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.
The Passing Bell.
The passing bell, or soul bell, rang whilst persons were _passing_ from
this life to that beyond, and it was rung that all who heard it might
address prayers to heaven and the saints for the _soul_ then being
separated from the mortal body. One of the earliest accounts of the use of
bells in England is connected with this bell. Bede, in speaking of the
death of the Abbess of St. Hilda, says that a sister in a distant
monastery thought that she heard in her sleep the well-known sound of the
passing bell. She no sooner heard it than she called all the sisters from
their rest into the church, where they prayed and sang a _requiem_. To
show how persistently the custom was maintained, we may quote from the
"Advertisements for due Order," passed in the seventh year of the reign of
Queen Elizabeth: "Item, that when anye Christian body is in passing, that
the bell be tolled, and that the curate be speciallie called for to
comforte the sicke person; and, after the time of his passinge, to ringe
no more, but one shorte peale, and one before the buriall, and another
shorte peale after the buriall." In ancient days, the bell rang at the
hour of passing, whether it happened to be night or day. In the
churchwardens' accounts for the parish of Wolchurch, 1526, appears the
following regulation:
"Item. The clerke to have for tollynge of the passynge belle for
manne, womanne, or childes, if it be in the day iiijd.
Item. If it be in the night, for the same viijd."
Shakespeare's universal observation led him to make use of the melancholy
meaning of the death bell. He says, in the second part of _King Henry
IV._:
"And his tongue
Sounds ever after as a sullen bell
Remembered knolling a departing friend."
The passing bell has a place in the story of the death, in the Tower of
London, of Lady Catherine Grey, sister to the unfortunate Lady Jane. The
constable of the Tower, Sir Owen Hopton, seeing that the end was
approaching, said to Mr. Bokeham: "Were it not best to send to the church,
that the bell may be rung?" and Lady Catherine herself, hearing the
remark, said to him: "Good Sir Owen, be it so," and died almost at once,
closing her eyes with her own hands. This was in 1567.
The tolling of the passing bell, as such, continued until the time of
Charles II., and it was one of the subjects of inquiry in all articles of
visitation.
The form of inquiry in the Archdeaconry of Yorke by the churchwardens and
swornemen, in 163-, was: "Whether doth your clark or sexton, when any one
is passing out of this life, neglect to toll a bell, having notice
thereof, or, the party being dead, doth he suffer any more ringing than
one short peale, and before his burial one, and after the same another?"
Inquiry was also to be made: "Whether, at the death of any, there be any
superstitious ringing?" There is a widespread saying:
"When the bell begins to toll,
Lord have mercy on the soul."
Gascoigne, in his "Workes," 1587, mentions the passing bell in the
prefatory lines to a sonnet, he says:
"Alas, loe now I heare the passing bell,
Which care appoynteth carefully to knowle,
And in my brest I feele my heart now swell
To breake the stringes which joynd it to my soule."
Another instance of the poetic use is to be found in the _Rape of
Lucrece_, by Heywood (1630), where Valerius exclaims: "Nay, if he be
dying, as I could wish he were, I'le ring out his funerall peale, and this
it is:
Come list and harke, the bell doth towle,
For some but now departing soule.
And was not that some ominous fowle,
The batt, the night-crow, or skreech-owle,
To these I heare the wild woolfe howle,
In this black night that seems to skowle.
All these my black booke shall in-rowle;
For hark, still, still, the bell doth towle
For some but now departing sowle."
Just a little earlier, Copley, in his "Wits, Fits, and Fancies" (1614),
bears evidence to the ringing of the bell while persons were yet alive. A
gentleman who lay upon a severe sick bed, heard a passing bell ring out,
and thereupon asked his physician: "Tell me, maister Doctor, is yonder
musicke for my dancing?" Continuing the subject, he gives an anecdote
concerning "The ringing out at the burial." It is as follows: A rich
miser and a beggar were buried in the same churchyard at the same time,
"and the belles rung out amaine" for the rich man. The son of the former,
fearing the tolling might be thought to be for the beggar instead of his
father, hired a trumpeter to stand "all the ringing-while" in the belfry
and proclaim between every peal, "Sirres, this next peale is not for R.,
but for Maister N.," his father. In the superstitions which gathered round
the bells of Christianity, the passing bell was considered to ward off the
influence of evil spirits from the departing soul. Grose says: "The
passing bell was anciently rung for two purposes: one to bespeak the
prayers of all good Christians for a soul just departing; the other to
drive away the evil spirits who stood at the bed's foot and about the
house, ready to seize their prey, or at least to molest and terrify the
soul in its passage; but, by the ringing of the bell (for Durandus informs
us evil spirits are much afraid of bells), they were kept aloof; and the
soul, like a hunted hare, gained the start, or had what is by sportsmen
called law. Hence, perhaps, exclusive of the additional labour, was
occasioned the high price demanded for tolling the greatest bell of the
church, for, that being louder, the evil spirits must go farther off to be
clear of its sound, by which the poor soul got so much more the start of
them; besides, being heard farther off, it would likewise procure the
dying man a greater number of prayers." This dislike of spirits to bells
is mentioned in the "Golden Legend," by Wynkyn de Worde.
Douce takes the driving away of the spirits to be the main object in
ringing the passing bell, and draws attention to the woodcuts in the Horae,
which contain the "Service of Dead," where several devils are represented
as waiting in the chamber of the dying man, while the priest is
administering extreme unction. Of course, the interpretation that the
spirits are waiting to take possession of the soul so soon as disembodied
is not necessarily the intentional meaning. Douce concludes his remarks by
an observation which has escaped the notice of most of those who have
dealt with the subject. He says: "It is to be hoped that this ridiculous
custom will never be revived, which has been most probably the cause of
sending many a good soul to the other world before its time; nor can the
practice of tolling bells for the dead be defended upon any principle of
common sense, prayers for the dead being contrary to the articles of our
religion." When the English first began to see the apparent inconsistency
of the practice of tolling with their declared religion, the subject gave
rise to much controversy. The custom had many apologists. Bishop Hall
says: "We call them soul bells, for that they signify the departure of the
soul, not for that they help the passage of the soul." Wheatly says: "Our
Church, in imitation of the saints in former ages, calls on the minister
and others who are at hand to assist their brother in his last extremity."
Dr. Zouch (1796) says: "The soul bell was tolled before the departure of a
person out of life, as a signal for good men to offer up their prayers for
the dying. Hence the abuse commenced of praying for the dead." He cites
Douce's versified letter to Sir Henry Wotton:
"And thicken on you now, as prayers ascend
To heaven on troops at a good man's passing bell."
Fuller, long before this, in 1647, expresses some little indignation at
hearing a bell toll after the person had died, as he was thereby cheated
into prayer. He observes: "What is this but giving a false alarm to men's
devotions, to make them ready to arm with their prayers for the
assistance of such who have already fought the good fight." Dekker, in an
evident reference to the passing bell, calls it "the great capon-bell."
From the number of strokes being formerly regulated according to
circumstances, the hearers might determine the sex and social condition of
the dying or dead person. Thus the bell was tolled twice for a woman and
thrice for a man. If for a clergyman, as many times as he had orders, and,
at the conclusion, a peal on all the bells to distinguish the quality of
the person for whom the people are to put up their prayers. In the North
of England, are yet rung nine knells for a man, six for a woman, and three
for a child.
Concerning Coffins.
The use of the coffin may be traced back to a remote period. The remains
of Joseph were conveyed in a coffin from Egypt to Canaan. The Christians
adopted their use from the heathen.
Coffins have been made of various kinds of material. Cedar was used for
the Athenian heroes on account of its aromatic and incorruptible
qualities. It is said that Alexander was buried in one made of gold.
Marble and stone were largely used by the Romans, but many lead coffins
have been found in the Roman cemeteries at Colchester, York, London, and
other places. Coffins of baked clay and cists formed of tiles have been
found at York and at Adlborough. Glass coffins have been used in England.
Wooden coffins are, in this country, of great antiquity. It is recorded
that King Arthur was buried, in 542, in the entire trunk of a tree,
hollowed. Some of the earlier coffins made of wood are extremely rude in
shape. Abbot Warin, of St. Alban's, 1183-95, gave directions for the monks
to be buried in stone coffins. They had previously been buried without
coffins, under the green turf. According to an ancient legend, St.
Cuthbert's remains sailed down the Tweed in a stone coffin.
Generally speaking, the modes of burying the dead in the Middle Ages were
without coffins. The corpses were usually enveloped in linen, but members
of religious houses were usually buried in the habit of their order.
Coffins, in their universal use in this country, comparatively speaking,
belong to modern times. Thomas Hearne, the antiquary, writing in 1742,
says that sixty years before that period it was a common custom to bury
the dead without coffins. People of rank, however, were usually buried in
coffins, unless they left directions to the contrary.
Sir Walter Scott has made us familiar with the fact that it was customary
for
"The lordly line of high Saint Clair"
to deposit their dead in a vault at Roslin Chapel, attired in the armour
they had used in life.
In Ireland, there was a curious custom of burying the dead without
coffins. "Until about the year 1818," says a correspondent of _Notes and
Queries_, Second Series, vol. i., p. 455, "certain families, named Tracey,
Doyle, and Daly, of the townland of Craan, near Enniscorthy, in the barony
of Scarawalsh, in the county of Wexford, were in the habit of burying
their dead uncoffined, in the graveyard attached to the Augustinian Abbey
of Saint John. The bodies were brought to the place of sepulture in open
coffins, with their faces uncovered. The graves were made six or more feet
deep, and lined with bright green turf from the banks of the river Slaney.
In these green chambers, were strewn moss, dry grass, and flowers, and a
pillow of the same supported the head of the corpse when it was laid in
its last earthly bed."
In a "Table of Dutyes" of Shoreditch Church, 1664, are references to the
amounts to be paid if coffins are not used at funerals. It is stated, "for
a burial in ye new churchyard, without a coffin, eight pence; for a burial
in ye olde churchyard, without a coffin, seaven pence; and for the
grave-making and attendance of ye Vicar and Clarke on ye enterment of a
corps uncoffined, the churchwardens to pay the ordinary duteys, and no
more, of this table."
[Illustration: PARISH COFFIN, EASINGWOLD CHURCH.]
The poor were usually buried in parish coffins, or rather taken from their
humble homes to the grave in a coffin, and at the grave removed from it
and merely interred in their shrouds. At Easingwold Church, in East
Yorkshire, an interesting example of the parish coffin is still preserved.
It is strongly and roughly made of oak. We give an illustration of this
old-time relic from a carefully-made drawing by Mr. J. H. Doe. In Smith's
"Old Yorkshire," vol. v., pp. 106-110, will be found an informing article
on the Easingwold and other parish coffins, by the late Llewellynn Jewitt,
F.S.A., who collected much out-of-the-way information on this subject.
From the Rev. Canon Hayman, he received the following important
communication: "The old historical town of Youghal, in the county of
Cork," wrote Canon Hayman, "has many features of interest for the
antiquary, chiefest among which is the venerable Collegiate Church of St.
Mary. The cemetery attached to this noble edifice is the _Pere la Chase_
of Ireland. The ground naturally forms a succession of terraces, here
swelling into little knolls, there sinking into gentle declivities. A poet
said of the Protestant burial ground of Rome: 'It might make one in love
with death to think that one should be buried in so sweet a place,' and
the saying may be repeated of the Youghal churchyard. Death is here
divested of its horror, and wears the softened aspect of stillness and
unbroken repose. On its northern and western sides, the cemetery is
overhung by the old walls of the town, which are yet in good preservation.
In a portion of those defences, nearly opposite to the western gable of
the church, is a recessed [coffin-shaped] aperture, of which the
accompanying is an engraving. Here, as the old folk tell us, was kept the
public coffin for the poor of Youghal. Whenever needed, it was sent to the
house of the dead; and, so soon as it had discharged its office, it was
replaced here. The walls, as may be perceived, are of three thicknesses.
The newest piece, in front, is of hammered, well-squared masonry. More
ancient is the furthest drawn, where the materials are less in size, and
are less carefully finished; but, lying between these twain, is a fragment
of a very old wall, built of exceeding small stones, and evidently
preserved from demolition because of its characteristic feature--the
Parish Coffin Recess." It will be observed, from the illustration we give,
that the recess was coffin-shaped, so that when the parish coffin was not
in use it might be placed upright in the place specially prepared for it.
[Illustration: RECESS FOR PARISH COFFIN, YOUGHAL CHURCHYARD.]
Respecting the parish coffin of Stockton-on-Tees, there is a note in the
history of the town, by the Rev. John Brewer, and published in 1796. It
is stated: "Soon after the Rev. Geo. Walker, vicar [1715], came to reside
at Stockton-on-Tees, he was called upon to inter a poor person. When they
came to the grave, the attendants were preparing to take the body out of
the shell or coffin which contained it. He enquired what they were doing,
and was informed that the same coffin was used for the funerals of the
poor, and that this was intended to serve again. He insisted on its being
put into the ground with the body; and, from this time, took care to
prevent a repetition of such an act of indecency."
During the visit of the members of the Yorkshire Architectural Society to
Howden, on August 25th, 1885, an old oak parish coffin was inspected by
them. It was much dilapidated, but on it could be traced the date, 1664.
We have found in old churchwardens' accounts several entries relating to
parish or church coffins. In the Vestry Book of St. Oswald, Durham, are
the following items:
"1614-15. Pd. for mendinge the bell wheele, and for makinge the
coffins for to bringe the dead corpes to the church in
ijs.
Pd. for bordes for same xxd.
Pd. for bread and drinke for workmen att that tyme iiijd."
The same parish records for 1666-7 contain an entry as follows:
"For a church coffin 14s."
Parish coffins must have been very distasteful to the poor, for the
humbler classes of England dearly love a display at a funeral. An epitaph
in St. Michael's churchyard, Macclesfield, illustrates the weakness in
this direction in our character. It reads as follows:
"MARY BROOMFIELD,
dyd 19 Novr., 1755, aged 80.
The chief concern of her life for the last 20 years was to order and
provide for her funeral. Her greatest pleasure was to think and talk
about it. She lived many years on a pension of 9d. a week, and yet
saved L5, which, at her own request, was laid out on her funeral."
In the reign of George III., wars prevailed to an alarming extent, and
extraordinary taxes were levied to obtain money to maintain the army and
navy. Among the proposals made to raise further revenue was a tax on
coffins, which gave rise to some keen epigrams. Here are a couple of
examples. The first is by Mr. Evans, M.P., and dated Derby, July 6, 1791:
"Taxed when we're born and when we die,
Must coffins now a tax supply?
In vain on earth we respite crave,
Or seek a shelter in the grave!"
Mr. Evans adverts to the old tax by which persons, not being in the
receipt of alms, had to pay two shillings on the birth of a child. The
nobility and gentry were taxed at a much higher rate, for example, a duke,
for his eldest son, had to pay L30. Another epigrammatist addressed the
king as follows:
"Taxed to the bone, thy loving subjects see!
But still supposed, when dead from taxes free;
Now to complete, Great George, thy glorious reign,
Excis'd to death, we're then excis'd again."
The Curfew Bell.
Few points of national history have given rise to so much discussion as
the facts and inferences connected with what is known as the curfew law.
The testimony of the various writers on ancient jurisprudence differs
widely as to the period at which the law originated, and yet more widely
as to the object and intention of those who imposed it upon the people of
England. We will first briefly outline the regulation or custom as we find
it under the Normans. At eight in the evening, a bell was rung, the sound
of which was the signal for everyone to put out, or rather cover, their
fires, extinguish all lights, and go to bed. This was the curfew law,
which it has been the custom to regard as a repressive measure adopted by
the tyrant Conqueror to prevent seditious meetings of the turbulent
Saxons. We "find the name of curfew law employed as a bye-word denoting
the most odious tyranny, and historians, poets, and lawyers, speaking of
it as the acme of despotism, levelled alone at the vanquished English." We
will endeavour to show that, on the contrary, the law was in existence and
force before the Normans trod the conquered fields of Angle-land, and that
its intention was to cherish the good of the country by preventing the
rise of conflagrations.
Throughout the north of Europe, in monasteries and towns, a bell for
covering of fires was in common use; a regulation which reason cannot but
approve, for most dwellings, even those of the higher classes, were built,
for the greater part, of timber, the Saxon term for building being an
expression meaning to "make of wood." We read that London and other towns
were frequently subject to fires. In England, the curfew law is said to
have been made an established institution by King Alfred. When that
monarch restored the University which had been founded at Oxford by St.
Frideswide, he ordained, among other thoughtful regulations, that a bell
should be rung every night at eight, when all the inhabitants of Oxford
should cover up their fires and go to bed. The intention was not that the
fires should be put out, but merely deadened. As Mr. Lomax observes, "The
old fires were made in the centre of a large hearth, and the accumulated
ashes were swept to the back and sides. At the curfew, the large logs were
removed, and the cold ashes raked over the fire so as to cover it. A fire
so covered will often keep smouldering for days, and can be re-lighted by
adding fuel and admitting air, a most important consideration in the days
of tinder-boxes. The same custom is still pursued in the backwoods of
America, in the Australian bush, and in our own 'black country,' where the
great coal fires are 'raked' in the old fashion nightly."
The word _curfew_ is derived from the old French _carre-feu_ or
_cerre-feu_, which afterwards became _couvre-feu_, and lastly _curfew_.
Each of these terms, meaning to cover fire, indicates the intention; and
there was a utensil known as the _couvre-feu_, a kind of metal cover,
somewhat resembling a shield in form, the use of which was to be thrust
over the fire when the bell rang. This probably would only be found in the
houses of the wealthy.