Old Church Lore Part 10

In England, a kiss was the established fee for a lady's partner after the dance was finished. In a "Dialouge between Custom and Veirtie concerning the Use and Abuse of Dancing and Minstrelsie," the following appears:

"But some reply, what foole would daunce, If that when daunce is doone He may not have at ladye's lips That which in daunce he woon?"

The following line occurs in the _Tempest_:

"Curtsied when you have and kissed."

In _Henry VIII._, says the prince:

"I were unmannerly to take you out, And not to kiss you."

Numerous other references to kissing are contained in the plays of Shakespeare. From his works and other sources we find that kissing was general in the country in the olden time. It is related of Sir William Cavendish, the biographer of Cardinal Wolsey, that, when he visited a French n.o.bleman at his chateau, his hostess, on entering the room with her train of attendant maidens, for the purpose of welcoming the visitor, thus accosted him:

"Forasmuch as ye be an Englishman, whose custom it is in your country to kiss all ladies and gentlemen without offence, it is not so in this realm, yet will I be so bold as to kiss you, and so shall all my maidens."

It is further stated how Cavendish was delighted to salute the fair hostess and her many merry maidens.

Hot Ale at Weddings.

In the year 1891, a paragraph went the rounds of the north-country newspapers respecting the maintaining of an old wedding custom at Whitburn parish church, near Sunderland. From the days of old to the present time, it has been the practice of sending to the church porch, when a marriage is being solemnised, jugs of spiced ale, locally known as "hot pots."

A Whitburn gentleman supplied Mr. Henderson with particulars of his wedding, for insertion in "Folk-Lore of the Northern Counties" (London, 1879). "After the vestry scene," says the correspondent, "the bridal party having formed a procession for leaving the church, we were stopped at the porch by a row of five or six women, ranged to our left hand, each holding a large mug with a cloth over it. These were in turn presented to me, and handed by me to my wife, who, after taking a sip, returned it to me. It was then pa.s.sed to the next couple, and so on in the same form to all the party. The composition in these mugs was mostly, I am sorry to say, simply horrible; one or two were very fair, one very good. They are sent to the church by all cla.s.ses, and are considered a great compliment. I have never heard of this custom elsewhere. Here, it has existed beyond the memory of the oldest inhabitant, and an aged fisherwoman, who has been married some sixty-five years, tells me at her wedding there were seventy hot pots."

Drinking wine and ale at church weddings is by no means a local custom, as suggested by Mr. Henderson's correspondent. Brand, in his "Popular Antiquities," and other writers, refer to the subject. On drinking wine in church at marriages, says Brand, "the custom is enjoined in the Hereford Missal. By the Sarum Missal it is directed that the sops immersed in this wine, as well as the liquor itself, and the cup that contained it, should be blessed by the priest. The beverage used on this occasion was to be drunk by the bride and bridegroom and the rest of the company." It appears that pieces of cake or wafers were immersed in the wine, hence the allusions to sops.

Many of the older poets refer to the practice. In the works of John Heywood, "newlie imprinted 1576," is a pa.s.sage as follows:

"The drinke of my brydecup I should have forborne, Till temperaunce had tempred the taste beforne.

I see now, and shall see, while I am alive, Who wedth or he be wise shall die or he thrive."

In the "Compleat Vintner," 1720, it is asked:

"What priest can join two lovers' hands, But wine must seal the marriage bands?

As if celestial wine was thought Essential to the sacred knot, And that each bridegroom and his bride Believ'd they were not firmly ty'd Till Bacchus, with his bleeding tun, Had finished what the priest begun."

Old plays contain allusions to this custom. We read in Dekker's "Satiro-Mastix": "And, when we are at church, bring the wine and cakes."

Beaumont and Fletcher, in the "Scornful Lady," say:

"If my wedding-smock were on, Were the gloves bought and given, the licence come, Were the rosemary branches dipt, and all The hippocras and cakes eat and drunk off."

At the magnificent marriage of Queen Mary and Philip, in Winchester Cathedral, in 1554, we are told that, "The trumpets sounded, and they both returned, hand in hand, to their traverses in the quire, and there remained until ma.s.s was done, at which time wyne and sopes were hallowed, and delivered to them both."

Numerous other notes similar to the foregoing might be reproduced from old writers, but sufficient have been cited to show how general was the custom in bygone times. The Rev. W. Carr, in his "Glossary of the Craven Dialect," gives us an ill.u.s.tration of it lingering in another form in the present century. In his definition of Bride-ale, he observes that after the ceremony was concluded at the church, there took place either a foot or horse race, the first to arrive at the dwelling of the bride, "requested to be shown to the chamber of the newly-married pair, then, after he had turned down the bed-clothes, he returns, carrying in his hand a tankard of warm ale, previously prepared, to meet the bride, to whom he triumphantly offers the humble beverage." The bride, in return for this, presents to him a ribbon as his reward.

Marrying Children.

The marriage of children forms a curious feature in old English life. In the days of yore, to use the words of a well-informed writer on this theme, "babes were often mated in the cradle, ringed in the nursery, and brought to the church porch with lollipops in their mouths." Parents and guardians frequently had joined together in matrimony young couples, without any regard for their feelings. Down to the days of James I., the disposal in marriage of young orphan heiresses was in the hands of the reigning monarchs, and they usually arranged to wed them to the sons of their favourites, by whom unions with wealthy girls were welcomed.

Edward I. favoured early marriages, and his ninth daughter, Eleanor, was only four days old, it is stated on good authority, "when her father arranged to espouse her to the son and heir of Otho, late Earl of Burgundy and Artois, a child in custody of his mother, the d.u.c.h.ess of Burgundy."

Before she had reached the age of a year, the little princess was a spouse, but, dying in her sixth year, she did not attain the position of wife planned for her.

Careful consideration is paid to early marriages in an able work by the late Rev. W. Denton, M.A., ent.i.tled "England in the Fifteenth Century"

(London, 1888.) Mr. Denton says that the youthful marriages "probably originated in the desire of antic.i.p.ating the Crown in its claim to the wardship of minors, and the disposal of them in marriage. As deaths were early in those days, and wardship frequent, a father sought by the early marriage of his son or daughter to dispose of their hands in his lifetime, instead of leaving them to be dealt out to hungry courtiers, who only sought to make a large profit, as they could, from the marriage of wards they had bought for the purpose. Fourteen was a usual period for the marriage of the children of those who would save their lands from the exactions of the Crown." He adverts to marriages at an earlier age, and even paternity at fourteen.

In 1583 was published a work ent.i.tled "The Anatomie of Abuses," by Philip Stubbes, and it supplies a curious account of the amus.e.m.e.nts and other social customs of the day. Marriage comes in for attention, and, after referring to it with words of commendation, he adds: "There is permitted one great liberty therein--for little maids in swaddling clothes are often married by their ambitious parents and friends, when they know neither good nor evil, and this is the origin of much wickedness. And, besides this, you shall have a saucy boy often, fourteen, sixteen, or twenty years of age, catch up a woman without any fear of G.o.d at all." The protests of Stubbes and others had little effect, for children continued to be married, if not mated.

The marriage of Robert, Earl of Ess.e.x, and Lady Francis Howard, was celebrated in the year 1606. The former was not fourteen, and the latter was thirteen years of age. The union was an unhappy one. The "Diary and Correspondence of John Evelyn, F.R.S.," contains references to early marriages. He wrote, under date of August 1, 1672: "I was at the marriage of Lord Arlington's only daughter (a sweet child if ever there was any) to the Duke of Grafton the king's natural son by the d.u.c.h.ess of Cleveland; the Archbishop of Canterbury officiating, the king and all the grandees being present." The little girl at this time was only five years of age.

Evelyn concludes his entry by saying, "I had a favour given to me by my lady; but took no great joy at the thing for many reasons." Seven years later, the children were re-married, and Evelyn, in his "Diary," on November 6th, 1679, states that he attended the re-marriage of the d.u.c.h.ess Grafton to the Duke, she being now twelve years old. The ceremony was performed by the Bishop of Rochester. The king was at the wedding. "A sudden and unexpected thing," writes Evelyn, "when everybody believed the first marriage would have come to nothing; but the measure being determined, I was privately invited by my lady, her mother, to be present.

I confess I could give her little joy, and so I plainly told her, but she said the king would have it so, and there was no going back." The diarist speaks warmly of the charms and virtues of the young bride; and he deplores that she was sacrificed to a boy that had been rudely bred.

As might be expected, the facile pen of Samuel Pepys, the most genial of gossipers, furnishes a few facts on this subject. His notes occur in a letter, dated September 20, 1695, addressed to Mrs. Steward. It appears from his epistle that two wealthy citizens had recently died and left their estates, one to a Blue-coat boy and the other to a Blue-coat girl, in Christ's Hospital. The circ.u.mstance led some of the magistrates to bring about a match with the youthful pair. The wedding was a public one, and was quite an event in London life. Pepys says, the boy, "in his habit of blue satin, led by two of the girls, and she in blue, with an ap.r.o.n green, and petticoat yellow, all of sarsnet, led by two of the boys of the house through Cheapside to Guildhall Chapel, where they were married by the Dean of St. Paul's." The Lord Mayor gave away the bride.

The marriage of Charles, second Duke of Richmond, and Lady Sarah Cadogan, daughter of the first Earl of Cadogan, forms an extremely romantic story.

It is said that it was brought about to cancel a gambling debt between their parents. The youthful bridegroom was a student at college, and the bride a girl of thirteen, still in the nursery. The young Lord of March protested against the match, saying "surely you are not going to marry me to that dowdy." His protestations were in vain, for the marriage service was gone through, and the twain were made one. They parted after the ceremony, and the young husband spent three years in foreign travel, doubtless thinking little about his wife. At all events on his return he did not go direct to her, but visited the sights in town. On his first attendance at the theatre, a most beautiful lady attracted his attention.

He inquired her name, and to his surprise he was told that she was Lady March. The young lord hastened to claim his wife, and they spent together a happy life.

In the reign of William III., George Downing, at the age of fifteen, married a Mary Forester, a girl of thirteen. As soon as the marriage service had been concluded, the pair parted company, the boy going abroad to finish his education, and the girl returning home to resume her studies. After spending some three or four years on the Continent, the husband returned to England, and was entreated to live with his wife. He declined to even see her, having a great aversion to her. The husband's conduct caused his wife to entertain feelings of hatred of him, and both would have been glad to have been freed from a marriage contracted before either were master of their own actions, but they sued in vain for a divorce.

The editor of the "Annual Register," under date of June 8th, 1721, chronicles the marriage of Charles Powel, of Carmarthen, aged about eleven years, to a daughter of Sir Thomas Powel, aged about fourteen. Four years later, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, in one of her lively letters, refers to the marriage, in 1725, of the Duke of Bedford, at the age of sixteen years.

The General a.s.sembly of Scotland, in 1600, ruled that no minister should unite in matrimony any male under fourteen and any female under twelve years of age. The regulation was not always obeyed. In 1659, for example, Mary, Countess of Buccleuch, in her eleventh year, was married to Walter Scott, of Highchester, and his age was fourteen. As late as the 1st June, 1859, was married, at 15, St. James' Square, Edinburgh, a girl in her eleventh year. The official inspector, when he saw the return, suspected an error, but, on investigation, found it was correct.

Young men and maidens may congratulate themselves on living in these later times, when they may not be united in wedlock before they are old enough to think and act for themselves.

The Pa.s.sing Bell.

The pa.s.sing bell, or soul bell, rang whilst persons were _pa.s.sing_ from this life to that beyond, and it was rung that all who heard it might address prayers to heaven and the saints for the _soul_ then being separated from the mortal body. One of the earliest accounts of the use of bells in England is connected with this bell. Bede, in speaking of the death of the Abbess of St. Hilda, says that a sister in a distant monastery thought that she heard in her sleep the well-known sound of the pa.s.sing bell. She no sooner heard it than she called all the sisters from their rest into the church, where they prayed and sang a _requiem_. To show how persistently the custom was maintained, we may quote from the "Advertis.e.m.e.nts for due Order," pa.s.sed in the seventh year of the reign of Queen Elizabeth: "Item, that when anye Christian body is in pa.s.sing, that the bell be tolled, and that the curate be speciallie called for to comforte the sicke person; and, after the time of his pa.s.singe, to ringe no more, but one shorte peale, and one before the buriall, and another shorte peale after the buriall." In ancient days, the bell rang at the hour of pa.s.sing, whether it happened to be night or day. In the churchwardens' accounts for the parish of Wolchurch, 1526, appears the following regulation:

"Item. The clerke to have for tollynge of the pa.s.synge belle for manne, womanne, or childes, if it be in the day iiijd.

Item. If it be in the night, for the same viijd."

Shakespeare's universal observation led him to make use of the melancholy meaning of the death bell. He says, in the second part of _King Henry IV._:

"And his tongue Sounds ever after as a sullen bell Remembered knolling a departing friend."