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Betrothal and Wedding Rings: Fleet

However, like everything, humanly speaking, the wedding-ring has had its vicissitudes, and, from being the emblem of all that is pure and holy in life, has been desecrated to the vilest and most impious of usages. Nothing can be more humiliating to good faith and rectitude than to read the accounts of what took place not many years ago concerning the 'Fleet Marriages.' In Burns' 'Registers' of these mock celebrations we read sad cases of this abominable system, which prevailed in the last century, of clandestine marriages. A case is there mentioned of a young lady who had been inveigled into the trap of a marrying parson (?), and, finding herself unable to escape without money or a pledge, told her persecutors, who wanted to force a marriage upon her, that she liked the gentleman who desired to marry her so well that she would meet him on the next night. She gave them a ring as a pledge, which she said was her mother's ring, who enjoined her that if she should marry it was to be her wedding-ring. By this contrivance 'she got rid of the black doctor and his tawny crew.' Great was the disgust of the respectable portion of the community for these disgraceful alliances. It is recorded in the 'Daily Post' for 1742, of a gentleman possessed of a considerable fortune, that he bequeathed it in the hands of trustees for his wife, with the proviso that if she married an Irishman they were to pay her ten guineas for a 'Fleet' marriage, a dinner, and ring; the remainder, about eight thousand pounds, to devolve on his nephew. On a trial for bigamy in 1731, Samuel Pickering deposed: 'The prisoner was married at my house in the "Fleet." I gave her away, and saw the ring put upon her hand, and broke the biscuit over her head.' On the suppression of the Fleet marriages in the middle of the last century commenced the scandalous Gretna Green marriages-the name derived from that of a farmstead in the vicinity of the village of Springfield, in the parish of Graitney, Dumfriesshire. The official who performed these irregular marriages was of different vocations-sometimes a blacksmith. In the report of a late Court of Probate case at Westminster, an agriculturist, Thomas Blythe, admitted that he did a small stroke of business in the 'joining' line as well; and in reply to counsel's question 'how the marriage ceremony was performed' he replied: 'I first asked them if they were single persons. 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," and added, "the thing is done, the marriage is complete."" A ring sent as a love-pledge, or token, was in frequent use in former times. Philip de Comines relates in his 'Memoirs' that, a marriage between the Princess of Burgundy and the Duke of Austria (1477) being determined upon, a letter was written by the young lady at her father's command signifying her consent to the alliance, and a diamond ring of considerable value was sent as a pledge or token of it. At the time arranged for the ceremony the Princess was at Ghent, and, in the presence of ambassadors sent on that occasion, she was asked whether she designed to make good her promise. The Princess at once replied that she had written the letter and sent the ring in obedience to her father's command, and freely owned the contents of it.' The engagement by a ring is also historically exemplified in late times by the notorious intimacy of George the Fourth, when Prince Regent, with Mrs. Fitzherbert. In order to overcome her scruples to a private marriage (the Royal Marriage Act having been a bar), the Prince caused himself one day to be bled, and put on an appearance of having attempted his own life, and sent some friends to bring her to him. She was then induced to allow him to engage her with a ring in the presence of witnesses, but she afterwards broke the engagement, went abroad, and for a long time resisted all the efforts made to induce her to return. It is singular that one of the chief instruments in bringing about the union of this ill-assorted pair was the notorious Philippe Egalité, Duke of Orleans.

In old times rings made of rushes were used for immoral purposes, not only in England, but in France. Douce refers Shakspeare's 'Tib's rush for Tom's forefinger' to this custom ('All's Well that Ends Well,' act ii. sc. 2). In D'Avenant's 'Rivals' we find :- I'll crown thee with a garland of straw, then, And I'll marry thee with a rush ring.

The 'crack'd' ring (alluded to in Beaumont and Fletcher's 'Captain') applied metaphorically to female frailty :- Come to be married to my lady's woman, After she's crack'd in the ring.

The abuse of the rush ring led to the practice being strictly prohibited by the constitutions of Richard Poore, Bishop of Salisbury, in 1217; but it had a long continuance. Quarles, in 'Shepheard's Oracles' (1646), writes :- And while they sport and dance, the love-sick swains Compose rush rings and myrtleberry chains.

In Greene's 'Menaphon' we find :-' 'Twas a good world when such simplicitie was used, saye the olde women of our time, when a ring of a rush would tye as much love together as a gimmon of gold.' The practice of the rush ring in France prevailed for a considerable period.