Between 6 July (date of marriage jointure) and 8 August 1653 (date of letter mentioning his changed condition because of marriage), Nathaniel Sylvester married Grizzell Brinley, daughter of Thomas Brinley, one of the Auditors General of the Revenues for Charles I, and later for Charles II. Grizzell was a younger sister of Anne Brinley, who in England had married Governor William Coddington of Rhode Island in January 1650. When the Coddingtons returned to Rhode Island in mid-1651, Grizzell came along as a ward of Coddington. Grizzell and Anne's brother, Francis, would join his sisters in the New World, fleeing Cromwell's England and establishing the American Brinleys in Newport, RI, and Boston, Mass. Another Brinley sister, Mary, would marry Nathaniel's brother, Peter Sylvester.
