Part 7

I turn to the registers wherein the doings of the Fleet Parsons are more or less carefully recorded. In 1783 most of those still extant had got into the hands of Mr. Benjamin Panton. “They weighed more than a ton”; were purchased by the Government for £260 6_s._ 6_d._, and to-day you may inspect them at Somerset House. There are between two and three hundred large registers and a thousand or more pocket-books (_temp._ 1674-1753). Not merely are the records of marriages curious in themselves, but also they are often accompanied by curious comments from the Parson, clerk, taverner, or whoever kept the book. The oddest collection is in a volume of date 1727-1754. The writer used Greek characters, though his words are English, and is as frank as Pepys, and every bit as curious. Here are a few samples from the lot: “Had a noise for four hours about the money” was to be expected where there were no fixed rates; but “stole my clouthes-brush,” and “left a pott of 4 penny to pay,” and “ran away with the scertifycate and left a pint of wine to pay for,” were surely cases of exceptional roguery. Curious couples presented themselves:--“Her eyes very black and he beat about ye face very much.” Again, the bridegroom was a boy of eighteen, the bride sixty-five, “brought in a coach by four thumping ladies” (the original is briefer and coarser) “out of Drury Lane as guests”; and yet the Parson had “one shilling only.” He fared even worse at times. Once he married a couple, money down, “for half a guinea,” after which “it was extorted out of my pocket, and for fear of my life delivered.” Even a Fleet Parson had his notion of propriety. “Behav’d very indecent and rude to all,” is one entry; and “N.B. behav^d rogueshly. Broke the Coachman’s Glass,” is another. Once his reverence, “having a mistrust of some Irish roguery,” though the party seemed of better rank than usual, asked indiscreet questions. The leader turned on him with the true swagger of your brutal Georgian bully. “What was that to me? G---- dem 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_.” Again, he had better luck on another occasion: “handsomely entertained,” he records; and of a bride of June 11, 1727, “the said Rachel, the prettiest woman I ever saw.” (You fancy the smirk wherewith he scrawled that single record of the long vanished beauty!) He is less complimentary to other clients. His “appear^d a rogue” and “two most notorious thieves” had sure procured him a broken pate had his patrons known! How gleefully and shamelessly he chronicles his bits of sharp practice! “Took them from Brown who was going into the next door with them,” was after all merely business; but what follows is _not_. In 1729 he married Susannah Hewitt to Abraham Wells, a butcher. The thing turned out ill; and in 1736 she came back, and suggested annulment by the simple expedient of destroying the record; when “I made her believe I did so, for which I had a half a guinea.” Nor was there much honour among the crew of thieves. “Total three and sixpence, but honest Wigmore kept all the money so farewell him,” is an entry by the keeper of a marriage house, whom a notorious Fleet Parson had dished. Another is by a substitute for the same divine:--“Wigmore being sent for but was drunk, so I was a stopgap.” I confess to a sneaking fondness for those entertaining rascals, but enough of their pranks.

Of the other places where irregular marriages were celebrated two demand some notice. One was Keith’s Chapel in Mayfair, “a very bishopric of revenue” to that notorious “marriage broker” the Reverend Alexander Keith. His charge was a guinea, and, being strictly inclusive, covered “the Licence on a Crown Stamp, Minister’s and Clerk’s fees, together with the certificate.” No wonder he did a roaring trade! Keith seemed a nobler quarry than the common Fleet Parson, and the ecclesiastical authorities pursued him in their courts. In October 1742, he was excommunicated: with matchless impudence he retorted by excommunicating his persecutors from the Bishop downwards. Next year they stuck him in the Fleet; but, through Parsons as reckless as himself, he continued to “run” his chapel. In 1749 he made his wife’s death an occasion for advertisement: the public was informed that the corpse, being embalmed, was removed “to an apothecary’s in South Audley Street, where she lies in a room hung with mourning, and is to continue there until Mr. Keith can attend her funeral.” Then follows an account of the chapel. One authority states that six thousand marriages were celebrated there within twelve months; but this seems incredible. That sixty-one couples were united the day before Lord Hardwicke’s Act became law is like enough. Here took place, in 1752, the famous marriage of the fourth Duke of Hamilton to the youngest of the “beautiful Miss Gunnings,” “with a ring of the bed curtain half an hour after twelve at night,” as Horace Walpole tells. And here, in September 1748, at a like uncanny hour, “handsome Tracy was united to the butterman’s daughter in Craven Street.” Lord Hardwicke’s Act was elegantly described as “an unhappy stroke of fortune” by our enterprising divine. At first he threatened another form of competition:--“I’ll buy two or three acres of ground and by God I’ll under-bury them all.” But in the end he had to own himself ruined. He had scarce anything, he moaned, but bread and water, although he had been wont to expend “almost his whole Income (which amounted yearly to several Hundred Pounds per Annum) in relieving not only single distressed Persons, but even whole Families of wretched Objects of Compassion.” The world neither believed nor pitied; and he died in the Fleet on December 17, 1758.

Last of all comes the Savoy. There, _The Public Advertiser_ of January 2, 1754, announced, marriages were performed “with the utmost privacy, decency, and regularity, 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 Reverend John Williamson, “His Majesty’s Chaplain of the Savoy,” asserted that as such he could grant licences; and despite the Act he went on coupling. In 1755 he married the enormous number of one thousand one hundred and ninety; half the brides being visibly in an interesting condition. The authorities, having warned him time and again to no purpose, at last commenced proceedings. But he evaded arrest by skipping over roofs and vanishing through back doors, in a manner inexplicable to us to-day; and went on issuing licences, while his curate, Mr. Grierson, did the actual work at the altar. Grierson, however, was seized and transported for fourteen years: then his chief surrendered (1756), stood his trial, and received a like sentence; the irregular marriages both had performed being declared of no effect.

What now were the amorous to do? Well, there were divers makeshifts. Thus, at Southampton (_temp._ 1750), a boat was held ever ready to sail for Guernsey with any couple able and willing to pay five pounds. Ireland did not impress itself on the lovers’ imagination: it may be that the thought of that gruesome middle passage “froze the genial current of their souls.” But there was a North as well as a South Britain; and--what was more to the purpose--the Scots marriage law was all that heart could wish. Marriage (it held) is a contract into which two parties not too young and not too “sib” might enter at any time, all that was necessary being that each party clearly and in good faith expressed consent. Neither writing nor witnesses, however important for proof, were essential to a valid union. Not that the Scots law, civil or ecclesiastical, favoured this happy despatch; but the very punishment it imposed only tied the knot tighter. Couples of set purpose confessed their vows, got a small fine inflicted, and there was legal evidence of their union! Ecclesiastical discipline was strict enough to prevent regularly instituted Scots ministers from assisting at such affairs. But any man would do (for, after all, he was but a witness), and the first across the Border as well as or better than another. Now, by a well-known principle of international law, the _lex loci contractus_ governs such contracts: the marriage being valid in Scotland where it took place, was also recognised as valid in England where its celebration would have been a criminal offence! This was curiously illustrated early in the century by the case of Joseph Atkinson. The Border, I must explain, had all along been given to irregular marriages, and different localities in Scotland were used as best suited the parties. Lamberton Toll Bar, N.B., lay four miles north of Berwick-on-Tweed; and here our Atkinson did a thriving business in the coupling line. One fine day he had gone to Berwick when a couple sought his service at the toll-house. A quaint fiction presumes that everybody knows the law; but here it turned out that nobody did, for the bride and groom instead of uniting themselves before the first comer rushed off to Berwick, and were there wedded by Lamberton. And not only was the affair a nullity; but the unfortunate coupler was sentenced to seven years’ transportation for offending against the English marriage laws.

Most of them, however, that went North on marriage bent, took the Carlisle road. A few miles beyond that city the little river Sark divides the two countries. Just over the bridge is the toll-house: a footpath to the right takes you to Springfield. Till about 1826 the North road lay through this village; then, however, the way was changed, and ran by Gretna Green, which is nine and a half miles from Carlisle. These two places, together with the toll-house, are all in Gretna parish; but of course the best known is Gretna Green: “the resort” (wrote Pennant) “of all amorous couples whose union the prudence of parents or guardians prohibits.” The place acquired a world-wide fame: that English plays and novels should abound in references to it, as they had done to the Fleet, was only natural; but one of George Sand’s heroes elopes thither with a banker’s daughter, and even Victor Hugo hymns it in melodious verse, albeit his pronunciation is a little peculiar:

La mousse des près exhale Avril, qui chante drin, drin, Et met une succursale De Cythère à Gretna Green.

And how to explain the fact that people hurried from the remotest parts of Scotland as well as from England, though any square yard of soil “frae Maidenkirk to Johnny Groat’s” had served their purpose just as well? The parishioners, indeed, sought not the service of their self-appointed priest; but is there not an ancient saying as to the prophet’s lack of honour among his own people?

Now, if you travelled North in proper style, in a chaise and four, with post-boys and so forth, you went to the “King’s Head” at Springfield, or, after the change of road, more probably to Gretna Hall; but your exact halting-place was determined at Carlisle. The postillions there, being in league with one or other of the Gretna innkeepers, took you willy-nilly to one or the other hostelry. Were you poor and tramped it, you were glad to get the knot tied at the toll-house. Most of the business fell into a few hands. Indeed, the landlords of the various inns instead of performing the rite themselves usually sent for a so-called priest. A certificate after this sort was given to the wedded couple:--“Kingdom of Scotland, County of Dumfries, Parish of Gretna: these are to certify to all whom it may concern that (here followed the names) by me, both being present and having declared to me that they are single persons, have now been married after the manner of the law of Scotland.” This the parties and their witnesses subscribed.

I shall not attempt to trace the obscure succession of Gretna Green priests. Joseph Paisley, who died in 1811, aged eighty-four, was, it seems, the original blacksmith; but he was no son of Tubal Cain, though he had been fisher, smuggler, tobacconist. He united man with woman even as the smith welds iron with iron--thus the learned explain his title. After Paisley, and connected with him by marriage, there was Robert Elliott, and several people of the name of Laing. In some rather amusing memoirs Elliott assures us that between 1811 and 1839 he performed three thousand eight hundred and seventy-two marriages; also that his best year was 1825, when he did one hundred and ninety-eight, and his worst 1839, when he did but forty-two. At the toll-bar there was a different line, whose most picturesque figure was Gordon, the old soldier. Gordon officiated in full regimentals, a large cocked hat on his head and a sword by his side. Here, too, Beattie reigned for some years before 1843. His occupation went to his head, for latterly he had a craze for marrying, so that he would creep up behind any chance couple and begin to mumble the magic words that made them one. The law has ever terrors for the unlettered, and the rustic bachelor fled at Beattie’s approach, as if he had been the pest. The “priests” sometimes used a mangled form of the Church of England service: which irreverence was probably intended as a delicate compliment to the nationality of most of their clients. The fees were uncertain. When the trembling parties stood hand in hand in inn or toll-bar, whilst the hoofs of pursuing post-horses thundered ever nearer, ever louder, or it might be that irate father or guardian battered at the door, it was no time to bargain. The “priest” saw his chance; and now and again he pouched as much as a hundred pounds.

Each house had its record of famous marriages. There was the story of how Lord Westmoreland sought the hand of the heiress of Child, the banker, and was repulsed with “Your blood, my Lord, is good, but money is better.” My Lord and the young lady were speedily galloping towards the border, while Mr. Child “breathed hot and instant on their trace.” He had caught them too, but his leader was shot down or his carriage disabled by some trick (the legends vary), and he was too late after all. He made the best of it, of course, and in due time Lady Sophia Fane, daughter of the marriage, inherited grandpa’s fortune and his bank at Temple Bar. Odder still was the marriage, in 1826, of Edward Gibbon Wakefield to Ellen Turner. It was brought about by an extraordinary fraud, and a week after the far from happy couple were run to earth at Calais by the bride’s relatives. They “quoted William and Mary upon me till I was tired of their Majesties’ names,” was Wakefield’s mournful excuse for submitting to a separation. He was afterwards tried for abduction, found guilty, and sentenced to three years’ imprisonment; while a special Act of Parliament (7 and 8 Geo. IV. c. 66) declared the marriage null and void. Wakefield ended strangely as a political economist. Is not his “theory of colonisation” writ large in all the text books? A pair of Lord High Chancellors must conclude our list. In November 1772, John Scott, afterwards Lord Eldon, was married at Blackshiels, in East Lothian, to Bessie Surtees, the bridegroom being but twenty-one. Though the Rev. Mr. Buchanan, minister of an Episcopal congregation at Haddington, officiated, it was a runaway match and an irregular marriage. Lord Erskine, about October 1818, was wedded at the “King’s Head,” Springfield, to Miss Mary Buck (said to have been his housekeeper). He was about seventy, and, one fears, in his dotage. A number of extravagant legends still linger as to the ceremony. He was dressed in woman’s clothes, and played strange pranks. He and his intended spouse had with them in the coach a brace of merry-begots (as our fathers called them), over whom he threw his cloak during the ceremony in order to make them his heirs. It is still a vulgar belief in the North that if the parents of children born out of wedlock are married, the offspring, to be legitimised, must be held under their mother’s girdle through the nuptial rites. Now, by the law of Scotland, such a marriage produces the effect noted; but the presence or absence of the children is void of legal consequence. As far as is known, Erskine had one son called Hampden, born December 5, 1821, and no other by Mary Buck. It is worth noting that Robert Burns, on his road to Carlisle in 1787, fell in by the way “with a girl and her married sister”; and “the girl, after some overtures of gallantry on my side, sees me a little cut with the bottle, and offers to take me in for a Gretna Green affair.” Burns was already wed, Scots fashion, to Jean Armour. And the thing did not come off, so that bigamy is not to be reckoned among the poet’s sins.

They were rather sordid affairs in the end, those Gretna Green marriages. So, at least, the Reverend James Roddick, minister of the parish, writing of the place in 1834 in the _New Statistical Account_, would have us believe. There were three or four hundred marriages annually: “the parties are chiefly from the sister kingdom and from the lowest rank of the population.” A number came from Carlisle at fair-time, got married, spent a few days together, and then divorced themselves. Competition had brought down the priest’s fee to half-a-crown, and every tippling-house had its own official. Nay, the very roadman on the highway that joined the kingdoms pressed his services on all and sundry! And then the railway came to Gretna, and you had the spectacle of “priests” touting on the platform. Alas for those shores of old Romance! In 1856, Lord Brougham’s Act (19 & 20 Vict. cap. 96), made well-nigh as summary an end of Gretna as Lord Hardwicke’s had of the Fleet unions. It provided that at least one of the parties to an irregular Scots marriage must be domiciled in Scotland, or have resided there during the twenty-one days immediately preceding the espousals; else were they altogether void. What an enemy your modern law-giver is to the picturesque! And what an entertaining place this world must once have been!

The Border Law

The Border Country--Its Lays and Legends--The Wardens and Other Officers--Johnie Armstrong--Merrie Carlisle--Blackmail--The Border Chieftain and His Home--A Raid--“Hot-trod”--“To-names”--A Bill of Complaint--The Day of Truce--Business and Pleasure--“Double and Salffye”--Border Faith--Deadly Feud--The Story of Kinmont Willie--The Debateable Land--The Union of the Crowns and the End of Border Law.

_Leges marchiarum_, to wit, the Laws of the Marches; so statesmen and lawyers named the codes which said, though oft in vain, how English and Scots Borderers should comport themselves, and how each kingdom should guard against the other’s deadly unceasing enmity. I propose to outline these laws, and the officials by whom and courts wherein they were enforced.

But first a word as to country and people. From Berwick to the Solway--the extreme points of the dividing line between North and South Britain--is but seventy miles in a crow’s flight. But trace its windings, and you measure one hundred and ten. Over more than half of this space the division is arbitrary. It happed where the opposing forces balanced. The Scot pushed his way a little farther south here, was pushed back a little farther north there; and commissioners and treaties indelibly marked the spots. The conflict lasted over three centuries, and must obviously be fiercest on the line where the kingdoms met. If it stiffened, yet warped, the Scots’ character, and prevented the growth of commerce and tilth and comfort in Scotland proper, what must have been its effect on the Scots Borderer, ever in the hottest of the furnace? The weaker, poorer, smaller kingdom felt the struggle far more than England, yet the English were worse troubled than the Scots Borders: being the richer, they were the more liable to incursion; their dalesmen were not greatly different from other Englishmen; they were kept in hand by a strong central authority; they had thriving towns and a certain standard of wealth and comfort. Now, the Scots clansmen developed unchecked; so it is mainly from them that we take our ideas of Border life.

The Border country is a pleasant pastoral land, with soft, rounded hills, and streams innumerable, and secluded valleys, where the ruins of old peels or feudal castles intimate a troubled past. That past, however, has left a precious legacy to letters, for the Border ballads are of the finest of the wheat. They preserve, as only literature can, the joys and sorrows, the aspirations, hopes and fears, and beliefs of other days and vanished lives. They are voices from the darkness, yet we oft feel:

He had himself laid hand on sword He who this rime did write!

The most of them have no certain time or place. Even the traditional stories help but little to make things clear. Yet they tell us more, and tell it better, than the dull records of the annalists. We know who these men really were--a strong, resolute race, passionate and proud, rough and cruel, living by open robbery, yet capable of deathless devotion, faithful to their word, hating all cowards and traitors to the death; not without a certain respect and admiration for their likes across the line, fond of jest and song, equal on occasion to a certain rude eloquence; and, before all, the most turbulent and troublesome. The Scots Borderers were dreaded by their own more peaceful countrymen; and to think of that narrow strip of country, hemmed in by the Highlands to the north and the Border clans on the south, is to shudder at the burden _it_ had to endure. For a race, whatever its good qualities, that lives by rapine, is like to be dangerous to friends as well as foes. Some Border clans, as the Armstrongs and the Elliots, were girded at as “always riding”; and they were not particular as to whom they rode against. Nay, both governments suspected the Borderers of an inexplicable tenderness for their neighbours. When they took part in a larger expedition, they would attack each other with a suspicious lack of heart. At best they were apt to look at war from their own point of view, and fight for mere prisoners or plunder.