security to be given, with the notice of banns, for the solemnisation of
the marriage, two friends of the parties depositing with the clerk a sum
of money as a guarantee, and that for more than one purpose. In 1570 the
Assembly ordered that "promise of marriage shall be made according to the
order of the reformed Kirk to the minister, exhorter, or reader, taking
caution for abstinence till the marriage be solemnised." The minutes of
Kirk Sessions show that, in numerous instances, during the latter half of
the seventeenth century, such deposits were retained for the space of nine
calendar months after the marriage. The Kilmarnock Kirk Session was not so
strict. It was there ordered, in 1670, that the deposit should be
returned to the parties on the expiration of half a year. Whatever the
term was, if scandal arose before it expired, the deposit became
forfeited.
Kirk Sessions in some cases accepted personal security in lieu of cash,
the bondsmen in such cases becoming liable in the event of scandal
arising, or the non-solemnisation of the marriage. But this system, so
convenient for those who could not raise the caution money, or "pawn," as
it was commonly called, was in course of time abandoned. The Kirk Session
of Mauchline instructed the clerk, in 1691, "to take neither bond nor
cautioner for consignation money, but to require that the money be laid
down, to remain in his hand for the space of three-quarters of a year."
The example was followed by other Kirk Sessions, but the custom continued
for a long time afterwards, and was never formally abolished, falling into
abeyance gradually. Dr Edgar, in his "Old Church Life in Scotland," states
that "on a page at the end of a small volume of scroll minutes still
extant there is a writing, under date 23rd November, 1771, which has all
the appearance of being a genuine matrimonial consignation bond."
The First Book of Discipline makes it peremptory that no persons should be
married without the consent of the parents, unless it should appear that
there was no reasonable ground for the refusal of their consent. The
Westminster Directory qualifies this by ruling that the consent of parents
should be obtained to first marriages, especially if the parties were
under age. It is not clear whether non-age means under the age of
twenty-one, or is to be interpreted by the decree of the General Assembly
of 1600 that, "considering that there is no statute of the kirk,...
defining the age of persons which are to be married, ordain that no
minister within this realm presume to join in matrimony any persons in
time coming, except the man be fourteen years of age, and the woman twelve
complete." The same ages are given in the First Book of Discipline.
Deviations from even this rule sometimes occurred, and may be classed
among the permitted irregularities referred to at the beginning of this
paper. The marriage of heiresses under the age of twelve was not
infrequent, the plea of the guardians, that they feared the abduction of
their wards if longer unmarried, being admitted. There is a record of the
marriage of a girl in her eleventh year to a boy of fourteen in 1659; and
no longer ago than 1859 a girl was married at Edinburgh, who was entered
by the registrar as in her eleventh year. The official inspector thought
there must have been an error in the registration, but inquiry proved that
the entry was correct.
There was no laxity, however, in the matter of prohibited degrees of
relationship. In 1731, an irregular marriage came before the Presbytery of
Ayr. The banns had been forbidden on the ground that the woman's first
husband had been grand-uncle to the second bridegroom. The lovers
thereupon proceeded to Carlisle, and were there united in marriage. The
Presbytery pronounced them guilty of incest, prohibited them from
cohabitation, and the interdict being disregarded, passed sentence of
excommunication.
Marriage might be refused in former times when either of the parties was
found to be "under scandal." In 1565, the General Assembly enacted that
"such as lie in sin under promise of marriage, deferring the
solemnisation, should satisfy publicly, in the place of repentance, upon
the Lord's day before they be married." Many instances are recorded of
persons appearing before the Kirk Session, and denying upon oath that they
had committed the sin of which they were accused. The Kirk Sessions were
equally diligent in their endeavours to prevent scandals. In 1621, it was
reported to the Kirk Session of Perth "that Janet Watson holds house by
herself, where she may give occasion of slander," wherefore an elder was
directed "to admonish her in the Session's name either to marry or to pass
to service."
But while the Church authorities were so zealous for the morals of the
nation and the prevention of scandal, they appear to have sometimes thrown
impediments in the way of lawful marriage. In the early years following
the Reformation, it was a very frequent ordinance of Kirk Sessions that no
persons should be allowed to marry until they were able to repeat to the
minister or reader the Lord's Prayer, the Apostles' Creed, and the Ten
Commandments. Either a "pawn" was required for the fulfilment of this
condition or a fine was exacted in case of failure. In some parishes the
Kirk Sessions went beyond this requirement, and insisted on regular
attendance at public worship. In 1700, the Kirk Session of Galston,
"considering that there were some who lived within the parish who did not
join with the congregation in public worship, nor submit themselves to
discipline, and yet craved common privileges of members of this
congregation, such as proclamation in order to marriage, concluded that
none such should have privileges, until they should engage to live orderly
for the time to come." And a further entry, of the same date, states that
one of the persons referred to applied for proclamation of banns, and, on
the resolution being communicated to him, he "engaged, through God's
grace, to live orderly, and to wait upon gospel ordinances more
particularly, and was then allowed to be proclaimed."
There was some difference of opinion in the early days of the Reformed
Church as to whether a pre-contract should be an impediment to marriage
with another person. The minutes of the Westminster Assembly show that
some of the divines maintained that a promise of marriage was a "covenant
of God," and could not be broken, even by mutual consent. The Church of
Scotland did not adopt this view. In 1570, the General Assembly directed
that persons desiring to withdraw from a contract of marriage should, if
nothing had followed, be allowed to do so. In the same year, an appeal was
made to the Assembly from the decision of a Kirk Session that a man should
not be allowed to marry any woman other than a former servant of the
appellant, whom he had seduced. He had applied to the Kirk Session for
proclamation of banns, putting in the document known as a "discharge of
marriage," signed by the woman he had wronged, for three or four
successive years, but it was persistently refused recognition. The
Assembly sustained his appeal, gave him the liberty he sought, and added,
"yea, and there is injury done to him already."
Sometimes, however, contracted persons declined to set each other free,
and forbade the publication of banns with any other person. In 1689, one
John Meikle was cited to appear before the Presbytery of Ayr, to show
cause why he forbade the banns of Janet Campbell. He pleaded that Janet
had been engaged to him, and on that ground he objected to her becoming
the wife of any other man. The Presbytery decided that Janet was free to
do so. In 1777, a woman applied to the Kirk Session of Mauchline to have
her banns stopped, on the ground that she had changed her mind, and had
become engaged to another man. The first lover opposed the application,
pleading that she was his "by the covenant of God." The Kirk Session did
not admit his plea. The publication of banns was stopped, and a minute of
the Session justifies this decision, on the ground that "there would be an
obvious impropriety in proceeding further in the proclamation, after being
certified by the woman of her resolution not to marry the petitioner."
There were some superstitions connected with marriage as to lucky and
unlucky days and seasons. Perthshire couples refrained from wedlock in
January, and everywhere it was declined in May. In the Lowlands, Friday
was considered an unlucky day for weddings, but in the Highlands, it was
the day generally chosen for the ceremony. These notions had no weight
with the compilers of the First Book of Discipline, who expressed their
opinion that Sunday was the day "most expedient." On the other hand, the
Westminster Assembly advised that marriages should not be solemnised on
the Lord's day. The latter may have been influenced by the same reason
that moved the Kirk Session of Perth to adopt, in 1584, a resolution that
"forasmuch as sundry poor desire to, because they have not to buy clothes,
nor to make bridals, marriages should be as well celebrated on Thursday,
within our Parish Kirk in time of sermon, as on Sunday." The former, on
the other hand, probably had in view the disorderly scenes to which a
wedding was often the prelude. The General Assembly, in 1645, adopted the
view of the Westminster Directory, and marriages from that date were
generally solemnised on the day of the weekly lecture.
In former times, and down to the first quarter of the present century, the
celebration of a marriage otherwise than in church was regarded as
irregular and clandestine. In 1581, the General Assembly "concluded by
common consent of the whole brethren, that in times coming no marriage be
celebrated, nor sacraments administered, in private houses." At that time,
and long afterwards, ministers were liable to deposition, and were
actually deposed, for marrying persons in private houses. It is a fact,
nevertheless, that though the law of the Church remains as settled in
1581, marriages celebrated in private houses have not been regarded as
irregular since the beginning of the last century; and the records of the
General Sessions of Edinburgh show that, as long ago as 1643, private
marriages were not infrequent in that city, where, however, they were
restricted to the well-to-do classes by a fine of twenty marks.
Weddings were usually followed by great festivities, which were generally
on a scale so extensive, and carried to so great an excess, that the
records of Kirk Sessions during the seventeenth century show numerous
regulations for their restriction. They fixed the number of guests who
might be lawfully entertained on such occasions, and the hour at which the
festivities should cease. Many of the customs observed were peculiar to
the country, or to certain parts of it. In the Highlands, until about a
century ago, the bride walked round the wedding party at the close of the
ceremony, saluting each with a kiss. A dish was then passed round, in
which each deposited a coin, the amount collected being given to the
bride. The term "penny wedding" appears to have arisen from this custom.
Owing to the large number of guests entertained, which Kirk Sessions did
not venture to reduce to less than forty, it was usual for the neighbours
to assist in providing for them. Landowners gave beef, mutton and venison;
farmers, poultry and dairy produce; and the minister and the schoolmaster
lent cooking utensils. The bridal feast was followed by a dance.
Some peculiar rites, of ancient and pagan origin, were practised at the
home-coming of the bride. The guests assembled at the door, on the
threshold of which a sieve containing bread and cheese was held over her
head, and, as she entered the house, a cake of shortbread was broken over
her head, the young folk present scrambling for the fragments. The
ceremony was completed by the bride sweeping the hearth with a broom.
This paper would not be complete without some notice of an aspect of the
matter with which it deals, which has not received the attention to which
it is certainly entitled. The law relating to marriage remains unsettled.
It has been so constantly regarded as a matter for ecclesiastical
regulation, that it has been practically left to be dealt with by
Presbyteries and Kirk Sessions. "As far back as any living man
remembers," says Dr Edgar, "it has taken very few formalities to
constitute in Scotland a marriage that is binding in law. A man and a
woman have only had to take up house together, and declare themselves
husband and wife. The law thereupon pronounced them married persons. But
this was not always understood to be the law of the land in Scotland, and
the Church of Scotland did not always recognise such unions as marriages."
But while writing of what was or was not _understood_ to be the law, he
tells us nothing as to what the law really was or is.
It seems to have been the practice of the Church, in former times, to
pronounce her own judgment, and then to ask the State to confirm it. In
the first General Assembly held in Scotland, that of 1560, there was a
declaration made concerning marriages within certain degrees of
relationship, and "the authority of the Estates was craved to be
interposed to that finding as the law." There were many of the ministers
of the Reformed Church who held that a religious ceremony was not
necessary to constitute a valid marriage. One of the members of the
Westminster Assembly, in 1644, expressed the opinion, previously given by
Luther, that only the consent of the parties was necessary. This view
appears to have prevailed very generally among the laity, notwithstanding
the action taken so frequently by Kirk Sessions in opposition to it.
The question continued to be disputed throughout the last century. Writers
on legal questions held one view, and judges on the bench pronounced
contrariwise. Erskine argued that, in Scotland, the consent of the parties
was all that was necessary to constitute a valid marriage. Lord Braxfield
affirmed the opposite in 1796. Lord Fraser, on a later occasion, said that
the view set forth by Erskine was never judicially pronounced to be the
law of Scotland until 1811. Can we wonder, therefore, when lawyers and
judges disagree, at the haziness of mental vision displayed by Kirk
Sessions, and the frequent want of uniformity in their decisions?
Gretna Green Gossip.
Gretna Green is the name of an insignificant village in the Border country
between England and Scotland. It is situated in Dumfriesshire, near the
mouth of the Esk, nine miles north-west of Carlisle, and consequently
within a mile of the English border. Probably no place of such absence of
pretension to size and population has attained the notoriety which
attaches to the name of Gretna Green, a distinction it has obtained merely
through its being the first place suitable for stoppage after the English
border was once passed. This close proximity was utilised by runaway
couples, who, dispensing, for various reasons, with the preliminaries of
anyone's consent to their union, or the publication of banns requisite by
the English Marriage Laws, could, when once on Scottish ground, accomplish
their wedding by simply declaring before witnesses their mutual
willingness to undertake the contract. To the facility, then, which the
Marriage Laws of Scotland offered to amorous and impatient couples (minors
or not), the fisher-village of Gretna Green owes its repute as a chosen
altar of Hymen. A marriage once declared here was henceforward considered
valid, and after exchanging before any witness the mutual promises, the
pair might return to England at once, the knot being tied beyond all
chance of dispute. As might be expected, haste was a great factor in these
summary pairings, and consequently postillions were largely employed to
get over the distance between Carlisle and Gretna, a course upon which, no
doubt, many a tough race has been run between prudent parent or guardian
and ardent runaways.
The "parsons" of Gretna were the ordinary inhabitants, who were weavers,
fishermen (Gretna being at the head of the Solway), blacksmiths, &c., and
their fees were entirely arbitrary, being fixed on the spot, according to
the private information of the postillions, or according to the appearance
and simplicity of the young couple. Marriages have been contracted here
for a glass of whisky, while on the other hand a fee of twenty pounds has
been paid, as in the case of Lord Chief Justice Erskine, who availed
himself of the easy ceremony, and even much larger sums, as in the cases
of the Earl of Westmoreland, Lord Deerhurst, and others, who paid to the
officiating "cleric" upwards of one hundred guineas. In the absence of any
local person to receive the attestations to the contract, the postillions
themselves have been known to assume the sacerdotal functions.
The first broker in Gretna Green marriages was one Scott, who lived at a
point called the Rigg, a few miles from the village. It is said that he
commenced his infamous profession about the year 1750, but beyond the fact
that he was a crafty fellow, who could turn the emergencies of the time to
his own advantage, little is known of him. The next who undertook the
remunerative duties of high priest was George Gordon, an old soldier, who
invariably wore as canonicals a full military uniform of a by-gone type--a
tremendous cocked-hat, scarlet coat, and jackboots, with a ponderous sword
dangling from his belt. His "church," which had the appearance of a barn,
stood a little to the left of the public road; his altar was an ale cask
upon which was placed an open Bible. Following Gordon, Joseph Paisley
(sometimes called Pasley) became the recognised parson. He was a
fisherman, who agreeably united with the duties of that position the
pursuits of smuggler and tobacconist. He has been also called a
blacksmith, but this was simply a fanciful allusion to the part he took in
the Gretna Green marriages, Vulcan being the marriage maker of the gods as
well as their smith. He commenced the matrimonial business in 1789, and
from being retiring in his manner of dealing, became audaciously
unscrupulous, going so far even as to supply fictitious signatures to the
certificates, instead of, as at first, resorting to the less culpable
proceeding of signing his own name as a witness. It is said of this man
that at his death, about 1811, he weighed twenty-five stones. He was a
coarse, blatant individual, and habitually appeared in a sort of priestly
dress, even in his constant dissipations. At his death the priesthood was
taken by his son-in-law, Robert Elliott, who kept an account of his
transactions, and afterwards published them under the title of "The Gretna
Green Memoirs." In this he states that between 1811 and 1839, not less
than 7744 persons were united by him at Gretna. The _Times_, in a review
of the book, doubted the accuracy of the assertion, which drew from him a
reply in the form of a letter to that paper. He said, "I can show
registers for that number from my commencement, and which either you or
any respectable individual may inspect here, and which I can substantiate
on oath."
We give here an extract from the "Memoirs" of Elliott. He says:--"As the
marriage ceremony performed by me and my predecessors may be interesting
to many of my readers, I give it verbatim: The parties are first asked
their names and places of abode; they are then asked to stand up, and
inquired of if they are both single persons; if the answer be in the
affirmative, the ceremony proceeds. Each is next asked, 'Did you come here
of your own free will and accord?' Upon receiving an affirmative answer,
the priest commences filling in the printed form of the certificate. The
man is then asked, 'Do you take this woman to be your lawful wedded wife,
forsaking all others, and keep to her as long as you both shall live?' He
answers, 'I will.' The woman is asked the same question, when, being
answered the same, the woman then produces a ring, which she gives to the
man, who hands it to the priest; the priest then returns it to the man,
and orders him to put it on the fourth finger of the woman's left hand,
repeating these words, 'With this ring I thee wed, with my body I thee
worship, with all my goods I thee endow, in the name of the Father, Son,
and Holy Ghost. Amen.' They then take hold of each other's right hand, and
the woman says, 'What God joins together let no man put asunder.' Then the
priest says, 'Forasmuch as this man and this woman have come together by
giving and receiving a ring, I therefore declare them to be man and wife
before God and these witnesses, in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy
Ghost. Amen.'"
The following are among the memorable matches effected through the agency
of Robert Elliott, and recorded in his Memoirs:--
1812.--Rev. Wm. Freemantle, an English clergyman. C. Ewen Law, son of Lord
Ellenborough, to Miss Nightingale.
1815.--A "droll gaberlunzie without legs or arms, to a comely damsel, both
appearing anxious for the ceremony," to the disgust of the not too
fastidious parson himself.
1816.--Lord Chief Justice Erskine. Within a year, however, his lordship
unsuccessfully tried to loosen his matrimonial chains by a divorce by the
Scottish law.
1826.--E. Gibbon Wakefield, with Miss Turner. Of the trial which ensued
upon this union we give particulars below.
During the latter part of Elliott's "ministration" competition in the
marrying business became brisk, and he had numerous rivals, the most
powerful of these candidates for clerical emolument being another son of
Mars, named David Laing. The competition became so pronounced that the
rival parsons canvassed for the assistance and co-operation of the
postillions, who, commencing by receiving a commission per runaway pair,
at last ended by working upon a system of equal shares with their priestly
co-partners.