Marrying in a White Sheet
It was not an uncommon circumstance in the last, and even in the early years of the present century, for marriages to be performed en chemise, or in a white sheet. It was an old belief, that a man marrying a woman in debt, if he received her at the hands of the minister clothed only in her shift, was not liable to pay the accounts she had contracted before their union. We think it will not be without interest to give a few authenticated instances of this class of marriages.
The earliest example we have found, is recorded in the parish register of Chiltern, All Saints’, Wilts. It is stated: “John Bridmore and Anne Selwood were married October 17th, 1714. The aforesaid Anne Selwood was married in her smock, without any clothes or headgier on.”
On June 25th, 1738, George Walker, a linen weaver, and Mary Gee, of the “George and Dragon,” Gorton Green, were made man and wife, at the ancient chapel close by. The bride was only attired in her shift.
Particulars of another local case are given in the columns of Harrop’s Manchester Mercury, for March 12th, 1771, as follows: “On Thursday last, was married, at Ashton-under-Lyne, Nathaniel Eller to the widow Hibbert, both upwards of fifty years of age; the widow had only her shift on, with her hair tied behind with horse hair, as a means to free them both from any obligation of paying her former husband’s debts.”
We have heard of a case where the vicar declined to marry a couple on account of the woman presenting herself in her under garment. Another clergyman, after carefully reading the rubric, and not finding anything about the bride’s dress, married a pair, although the woman wore only her chemise.
The following is taken from Aris’s Birmingham Gazette for 1797:
“There is an opinion generally prevalent in Staffordshire that if a woman should marry a man in distressed circumstances, none of his creditors can touch her property if she should be in puris naturalibus while the ceremony is performed. In consequence of this prejudice, a woman of some property lately came with her intended husband into the vestry of the great church of Birmingham, and the moment she understood the priest was ready at the altar, she threw off a large cloak, and in the exact state of Eve in Paradise, walked deliberately to the spot, and remained in that state till the ceremony was ended. This circumstance has naturally excited much noise in the neighbourhood, and various opinions prevail respecting the conduct of the clergyman. Some vehemently condemn him as having given sanction to an act of indecency; and others think, as nothing is said relative to dress in the nuptial ceremony, that he had no power to refuse the rite. Our readers may be assured of this extraordinary event, however improbable it may appear in these times of virtue and decorum.”
We gather from a periodical called The Athenian, that this custom was practised in Yorkshire at the beginning of this century: “May, 1808. At Otley, in Yorkshire, Mr. George Rastrick, of Hawkesworth, aged 73, to Mrs. Nulton, of Burley Woodhead, aged 60. In compliance with the vulgar notion that a wife being married in a state of nudity exonerated her husband from legal obligations to discharge any demands on her purse, the bride disrobed herself at the altar, and stood shivering in her chemise while the marriage ceremony was performed.”
In Lincolnshire, at so late a period as between 1838 and 1844, a woman was wed enveloped in a sheet.
A slightly different method of marriage is mentioned in Malcolm’s “Anecdotes of London.” It is stated that “a brewer’s servant, in February, 1723, to prevent his liability to the payment of the debts of a Mrs. Brittain, whom he intended to marry, the lady made her appearance at the door of St. Clement Danes habited in her shift; hence her inamorato conveyed the modest fair to a neighbouring apothecary’s, where she was completely equipped with clothing purchased by him; and in these, Mrs. Brittain changed her name in church.”
In the foregoing, it will have been observed that the marriages have been conducted en chemise for the protection of the pocket of the bridegroom. “The Annual Register,” of 1766, contains an account of a wedding of this class, for the protection of the woman. We read: “A few days ago, a handsome, well-dressed young woman came to a church in Whitehaven, to be married to a man, who was attending there with the clergyman. When she had advanced a little into the church, a nymph, her bridesmaid, began to undress her, and, by degrees, stript her to her shift; thus she was led, blooming and unadorned, to the altar, where the marriage ceremony was performed. It seems this droll wedding was occasioned by an embarrassment in the affairs of the intended husband, upon which account the girl was advised to do this, that he might be entitled to no other marriage portion than her smock.”
Marrying under the Gallows
Some of the old ballads of merry England contain allusions to a law or usage of primitive times, to the effect that if a man or woman would consent to marry, under the gallows, a person condemned to death, the criminal would escape hanging. A few criminals, however, preferred the hangman’s knot to the marriage tie, if we may believe the rude rhymes of our ancestors. In one of Pinkerton’s works may be read an old poem in which we are told of a criminal refusing marriage at the foot of the gallows. Here are a few lines from the ballad:
“There was a victim in a cart,
One day for to be hanged,
And his reprieve was granted,
And the cart made a stand.
‘Come, marry a wife and save your life,’
The judge aloud did cry;
‘Oh, why should I corrupt my life’
The victim did reply.
‘For here’s a crowd of every sort,
And why should I prevent their sport!
The bargain’s bad in every part,
The wife’s the worst – drive on the cart?’”
A poem, published in 1542, entitled the “Schole House,” contains an allusion:
“To hang or wed, both hath one home,
And whether it be, I am well sure
Hangynge is better of the twayne —
Sooner done, and shorter payne.”
We read in an old ballad the story of a merchant of Chichester, who was saved execution by a loving maiden.
In the old Manx “Temporal Customary Laws,” A.D. 1577, occurs the following: “If any man take a woman by constraint, or force her against her will, if she be a wife he must suffer the law of her. If she be a maid or single woman, the deemster shall give her a rope, sword, and a ring, and she shall have her choice to hang him with the rope, cut off his head with the sword, or marry him with the ring!”
It is stated in a work published in 1680, entitled “Warning to Servants, or, the case of Margaret Clark, lately executed for firing her master’s house in Southwark.” “Since the poor maid was executed, there has been a false and malicious story published concerning her in the True Domestick Intelligence of Tuesday, March 30th. There was omitted in the confession of Mary Clark (so he falsely calls her), who was executed for firing the house of M. de la Noy, dyer in Southwark, viz., that, at her execution, there was a fellow who designed to marry her under the gallows (according to the antient laudable custome), but she, being in hopes of a reprieve, seemed unwilling; but, when the rope was about her neck, she cryed she was willing, and then the fellow’s friends dissuaded him from marrying her; so she lost her husband and life together.” To the foregoing is added, “We know of no such custome allowed by law, that any man’s offering, at a place of execution, to marry a woman condemned shall save her.”
Here is a curious paragraph bearing on this theme, drawn from Parker’s London News, for April 7th, 1725: “Nine young women dressed in white, each with a white wand in her hand, presented a petition to his Majesty (George I.) on behalf of a young man condemned at Kingston Assizes of burglary, one of them offered to marry him under the gallows in case of a reprieve.”
In a work entitled “The interesting narrative of the life of Oulandah Equians, or Gustavus Vassa, written by himself,” and published in 1789, is the following passage: “While we lay here (New York, 1784) a circumstance happened which I thought extremely singular. One day, a malefactor was to be executed on the gallows, but with the condition that if any woman, having nothing on but her shift, married a man under the gallows, his life would be saved. This extraordinary privilege was claimed; and a woman presented herself, and the marriage ceremony was performed.”
Kissing the Bride
The parents of a bride in humble circumstances rarely attend the marriage ceremony at the church. The father’s place is usually filled by one of the bridegroom’s friends. He, in some parts of the North of England, claims the privilege of first kissing the newly-made wife, in right of his temporary paternity. Some of the old-fashioned clergy regarded the prerogative as theirs, and were by no means slow in exercising it. As soon as the ceremony was completed they never failed to quickly kiss the bride. Even a shy and retiring vicar would not neglect the pleasant duty. The Rev. Thomas Ebdon, vicar of Merrington, who was deemed the most bashful of men, always kissed the women he married.
It is related of a priest, who was a stranger to the manners and customs of the Yorkshire folk, that, after marrying a couple, he was surprised to see the party still standing as if something more was expected. He at last asked why they were waiting. “Please, sir,” said the bridegroom, “ye’ve no kissed Molly.”
Mr. William Henderson, in his “Folk-Lore of the Northern Counties,” a work drawn upon for these statements, says that he can “testify that, within the last ten years, a fair lady, from the county of Durham, who was married in the south of England, so undoubtedly reckoned upon the clerical salute that, after waiting in vain, she boldly took the initiative, and bestowed a kiss on the much-amazed south-country vicar.” Mr. Henderson’s work was published in 1879.
According to the “Folk-Lore of the West of Scotland,” by James Napier, published in 1879, the kissing custom was practised in that country. “As soon as the ceremony was concluded,” says Mr. Napier, “there was a rush on the part of young men to get the first kiss of the newly-made wife. This was frequently taken by the clergyman himself, a survival of an old custom said to have been practised in the middle ages.” In an old song, the bridegroom thus addresses the minister:
“It’s no very decent for you to be kissing,
It does not look well wi’ the black coat ava’,
’Twould hae set you far better tae gi’en us your blessing,
Than thus by such tricks to be breaking the law.
Dear Watty, quo’ Robin, it’s just an auld custom,
And the thing that is common should ne’er be ill taen,
For where ye are wrong, if ye hadna a wished him,
You should have been first. It’s yoursel it’s to blame.”
This custom appears to have been very general in past times, and Mr. Henderson suggests that “it may possibly be a dim memorial of the osculum pacis, or the presentation of the Pax to the newly-married pair.”
It was formerly customary in Ireland for the priest to conclude the marriage ceremony by saying, “kiss your wife.” Instructions more easily given than performed, for other members of the party did their utmost to give the first salute.
In England, a kiss was the established fee for a lady’s partner after the dance was finished. In a “Dialouge between Custom and Veirtie concerning the Use and Abuse of Dancing and Minstrelsie,” the following appears:
“But some reply, what foole would daunce,
If that when daunce is doone
He may not have at ladye’s lips
That which in daunce he woon?”
The following line occurs in the Tempest:
“Curtsied when you have and kissed.”
In Henry VIII., says the prince:
“I were unmannerly to take you out,
And not to kiss you.”
Numerous other references to kissing are contained in the plays of Shakespeare. From his works and other sources we find that kissing was general in the country in the olden time. It is related of Sir William Cavendish, the biographer of Cardinal Wolsey, that, when he visited a French nobleman at his chateau, his hostess, on entering the room with her train of attendant maidens, for the purpose of welcoming the visitor, thus accosted him:
“Forasmuch as ye be an Englishman, whose custom it is in your country to kiss all ladies and gentlemen without offence, it is not so in this realm, yet will I be so bold as to kiss you, and so shall all my maidens.”
It is further stated how Cavendish was delighted to salute the fair hostess and her many merry maidens.
Hot Ale at Weddings
In the year 1891, a paragraph went the rounds of the north-country newspapers respecting the maintaining of an old wedding custom at Whitburn parish church, near Sunderland. From the days of old to the present time, it has been the practice of sending to the church porch, when a marriage is being solemnised, jugs of spiced ale, locally known as “hot pots.”
A Whitburn gentleman supplied Mr. Henderson with particulars of his wedding, for insertion in “Folk-Lore of the Northern Counties” (London, 1879). “After the vestry scene,” says the correspondent, “the bridal party having formed a procession for leaving the church, we were stopped at the porch by a row of five or six women, ranged to our left hand, each holding a large mug with a cloth over it. These were in turn presented to me, and handed by me to my wife, who, after taking a sip, returned it to me. It was then passed to the next couple, and so on in the same form to all the party. The composition in these mugs was mostly, I am sorry to say, simply horrible; one or two were very fair, one very good. They are sent to the church by all classes, and are considered a great compliment. I have never heard of this custom elsewhere. Here, it has existed beyond the memory of the oldest inhabitant, and an aged fisherwoman, who has been married some sixty-five years, tells me at her wedding there were seventy hot pots.”
Drinking wine and ale at church weddings is by no means a local custom, as suggested by Mr. Henderson’s correspondent. Brand, in his “Popular Antiquities,” and other writers, refer to the subject. On drinking wine in church at marriages, says Brand, “the custom is enjoined in the Hereford Missal. By the Sarum Missal it is directed that the sops immersed in this wine, as well as the liquor itself, and the cup that contained it, should be blessed by the priest. The beverage used on this occasion was to be drunk by the bride and bridegroom and the rest of the company.” It appears that pieces of cake or wafers were immersed in the wine, hence the allusions to sops.
Many of the older poets refer to the practice. In the works of John Heywood, “newlie imprinted 1576,” is a passage as follows:
“The drinke of my brydecup I should have forborne,
Till temperaunce had tempred the taste beforne.
I see now, and shall see, while I am alive,
Who wedth or he be wise shall die or he thrive.”
In the “Compleat Vintner,” 1720, it is asked:
“What priest can join two lovers’ hands,
But wine must seal the marriage bands?
As if celestial wine was thought
Essential to the sacred knot,
And that each bridegroom and his bride
Believ’d they were not firmly ty’d
Till Bacchus, with his bleeding tun,
Had finished what the priest begun.”
Old plays contain allusions to this custom. We read in Dekker’s “Satiro-Mastix”: “And, when we are at church, bring the wine and cakes.” Beaumont and Fletcher, in the “Scornful Lady,” say:
“If my wedding-smock were on,
Were the gloves bought and given, the licence come,
Were the rosemary branches dipt, and all
The hippocras and cakes eat and drunk off.”
At the magnificent marriage of Queen Mary and Philip, in Winchester Cathedral, in 1554, we are told that, “The trumpets sounded, and they both returned, hand in hand, to their traverses in the quire, and there remained until mass was done, at which time wyne and sopes were hallowed, and delivered to them both.”
Numerous other notes similar to the foregoing might be reproduced from old writers, but sufficient have been cited to show how general was the custom in bygone times. The Rev. W. Carr, in his “Glossary of the Craven Dialect,” gives us an illustration of it lingering in another form in the present century. In his definition of Bride-ale, he observes that after the ceremony was concluded at the church, there took place either a foot or horse race, the first to arrive at the dwelling of the bride, “requested to be shown to the chamber of the newly-married pair, then, after he had turned down the bed-clothes, he returns, carrying in his hand a tankard of warm ale, previously prepared, to meet the bride, to whom he triumphantly offers the humble beverage.” The bride, in return for this, presents to him a ribbon as his reward.
Marrying Children
The marriage of children forms a curious feature in old English life. In the days of yore, to use the words of a well-informed writer on this theme, “babes were often mated in the cradle, ringed in the nursery, and brought to the church porch with lollipops in their mouths.” Parents and guardians frequently had joined together in matrimony young couples, without any regard for their feelings. Down to the days of James I., the disposal in marriage of young orphan heiresses was in the hands of the reigning monarchs, and they usually arranged to wed them to the sons of their favourites, by whom unions with wealthy girls were welcomed.
Edward I. favoured early marriages, and his ninth daughter, Eleanor, was only four days old, it is stated on good authority, “when her father arranged to espouse her to the son and heir of Otho, late Earl of Burgundy and Artois, a child in custody of his mother, the Duchess of Burgundy.” Before she had reached the age of a year, the little princess was a spouse, but, dying in her sixth year, she did not attain the position of wife planned for her.
Careful consideration is paid to early marriages in an able work by the late Rev. W. Denton, M.A., entitled “England in the Fifteenth Century” (London, 1888.) Mr. Denton says that the youthful marriages “probably originated in the desire of anticipating the Crown in its claim to the wardship of minors, and the disposal of them in marriage. As deaths were early in those days, and wardship frequent, a father sought by the early marriage of his son or daughter to dispose of their hands in his lifetime, instead of leaving them to be dealt out to hungry courtiers, who only sought to make a large profit, as they could, from the marriage of wards they had bought for the purpose. Fourteen was a usual period for the marriage of the children of those who would save their lands from the exactions of the Crown.” He adverts to marriages at an earlier age, and even paternity at fourteen.
In 1583 was published a work entitled “The Anatomie of Abuses,” by Philip Stubbes, and it supplies a curious account of the amusements and other social customs of the day. Marriage comes in for attention, and, after referring to it with words of commendation, he adds: “There is permitted one great liberty therein – for little maids in swaddling clothes are often married by their ambitious parents and friends, when they know neither good nor evil, and this is the origin of much wickedness. And, besides this, you shall have a saucy boy often, fourteen, sixteen, or twenty years of age, catch up a woman without any fear of God at all.” The protests of Stubbes and others had little effect, for children continued to be married, if not mated.
The marriage of Robert, Earl of Essex, and Lady Francis Howard, was celebrated in the year 1606. The former was not fourteen, and the latter was thirteen years of age. The union was an unhappy one. The “Diary and Correspondence of John Evelyn, F.R.S.,” contains references to early marriages. He wrote, under date of August 1, 1672: “I was at the marriage of Lord Arlington’s only daughter (a sweet child if ever there was any) to the Duke of Grafton the king’s natural son by the Duchess of Cleveland; the Archbishop of Canterbury officiating, the king and all the grandees being present.” The little girl at this time was only five years of age. Evelyn concludes his entry by saying, “I had a favour given to me by my lady; but took no great joy at the thing for many reasons.” Seven years later, the children were re-married, and Evelyn, in his “Diary,” on November 6th, 1679, states that he attended the re-marriage of the Duchess Grafton to the Duke, she being now twelve years old. The ceremony was performed by the Bishop of Rochester. The king was at the wedding. “A sudden and unexpected thing,” writes Evelyn, “when everybody believed the first marriage would have come to nothing; but the measure being determined, I was privately invited by my lady, her mother, to be present. I confess I could give her little joy, and so I plainly told her, but she said the king would have it so, and there was no going back.” The diarist speaks warmly of the charms and virtues of the young bride; and he deplores that she was sacrificed to a boy that had been rudely bred.
As might be expected, the facile pen of Samuel Pepys, the most genial of gossipers, furnishes a few facts on this subject. His notes occur in a letter, dated September 20, 1695, addressed to Mrs. Steward. It appears from his epistle that two wealthy citizens had recently died and left their estates, one to a Blue-coat boy and the other to a Blue-coat girl, in Christ’s Hospital. The circumstance led some of the magistrates to bring about a match with the youthful pair. The wedding was a public one, and was quite an event in London life. Pepys says, the boy, “in his habit of blue satin, led by two of the girls, and she in blue, with an apron green, and petticoat yellow, all of sarsnet, led by two of the boys of the house through Cheapside to Guildhall Chapel, where they were married by the Dean of St. Paul’s.” The Lord Mayor gave away the bride.
The marriage of Charles, second Duke of Richmond, and Lady Sarah Cadogan, daughter of the first Earl of Cadogan, forms an extremely romantic story. It is said that it was brought about to cancel a gambling debt between their parents. The youthful bridegroom was a student at college, and the bride a girl of thirteen, still in the nursery. The young Lord of March protested against the match, saying “surely you are not going to marry me to that dowdy.” His protestations were in vain, for the marriage service was gone through, and the twain were made one. They parted after the ceremony, and the young husband spent three years in foreign travel, doubtless thinking little about his wife. At all events on his return he did not go direct to her, but visited the sights in town. On his first attendance at the theatre, a most beautiful lady attracted his attention. He inquired her name, and to his surprise he was told that she was Lady March. The young lord hastened to claim his wife, and they spent together a happy life.
In the reign of William III., George Downing, at the age of fifteen, married a Mary Forester, a girl of thirteen. As soon as the marriage service had been concluded, the pair parted company, the boy going abroad to finish his education, and the girl returning home to resume her studies. After spending some three or four years on the Continent, the husband returned to England, and was entreated to live with his wife. He declined to even see her, having a great aversion to her. The husband’s conduct caused his wife to entertain feelings of hatred of him, and both would have been glad to have been freed from a marriage contracted before either were master of their own actions, but they sued in vain for a divorce.
The editor of the “Annual Register,” under date of June 8th, 1721, chronicles the marriage of Charles Powel, of Carmarthen, aged about eleven years, to a daughter of Sir Thomas Powel, aged about fourteen. Four years later, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, in one of her lively letters, refers to the marriage, in 1725, of the Duke of Bedford, at the age of sixteen years.
The General Assembly of Scotland, in 1600, ruled that no minister should unite in matrimony any male under fourteen and any female under twelve years of age. The regulation was not always obeyed. In 1659, for example, Mary, Countess of Buccleuch, in her eleventh year, was married to Walter Scott, of Highchester, and his age was fourteen. As late as the 1st June, 1859, was married, at 15, St. James’ Square, Edinburgh, a girl in her eleventh year. The official inspector, when he saw the return, suspected an error, but, on investigation, found it was correct.
Young men and maidens may congratulate themselves on living in these later times, when they may not be united in wedlock before they are old enough to think and act for themselves.