Sir John, a learned chronologist, the son of an alderman of London, was born in that city in 1602. From Westminster School he passed in 1619 to St John's College, Oxford, where he was chosen Master of Arts in 1625. During the two following years he travelled in France, Italy, and Germany, and then repaired to London to study common law in the Middle Temple. In 1629 he went to Paris in the suite of Sir Thomas Edmonds, ambassador extraordinary. His studies, thus interrupted, were resumed on his return; and in 1637 he was appointed one of the six clerks of Chancery. Adhering to the cause of the royalists during the civil war, Marsham was deprived of his office and part of his estate, and on the complete defeat of his party, was fain to compound for the remnant of his property, and to devote himself to literature. He was member for Rochester in the Parliament that recalled Charles II.; and immediately after the Restoration in 1660 he was restored to his clerkship in Chancery, and was created a knight. Three years afterwards a baronetcy was added to his honours. He died at Bushy Hall, Hertfordshire, in May 1686. Sir John Marsham was an eminent scholar in languages, history, and chronology. His works were, Diatriba Chronologica, 4to, London, 1649; and Chronicon Canon Aegyptiacus Hebraicus et Graecus, folio, London, 1672, Leipsic, 1676, and Franeker, 1696. The former is an attempt to elucidate the chronology of the Old Testament; the latter, besides comprising a great part of the former, has an ingenious disquisition on the Egyptian dynasties.