A few miles beyond the walls of ‘merrie Carlisle,’ and only just
across the Border on the Scottish side, is a lonely old-world little
village, whither, in days not yet remote, frequent couples, in life’s
bright golden time, hurriedly resorted; no less eager to cross the
bridge spanning the river Sark, which here forms the boundary of the
two kingdoms, than, with blind trust in the future, to undertake the
all-untried responsibilities of forbidden wedlock. The village itself
consists of a long straight street of cleanly whitewashed houses,
beyond which stretches the solitary tract of Solway moss, scene of many
a Border foray, and of one miserable ‘rout’ in the days of the Scottish
Jameses; while, towards England, the landscape is bounded by the ‘skyey
heads’ of the Cumberland mountains, clad in such hues of grayish green
as nature uses to modify her distant tints. Curious to view a spot so
far renowned, albeit without design of invoking aid from any chance
survivor of the ‘high-priests of Gretna Green,’ we alighted on the
platform of its roadside station on the Glasgow and South-Western
Railway one summer afternoon, and pursuing our way towards the village
in company with a not uncommunicative policeman, quickly found many
illusions dispelled, by no means least the widespread legend as to
the officiating blacksmith. Our attention was ere long called to the
figure of a middle-aged, by no means clerical-looking man, at the
time engaged in filling his pipe by the wayside, with whom we entered
into conversation. Nowise anxious to magnify his apostleship, our new
friend somewhat deprecatingly acknowledged that the priestly mantle had
descended upon his too unworthy shoulders, and that, indeed, but a few
days prior to our visit, he had been called on to exercise the weighty
functions of his office.
This man, by trade a mason, spoke, not without regret, of the good old
days when fugitive lovers crowded to the Border village, the poorer
sort being most often united at the tollhouse just across the bridge,
while the more well-to-do betook themselves to the hotel, which, though
no longer devoted to uses hymeneal, still stands at the entrance of
the village street. The priestly office, it was said, had been filled,
more or less worthily, by many, who, claiming no unbroken descent, had
in a somewhat casual sort of way succeeded to it; and amongst others
concerned in what certainly appeared to have been the staple trade of
the place, the local postman was indicated as custodian of registers
reaching back into the palmy days of Border marriage, and containing
names no less remarkable for nobility of birth than for the possession
of wealth and acres.
Left at length to ourselves, we passed onward up the village street;
not a few small inns were there, the landlady of one of the very least
of which assured us that as many as nine couples at a time had, in days
when business was brisk, sought the shelter of her tiny roof. A little
way farther on, we did not fail to notice the name of ‘Lord Erskine’
scratched upon an ancient and decidedly rickety pane in a window of
the _Queen’s Head_, where also is exhibited, framed and glazed of
course, his so-called marriage certificate, in form precisely as in use
to-day, thus: ‘_Kingdom of SCOTLAND, County of DUMFRIES, Parish of
GRETNA._—These are to certify, to all whom they may concern, that ——,
from the parish of ——, in the county of ——; and ——, from the parish
of ——, in the county of ——, being now both here present, and having
declared to me that they are single persons, have now been married
after the manner of the laws of Scotland. As witness our hands at
Gretna Green, this — day of —— 188-.’ Witnesses (two in number).
That a marriage like this can still be solemnised between ‘such as
will not get them to church, and have a good priest that can tell them
what marriage is,’ may come as a surprise to many who have believed
that the glories of Gretna Green lay all in the past. Not only,
however, had we the assurance of our friend the mason; but a tale of
recent matrimonial venture was imparted, as evidence conclusive that
Border marriage is even now an occurrence by no means unfrequent. The
_dramatis personæ_ in this real nineteenth-century romance were a young
English lady, who, as a visitor at a neighbouring resort of pleasure,
had satisfied the requisite condition of three weeks’ residence in
Scotland by one of the parties; and a young officer in an infantry
regiment. Taking the train one fine morning to Gretna Green, the lady
was met at the station by her intended bridegroom, with whom she was
speedily and indissolubly, according to local rite, made one for aye.
Neither can any man say that ‘not being well married, it will be a
good excuse for him hereafter to leave his wife,’ because, provided
that two witnesses be present and the questions put be satisfactorily
replied to, weddings such as these lack nought of the legal validity
and obligation of those contracted with pealing organ and the most
ceremoniously conducted ecclesiastical display. The Act of 1856 only
makes Scotch marriages illegal in the case of one or other of the
parties not having resided for three weeks in the kingdom of Scotland,
thereby putting a stop to many runaway marriages, especially among
servants, who came across in numbers from Carlisle at the season of
annual hirings.
Not very long since, a faithless swain, weary prematurely of vows
exchanged at Gretna Green, and doubting somewhat, it may be, of the
holiness of the estate inaugurated by rites so maimed, betook himself,
in the company of another and, to him, doubtless fairer bride, to a
Roman Catholic priest in a southern Scottish burgh, who all unwittingly
solemnised a marriage between them, destined to work no small evil to
the fickle bridegroom; for mark how well the sequel hangs together. The
deceiver, a sadder and perchance wiser man, torn from the arms of his
too credulous bride, a Niobe all tears, was hauled before the outraged
majesty of law, and compelled to undergo the penalties, not trivial,
awarded to crimes of perjury and bigamy.
Whatever peculiar popularity as a marriage-resort may have been enjoyed
by Gretna Green is doubtless due to the convenience and accessibility
of its situation on the Great North Road; for here is no instance
of especial virtue residing in local fountains, but merely of such
virtue—if, indeed, one may so use the term—as is participated in by
every other spot of ground within the whole realm of Scotland; nor,
indeed, as a matter of fact, were Coldstream and Lamberton near Berwick
without some measure of peculiar advantage, which they offered to those
impatient ones who, from the more eastern counties, were minded to
avail themselves of the proximity of the Scottish Border.
The origin of these marriages has been sought by some in the wild
habits of times far distant, when lack of clergy in the district
was to some extent supplied by the ministrations of friars from the
adjacent abbeys of Melrose and Jedburgh, who in the course of their
perambulations performed the rites of baptism and marriage. The
Borderer, nowise forgetful, ere setting forth on expeditions of rapine
and plunder, to tell his beads right zealously, was yet grossly
ignorant about many things; nor had he access to any other source of
enlightenment than the ‘Book-a-bosoms,’ as the mass-book was called,
from the habit of the wandering ecclesiastics carrying it in their
bosoms. Thus it was that stout William of Deloraine seemed, to the
astonished eyes of the Goblin Page, so strangely to resemble one of
these friars, when
As the corselet off he took,
The Dwarf espied the mighty Book!
Much he marvelled, a knight of pride
Like a book-bosomed priest should ride.
But it may have been that this custom originated at Gretna Green about
1738, on the suppression of the infamous Fleet marriages, though,
without doubt, irregular marriage was far from unknown long prior
to this time in the Border parishes. At all events, acting on his
knowledge that Scotch marriages, where parties accepted each other as
man and wife before witnesses, were legal, one Scott opened a place at
the Rigg, in the parish of Gretna, and there marriages were celebrated
between runaway couples about the year 1753. Scott was succeeded by an
old soldier named Gordon, who was wont to officiate in uniform, wearing
a huge cocked-hat, and girt about the waist with a ponderous sword.
In 1842 were published by Robert Elliott the _Gretna Green Memoirs_,
wherein we are told how Elliott—a retired stagecoach driver—became
acquainted with Joseph Paisley, successor of the veteran Gordon in
1810. Paisley, who had been a tobacconist, fisherman, nay, even, it
is more than hinted, a smuggler, became known as ‘the blacksmith,’
from the speed with which he riveted the bonds of runaway couples.
Elliott, who married Paisley’s daughter, and eventually succeeded him
in his office, continued sole and only ‘parson’ of Gretna Green for
twenty-nine years, during which period he is said to have united more
than three thousand couples of all ranks and grades in society, the
greatest number in any one year (1825) having been one hundred and
ninety-eight, and the average from 1829 to 1835 inclusive upwards of
one hundred and sixty each year. Although tradition says that Lord
Erskine paid as much as eighty guineas on the occasion of his marriage,
the average fee at Gretna Green is estimated at fifteen guineas; whence
we may at anyrate infer how much more highly paid was the Border
‘parson’ than the majority of the more regular clergy on either side of
the Sark.
In a will-case tried some years ago at Liverpool, the plaintiff,
Robert Ker, had been married on two occasions at Gretna Green—in 1850,
and again in 1853—the first marriage having been solemnised in a
beerhouse at Springfield, near Gretna; and the second in an alehouse
kept by William Blythe, when Thomas Blythe, in presence of his wife,
performed the ceremony, which was thus described: ‘I went in and had
some conversation, and asked him [Thomas Blythe] to do this little job.
He said he would, and asked me if I was willing to take this lady as
my wife, and I said yes. Then he asked her if she was willing to take
me for her husband, and she said she was; and I got hold of her hand
and put the ring on, and we were declared man and wife; and that was
how we were married.’ At this trial, a book containing a register of
marriages performed by the Blythes was produced in evidence.
Thomas Blythe was himself examined in the Probate Court at Westminster,
and stated that in the May of 1853 he was living at Springfield, Gretna
Green, and was in the agricultural line, though he did a small stroke
of business in the ‘joining line’ as well. Replying to counsel as to
how he performed the ceremony, he gave the following account of the
marriage service as by him conducted: ‘I first asked if they were
single. They said they were. I then asked the man: “Do you take this
woman for your wife?” He said, “Yes.” I then asked the woman: “Do you
take this man for your lawful husband?” She said, “Yes.” I then said:
“Put on the ring.” The ring was put on. I then said: “The thing is
done; the marriage is complete.”’ A certificate of marriage was written
out and given to the woman.
We doubt not, however, that many of our readers may learn with surprise
that, even now, marriage—provided that one or other of the parties have
resided three weeks in Scotland—may be thus speedily and effectually
performed at the erstwhile notorious little village of Gretna Green, as
well as elsewhere north of the Border.