English College in that city, but he soon left the new seminary, on account of the smallness of his emolument (Records of the English Catholics, i. 3, 4). Afterwards, by the interest of Dr. Owen Lewis [q. v.l archdeacon of Hainault, and eventually bishop of Cassano, he was appointed a canon of the collegiate church of St. Peter at Lille in Flanders. The civil tumults in the Low Countries long prevented him from obtaining possession of his canonry, but he was formally installed in 1579, and he enjoyed the dignity foreighteen years (Pits, De Anglice Scriptoribus, p. 795). He died on 3 April 1597 at Lille, in the arms of his friend William Gifford [q. v.], afterwards archbishop of Rheims, and was buried in St. Peter's Church.
He bequeathed a valuable ring, with a stone in it, to adorn a piece of the Cross, preserved as a relic in the cathedral at Lille. Martiall's works are: 1. 'A Treatyse of the Crosse, gathred out of the Scriptures, Councelles, and auncient Fathers of the Primitiue Church,' Antwerp, 1564, 8vo ; dedicated to Queen Elizabeth by the author, who was 'emboldened upon her keeping the image of a crucifix in her chapel' (Strype, Annals, i. 507-8). An answer published by Jamps Calf hill [q. v.] in 1565 was reprinted by the Parker Society in 1846. 2. 'A Replie to M. Calfhills "blasphemous Answer made against the Treatise of the Crosse,' Louvain, 1566, 4to. A rejoinder by William Fulke [q. v.], published with his ' Stapletoni Fortalitium Expugnatum,' London, 1580, 12mo, was printed in an English translation by the Parker Society in 1848. 3. 'A Treatise on the Tonsure of Clerics,' left imperfect, was not printed.
[Ames's Typogr. Antiq. (Herbert), pp. 1609, 1619; Cat. of MSS. in Cambr. Univ. Libr. iv. 550 ; Chambers's Worcestershire Biog. p. 77 ; Dodd's Church Hist. ii. 113; Foster's Alumni Oxon. early ser. in. 974 ; Lowndes's Bihl. Man. pp. 348, 845, 1489, Append, pp. A6, 57 ; Oxford Univ. Register (Hoase), pp. 232, 335; Records of the English Catholics, vol. i. pp. xxix, xxx ; Strype's Works (index); Tanner'3 BiM. Brit, p. 513 ; Wood's Athens Oxon. (Bliss), i. 658.]