Читать книгу English Eccentrics and Eccentricities - John Timbs - Страница 19

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In the summer of 1753, a young lady at Ranelagh Gardens, Chelsea, became acquainted with a handsome young gentleman. They danced together on another day; they met at the same place, and again danced. He was a handsome young fellow, and the lady was beautiful and wealthy, as well as high-born. She was sister to the two leading statesmen of England—Mr. Pelham, the Prime Minister; and the Duke of Newcastle, who had been Secretary of State. Her lover was a notorious highwayman, Jack Freeland by name, with many other aliases. He, professing to be a gentleman of fortune, proposed marriage, to which she assented. From reasons suggested about family objections on both sides, they agreed to repair to the Fleet prison to be wedded. At the foot of Fleet Street, matrimonial visitors in that day entered the region of touters, who accosted couples with such addresses as "Married, sir?" "Wish to be married, ma'am?" And by rival touters who asserted, "His parson be no good—only a cove what mends shoes; get married with mine: mine is a regular hordained parson." Perhaps a third assertion, that "Them fellows' parsons be no good; get married respectable; show you in no time to a real Oxford and Cambridge professor." Following these persons up narrow passages on Ludgate Hill, the couples were married for such fees as private bargain regulated in dingy up-stairs rooms of taverns: or going into the Fleet Prison, were united there by clerical prisoners who found the place too lucrative and pleasant as a lodging to make them anxious about paying their debts to get out. Those prisoners, like some other of the "Fleet parsons"—indeed it was from the prison that the term "Fleet marriages" arose—had also their touters stationed in the adjoining streets to bring them customers. Miss Pelham and her gallant highwayman were conducted to a Fleet parson. But a gentleman happened to observe them who knew both. To save the lady he caused the robber-bridegroom to be arrested, and carried the tidings to the Prime Minister, her brother. The case led to much discussion. In the heat of offended dignity, the Pelhams caused Lord Chancellor Hardwicke to introduce a Bill for the better regulation and solemnizing of marriage. It passed hastily through both houses of Parliament, and became law. Except in the case of Jews and Quakers, it required all parties to be married by a regularly ordained clergyman of the Church, and only after a due proclamation of banns.

The Marriage Law of Scotland did not exact that there should be a religious ceremony, nor even the presence of a clergyman, though the religious habits of the people prefer both. To be valid, the Scottish law required only that the marriage contract should be witnessed. When the Fleet was shut against lovers in 1754, those impatient of parental control, and possessed of means to defray travelling expenses, repaired to Scotland. Edinburgh for a time supplied their wants: the last, we believe, who carried on a regular traffic in runaway weddings here was Joseph Robertson, who, several years ago, died miserably of hunger in London. But it was on the line of the borders adjoining England that those weddings abounded. At Lamberton Toll, the nearest Scottish ground to Berwick, the business was for many years done at a very low price. After the erection of the suspension-bridge, six miles above Berwick, marriages were performed there. A "Sheen Brig" wedding became a common occurrence both to Northumberland and Berwickshire lovers. At Coldstream, also, those marriages were common. But it was at Gretna-Green, and Sark Toll Bar, and Springfield, nine miles from Carlisle, that the "high-fly" runaways from England tied their nuptial knots in greatest number. All the space between Carlisle and the Border was common land, until of late years, inhabited only by smugglers and persons of unsettled life. The Scottish parish of Gretna, on the north side of the Sark stream, which there divides the countries, had a population of a like character. After the act of 1754 had shut the Fleet parsons out of shop in London, one of them paid his debts in the prison, and advertised his removal to Gretna. Thither he was followed by adventurous couples who failed to obtain the consent of parents and guardians to their union. At his death a native of the place, known as "Scott o' the Brig" (Sark Bridge), took up the business. He was succeeded by one Gordon, an old soldier; and Gordon by the notorious Joseph Paisley. Paisley was succeeded by several rivals, of whom Elliot and Laing were the principals. Mr. Linton, of Gretna Hall, became chief priest after Laing's death, which occurred through cold taken in a journey to Lancaster, in 1826, where he was required as a witness in the prosecution of the Wakefields for the abduction of Miss Turner.

In 1841, the writer visited Gretna and Springfield to inspect the registers, and found them a mass of loose papers. At that time the larger part of the matrimonial trade was done—for couples arriving on foot—by Mrs. Baillie and Miss Baillie, her daughter, who kept Sark Bridge Toll; the post-chaise weddings going to Mr. Linton, of Gretna Hall: his register, unlike the older ones, was a well-written official-looking volume. Peter Elliot, formerly priest, was then an old man. He had in his younger days been a postboy, but was reduced to the office of "strapper" in a stable at Carlisle. Excess of whisky on his part, and the more genteel competition of the occupier of Gretna Hall, had driven him out of the marriage trade. But in his lifetime he had been concerned in many races and chases over the nine miles between Carlisle and Gretna, and would tell of the beautiful daughters of England, whom, with whip and spur and shout, and wild halloo, he had carried at the gallop across the border; the pursuing guardian, or jilted lover, or angry father in sight behind, urging on post-boys who also whipped and spurred and hallooed, but took care never to overtake the fugitives until too late. Then there were tales of how time was too short even for the brief ceremony, and how the officiating priest broke off, exclaiming, "Ben the house, ben and into bed, into bed, my leddy!" They were proud to boast of two Lord Chancellors having been married there, one of whom, Erskine, arrived in the travelling costume of an old lady.

About the year 1794 it was estimated that sixty couples were married annually, they paying an average of 15 guineas each, yielding a revenue of 945l. a year or thereabout. The form of certificate was in latter times printed, the officiating priest not being always sufficiently sober to write; nor when sober was he an adept in penmanship, as the following from the pen of Joseph Paisley may show:—

"This is to sartify all persons that may be concernid that (A. B.) from the parish of (C.) and in county of (D.) and (E. F.) from the parish of (G.) and county of (H.), and both comes before me and declayred themselves both to be single persons, and nowe mayried by the forme of the Kirk of Scotland and agreeible to the Church of England, and givne ondre my hand this 18th day of March, 1793."

Joseph Paisley, writer of this, was originally a weaver, at some other time a tobacconist. He was the so-called "Blacksmith," though there is no record that he, his predecessors, or successors were real blacksmiths. He removed from Gretna to the village of Springfield, half a mile distant, in 1791, and attended to his lucrative employment till his death in 1814. He was tall in person, and in prime of life well-proportioned; but before he died had grown enormously corpulent, weighing upwards of 25 stone. By his natural enemies—the parish clergymen—he was said to be grossly ignorant and coarse in his manners, drinking a Scotch pint of whisky in various shapes of toddy and raw drams in a day. On one occasion he and a companion, named Ned the Turner, sat down on a Monday morning to an anker of strong cognac, and before the evening of Saturday they kicked the empty cask out at the door! He was also celebrated for his stentorian lungs and almost incredible muscular strength. He could with one hand bend a strong poker over his arm, and was frequently known to straighten an ordinary horse-shoe with his hands. But he could not break asunder the bands of matrimony which he so easily rivetted. Law stamped his handiwork with the title of sanctity. The Gretna and Sark Toll marriages greatly increased in number through the facilities of railway conveyance. The fugitives, when obtaining a start by an express train, could not be overtaken by another, while the ordinary third-class carried away so many customers for cheap marriages from their English parish clergy, that the Legislature was invoked, and enacted that on and after the 1st January, 1857, no marriage should be valid in Scotland unless the parties had both resided in Scotland for the last six weeks next preceding the wedding-day. In the evidence upon this Bill, one of the marriers, Murray, of Gretna, admitted that he had married between 700 and 800 couples in a year; and as there were two or three other of these marriers in good practice, the number of couples married at Sark Toll Bar and at Gretna may be safely estimated at upwards of 1,000 in a year.

The alteration in the law was effected through the happy effort of a magistrate of Cumberland, immediately and ably supported by the magistrates of the county, who signed a petition committed to the charge of Lord Brougham. His Lordship forthwith introduced a Bill, after Easter, 1856, which Bill passed through Parliament without opposition.[9]