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can't be married quietly, I'll put it off till another time;" and so drove away. The truthfulness of this description is attested by Pennant: 'In walking along the street, in my youth, on the side next the prison, I have often been tempted by the question: "Sir, will you be pleased to walk in and be married?" Along this most lawless space was hung up the frequent sign of a male and female hand enjoined, with Marriages performed within, written beneath. A dirty fellow invited you in. The parson was seen walking before his shop; a squalid profligate figure, clad in a tattered plaid nightgown, with a fiery face, and ready to couple you for a dram of gin or a roll of tobacco.-Some Account of London, 1793.

In 1719, Mrs Anne Leigh, an heiress, was decoyed from her friends in Buckinghamshire, married at the Fleet chapel against her consent, and barbarously ill-used by her abductors. In 1737, one Richard Leaver, being tried for bigamy, declared he knew nothing of the woman claiming to be his wife, except that one night he got drunk, and 'next morning found myself abed with a strange woman. "Who are you? how came you here?" says L. "Oh, my dear," says she, "we were married last night at the Fleet!" These are but two of many instances in which waifs of the church and self-ordained clergymen, picking up a livelihood in the purlieus of the Fleet, aided and abetted nefarious schemers. For a consideration, they not only provided bride or bridegroom, but antedated marriages, and even gave certificates where no marriage took place. In 1821, the government purchased the registers of several of the marriage-houses, and deposited them with the Registrar of the Consistory Court of London; and in these registers we have proofs, under the hands of themselves and their clerks, of the malpractices of the Fleet parsons, as the following extracts will shew:

5 Nov. 1742, was married Benjamin Richards, of the parish of St Martin's-in-the-Fields, Br. and Judith Lance, Do. sp. at the Bull and Garter, and gave [a guinea] for an antedate to March ye 11th in the same year, which Lilley comply'd with, and put 'em in his book accordingly, there being a vacancy in the book suitable to the time.'

June 10, 1729-John Nelson, of ye parish of St George, Hanover, batchelor and gardener, and Mary Barnes of ye same, sp. married. Cer. dated 5 November 1727, to please their parents.'

Mr Comyngs gave me half-a-guinea to find a bridegroom, and defray all expenses. Parson, 2s. 6d. Husband do, and 5. 6 myself? [We find one man married four times under different names, receiving five shillings on each occasion for his trouble.']

1742, May 24-A soldier brought a barber to the Cock, who, I think, said his name was James, barber by trade, was in part married to Elizabeth: they said they were married enough.'

A coachman came, and was half-married, and would give but 3s. 6d., and went off." 'Edward and Elizabeth were married, and would not let me know their names.' The woman ran across Ludgate Hill in her shift. [Under the popular delusion that, by so doing, her husband would not be answerable for her debts.]

April 20, 1742, came a man and woman to the Bull and Garter, the man pretended he would marry ye woman, by w'ch pretence he got money

FLEET MARRIAGES.

to pay for marrying and to buy a ring, but left the woman by herself, and never returned; upon which J. Lilley takes the woman from the Bull and Garter to his own house, and gave her a certifycate, as if she had been married to the man.'

'1 Oct. 1747.-John Ferren, gent. ser. of St Andrew's, Holborn, Br. and Deborah Nolan, do. sp. The supposed J. F. was discovered, after the ceremonies were over, to be in person a woman.'

'To be kept a secret, the lady having a jointure during the time she continued a widow?

Sometimes the parsons met with rough treatment, and were glad to get off by sacrificing their fees. One happy couple stole the clergyman's clothes-brush, and another ran away with the certificate, leaving a pint of wine unpaid for. The following memorandums speak for themselves:

'Had a noise for four hours about the money.' 'Married at a barber's shop one Kerrils, for halfa-guinea, after which it was extorted out of my pocket, and for fear of my life, delivered.'

The said Harronson swore most bitterly, and was pleased to say that he was fully determined to kill the minister, etc., that married him. N.B.He came from Gravesend, and was sober!'

Upon one occasion the parson, thinking his clients were not what they professed to be, ventured to press some inquiries. He tells the result in a Nota Bene: 'I took upon me to ask what ye gentleman's name was, his age, and likewise the lady's name and age. Answer was made me, Gd- me, if I did not immediately marry them, he would use me ill; in short, apprehending it to be a conspiracy, I found myself obliged to marry them in terrorem. However, the frightened rascal took his revenge, for he adds in a second N.B., ' some material part was omitted!' Dare's Register contains the following: Oct. 2, 1743.-John Figg, of St John the Evangelist, gent., a widower, and Rebecca Wordwand, of ditto, spinster. At ye same time gave her ye sacrament. This, however, is the only instance recorded of such blasphemous audacity.

The hymeneal market was not supported only by needy fortune-hunters and conscienceless profligates, ladies troubled with duns, and spinsters wanting husbands for reputation's sake. All classes flocked to the Fleet to marry in haste. Its registers contain the names of men of all professions, from the barber to the officer in the Guards, from the pauper to the peer of the realm. Among the aristocratic patrons of its unlicensed chapels we find Edward, Lord Abergavenny; the Hon. John Bourke, afterwards Viscount Mayo; Sir Marmaduke Gresham; Anthony Henley, Esq., brother of Lord Chancellor Northington; Lord Banff; Lord Montagu, afterwards Duke of Manchester; Viscount Sligo; the Marquis of Annandale; William Shipp, Esq., father of the first Lord Mulgrave; and Henry Fox, afterwards Lord Holland, of whose marriage Walpole thus writes to Sir Horace Mann: 'The town has been in a great bustle about a private match; but which, by the ingenuity of the ministry, has been made politics. Mr Fox fell in love with Lady Caroline Lenox (eldest daughter of the Duke of Richmond), asked her, was refused, and stole her. His father was a footman, her great-grandfather, a king-hinc ille lachryma! All the blood-royal have been up in arms.' A few foreigners figure in the Fleet records, the most notable entry in which

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an alien is concerned being this: 10 Aug. 1742. -Don Dominian Bonaventura, Baron of Spiterii, Abbott of St Mary, in Præto Nobary, chaplain of hon. to the king of the Two Sicilies, and knt. of the order of St Salvator, St James, and Martha Alexander, ditto, Br. and sp.' Magistrates and parochial authorities helped to swell the gains of the Fleet parsons; the former settling certain cases by sending the accused to the altar instead of the gallows, and the latter getting rid of a female pauper, by giving a gratuity to some poor wretch belonging to another parish to take her for better for worse.

From time to time, the legislature attempted to check these marriages; but the infliction of pains and penalties were of no avail so long as the law recognised such unions. At length Chancellor Hardwicke took the matter in hand, and in 1753 a bill was introduced, making the solemnisation of matrimony in any other but a church or chapel, and without banns or license, felony punishable by transportation, and declaring all such marriages null and void. Great was the excitement created; handbills for and against the measure were thrown broadcast into the streets. The bill was strenuously opposed by the opposition, led by Henry Fox and the Duke of Bedford, but eventually passed by a large majority, and became the law of the land from Lady-Day 1754, and so the scandalous matrimonial-market of the Fleet came to an end.*

MINT, SAVOY, AND MAY-FAIR MARRIAGES.

The Fleet chapels had competitors in the Mint, May-Fair, and the Savoy. In 1715, an Irishman, named Briand, was fined £2000 for marrying an orphan about thirteen years of age, whom he decoyed into the Mint. The following curious certificate was produced at his trial: Feb. 16, 1715, These are therefore, whom it may concern, that Isaac Briand and Watson Anne Astone were joined together in the holy state of matrimony (Nemine contradicente) the day and year above written, according to the rites and ceremonies of the church of Great Britain. Witness my hand, Jos. Smith, Cler.' In 1730, a chapel was built in May Fair, into which the Rev. Alexander Keith was inducted. He advertised in the public papers, and carried on a flourishing trade till 1742, when he was prosecuted by Dr Trebeck, and excommunicated. In return, he excommunicated the doctor, the bishop of London, and the judge of the Ecclesiastical Court. The following year, he was committed to the Fleet Prison; but he had a house opposite his old chapel fitted up, and carried on the business through

*It is well you are married! How would my Lady Ailesbury have liked to be asked in a parish church for three Sundays running? I really believe she would have worn her weeds for ever rather than have passed through so impudent a ceremony! What do you think? But you will want to know the interpretation of this preamble. Why, there is a new bill, which, under the notion of preventing clandestine marriages, has made such a general rummage and reform in the office of matrimony, that every Strephon and Chloe will have as many impedíments and formalities to undergo as a treaty of peace. Lord Bath invented the bill, but had drawn it so ill, that the chancellor was forced to draw a new one, and then grew so fond of his own creature, that he has crammed it down the throats of both Houses, though they gave many a gulp before they could swallow it.'-Horace Walpole to Mr Conway, 22d May 1753.

FLEET MARRIAGES.

the agency of curates. At this chapel, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's worthless son was married; and here the impatient Duke of Hamilton was wedded with a ring from a bed-curtain, to the youngest of the beautiful Gunnings, at half-past twelve at night. When the marriage act was mooted, Keith swore that he would revenge himself upon the bishops, by taking some acres of land for a burying-ground, and underburying them all. He published a pamphlet against the measure, in which he states it was a common thing to marry from 200 to 300 sailors when the fleet came in, and consoles himself with the reflection, that if the alteration in the law should prove beneficial to the country, he will have the satisfaction of having been the cause of it, the compilers of the act having done it with the pure design' of suppressing his chapel. No less than sixty-one couples were united at Keith's chapel the day before the act came into operation. He himself died in prison in 1758. The Savoy Chapel did not come into vogue till after the passing of the marriage bill. On the 2d January 1754, the Public Advertiser contained this advertisement: By Authority.-Marriages performed with the utmost privacy, decency, and regularity at the Ancient Royal Chapel of St John the Baptist, in the Savoy, where regular and authentic registers have been kept from the time of the Reformation (being two hundred years and upwards) to this day. The expense not more than one guinea, the five-shilling stamp included. There are five private ways by land to this chapel, and two by water.' The proprietor of this chapel was the Rev. John Wilkinson (father of Tate Wilkinson, of theatrical fame), who fancying (as the Savoy was extra-parochial) that he was privileged to issue licenses upon his own authority, took no notice of the new law. In 1755, he married no less than 1190 couples. The authorities began at last to bestir themselves, and Wilkinson thought it prudent to conceal himself. He engaged a curate, named Grierson, to perform the ceremony, the licenses being still issued by himself, by which arrangement he thought to hold his assistant harmless. Among those united by the latter, were two members of the Drury Lane company. Garrick, obtaining the certificate, made such use of it that Grierson was arrested, tried, convicted, and sentenced to fourteen years' transportation, by which sentence 1400 marriages were declared void. In 1756, Wilkinson, making sure of acquittal, surrendered himself, and received the same sentence as Grierson, but died on board the convict-ship as she lay in Plymouth harbour, whither she had been driven by stress of weather.

JULY 25.

St James the Great, the Apostle. St Christopher, martyr, 3d century. St Cucufas, martyr in Spain, 304. Saints Thea and Valentina, virgins, and St Paul, martyrs, 308. St Nissen, abbot of Mountgarret, Ireland.

ST JAMES THE GREAT.

The 25th of July is dedicated to St James the Great, the patron saint of Spain. According to legendary lore, James preached the gospel in Spain,

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and afterwards returning to Palestine, was made the first bishop of Jerusalem. He suffered martyrdom by order of Herod Agrippa, in the year 44 A.D., shortly before the day of the Passover. Some Spanish converts, however, who had followed him to Jerusalem, rescued his holy relics, and conveyed them to Spain, where they were miraculously discovered in the eighth century. The Spaniards hold St James in the highest veneration, and if their history was to be believed, with good reason. At the battle of Clavijo, fought in the year 841 between Ramiro, king of Leon, and the Moors, when the day was going hard against the Christians, St James appeared in the field, in his own proper person, armed with a sword of dazzling splendour, and mounted on a white horse, having housings charged with scallop shells, the saint's peculiar heraldic cognizance; he slew sixty thousand of the Moorish infidels, gaining the day for Spain and Christianity. The great Spanish order of knighthood, Santiago de Espada St James of the Sword -was founded in commemoration of the miraculous event; giving our historian Gibbon occasion to observe that, a stupendous metamorphosis was performed in the ninth century, when from a peaceful fisherman of the Lake of Gennesareth, the apostle James was transformed into a valorous knight, who charged at the head of Spanish

ST JAMES THE GREAT.

chivalry in battles against the Moors. The gravest
historians have celebrated his exploits; the mira-
culous shrine of Compostella displayed his power;
and the sword of a military order, assisted by the
terrors of the inquisition, was sufficient to remove
every objection of profane criticism.'
The city of Compostella, in Galicia, became the
chief seat of the order of St James, from the
legend of his body having been discovered there.
The peculiar badge of the order is a blood-stained
sword in the form of a cross, charged, as heralds
term it, with a white scallop shell; the motto is
Rubet ensis sanguine Arabum-Red is the sword
with the blood of the Moors. The banner of the
order, preserved in the royal armory at Madrid,
is said to be the very standard which was used by
Ferdinand and Isabella at the conquest of Granada.
But, as it bears the imperial, double-headed eagle
of the Emperor Charles V., we may accept the
story, like many other Spanish ones, with some
reservation. On this banner, St James is repre-
sented as he appeared at the battle of Clavijo; and
the accompanying engraving is a correct copy of
the marvellous apparition. But it was not at
Clavijo alone that St James has appeared and
fought for Spain; he has been seen fighting, at
subsequent times, in Flanders, Italy, India, and
America. And, indeed, his powerful aid and

ST JAMES THE GREAT.

influence has been felt even when his actual scallop shell worn on the cloak or hat. In the old

presence was not visible. St James's Day has ever

Grotius happily terms it, a day the Spaniards pilgrim's weedes:'

been considered auspicious to the arms of Spain. describes her lover as clad, like herself, in ‘a ballad of the Friar of Orders Gray, the lady

believed fortunate, and through their belief made it 80. Charles V. conquered Tunis on that day; but on the following anniversary, when he invaded Provence, he was not by any means so successful.

The shrine of St James, at Compostella, was a great resort of pilgrims, from all parts of Christendom, during the medieval period; and the distin

'And how should I know your true love

From many another one?

Oh, by his scallop shell and hat,
And by his sandal shoon.'

The adoption of the shell by the pilgrims to the shrine of St James, is accounted for in a legend,

hich relates, that when the relics of the saint

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