Nicholas Marston
Their father was a wealthy citizen Haberdasher in the city of London who gave financial support to the early career of his wife's brother William Bradbridge, later bishop of Exeter.
Thomas's daughters made advantageous City marriages, and the network of their mercantile patronage and relations with the bishops, deans and chapters of Exeter and of Bath and Wells, and with the University of Oxford, spanned several decades of the Tudor and early Stuart period.
Sybill was certainly the wife of Thomas in 1557, when Robert Austyn, Grocer, received licence to grant his messuage and lands in St Mary Colechurch to them and their heirs.
[10] In December 1558 Thomas Marston and Frances Barnham were two of the group of six Guildsmen commoners deputed by the Court of Aldermen to prepare the section of Queen Elizabeth's coronation route around the Great Conduit in Cheap.
This institution was performed with John Incent as Marston's proxy, under the jurisdiction of Matthew Parker, during the vacancy in the see of Exeter created by the deposition of Bishop Turberville, who had refused the oath of supremacy.
Nicholas, then, the second brother, was collated under Bradbridge in June 1571 to the perpetual vicarage of St Gluvias with the free chapel of Budock, and in February 1571/72 as prebendary of Exeter Cathedral, being installed in the rectory of Clayhidon one month later.
In July 1576 Sir Gavin Carew presented him to the living of Clare, one of the four portions of the church of Tiverton, and on 12 December 1576, in pleno jure, William Bradbridge collated him to the rectory of Lezant, Cornwall (which the bishop held in commendam).
[30] In 1581 Nicholas gave up Clayhidon and, under patronage of Sir William Courtney, became rector of Moretonhampstead, Devon, and held it until his death 43 years later.
[31] In the same year, Vincent Marston was presented to the rectory of Lanreath, Cornwall, by his brother William the precentor of Exeter, to whom the advowson had been granted by Sibilla Trevanian of St Michael Caerhays.
[32] A vacancy is reported in the rectory of Lanreath in October 1583, after which Vincent's name appears only (as of Lezant) in a burial record for Lanrethon, pointing to his death late in 1583.
[3] Johnson, Alice Marston's second husband, was an eminent Guildsman, being elected Master of the Merchant Taylors, and then presiding, at the Company's feast attended ceremonially by King James I in 1607.
Another sister, Elizabeth Marston, first married George Utley, Draper of London (an associate of Robert Offley's), who died in 1579 leaving her with two sons.
[48][11] Francis Barnham, a prominent, wealthy Alderman and Sheriff, and Master Draper in 1568-69 and 1571-72,[49] by his will of 1576 had remembered Thomas Marston, his wife and children, and among the trustees of a legacy to Christ's Hospital he had also named George Utley, Elizabeth Buckle's then husband.
[24] By his brief will, dated 1 October 1611, he gave to Sibilla the lands he had lately purchased lying outside the East Gate of Exeter in the parish of St Sidwell: Allan Hyde, probably his son-in-law, was one of the witnesses.
