Was Mareen Duvall first Married in France?

It is very possible that Mareen Duvall the Emigrant first married in France (or England) before immigrating to Maryland.  We know that his eldest son was named John based on the 1694 Anne Arundel County court record of the probate of Mareen Duvall's will: "John Duvall (eldest son) was granted administration." Abstracts of the Testamentary Proceedings of the Prerogative Court of Maryland. Volume VII: 1693-1697. Libers 15B, 15C, 16. Vernon L. Skinner, Jr. . (2006), Page 62.  We also know that a John Duvall was transported to Maryland prior to 1678 as Captain John Dingley obtained landrights for importing 180 settlers, one of whom was John Duvall. What we do not know is if the John Duvall who was transported to Maryland before 1678 is the same person as John Duvall, the eldest son of Mareen Duvall the Emigrant.   Harry Wright Newman, in his pivotal work, Mareen Duvall of Middle Plantation, page 57:

"There is definite proof that John was the eldest son of Mareen Duvall the Emigrant, and if

he were the John Duvall who was transported in 1678, then greater colour is added to the Duvall

saga. He could have been a son begot of a marriage contracted in France, and being of a tender age

at the time of his father's involvement in political affairs and subsequent banishment, they became

separated and then there were the trying days of orphanhood. Owing to the exigencies of the times

and the difficulty of contact, it was not until his late teens or early twenties that conditions were

propitious for his joining his father in America.

The John Duvall of 1678 did not enter the Province as a redemptionist or an indenture, but

he agreed merely with Captain John Dingley, of the Ship St. George of London, to be transported

to Maryland free of passage money, though the transportees were supposed to perform certain

chores on shipboard en route, and for this contract Captain Dingley was to receive from the Lord

Proprietary 50 acres of land. This landright or 50 acres for importing John Duvall, Dingley

assigned along with 179 other landrights to Nicholas Painter. The latter was an associate of

Colonel William Burgess who brought Mareen the Emigrant into the Province, and the fact that

Painter at his death in 1684 devised the greater portion of his estate to the children of Colonel

Burgess leans a belief that the last wife of Burgess could have been a kinswoman to Painter.

Anyhow there is that Burgess-Painter tie-in involving Mareen Duvall the Emigrant and John

Duvall the transportee of 1678.

About 1677 or before October 1678 the Nanticoke Indian War broke out when a large


contingent from Anne Arundel County went to the relief of the settlers on the lower Eastern Shore.

Among those who served under Colonel William Burgess, the Commander-in-Chief of the

punitive expedition, was Mareen the Elder, son of Mareen the Emigrant. It is noted particularly

that John who was senior to Mareen did not participate in the campaign. Now John was the only

son who was interested in the military — being a captain in the Provincial militia at a later date. So

the question arises, why did not John who had the fighting blood join the forces against the

Nanticokes. It is particularly significant, because Captain Dingley did not bring his 180 settlers

into Maryland until a short time before November 1678.
 
Then John had more of the continental flare or French customs than the other children of


Mareen the Emigrant, with the lone exception of Eleanor, and accepted the standards of the

well-born Frenchman by the maintenance and recognition of a maitresse or sometimes referred to

by a Frenchman as ma petite amis."