Gretna Green Marriages.
THE BLACKSMITH.
On Friday, March 23, at Lancaster Lent assizes 1827, before Mr. baron Hullock, came on the trial of an indictment against Edward Gibbon Wakefield and William Wakefield, (brothers,) Edward Thevenot, (their servant,) and Frances the wife of Edward Wakefield, (father of the brothers,) for conspiring by subtle stratagems and false representations to take and carry away Ellen Turner, a maid, unmarried, and within the age of sixteen years, the only child and heiress of William Turner, from the care of the Misses Daulby, who had the education and governance of Miss Turner, and causing her to contract matrimony with the said Edward Gibbon Wakefield, without the knowledge and consent of her father, to her great disparagement, to her father’s discomfort, and against the king’s peace. Thevenot was acquitted; the other defendants were found “guilty,” and the brothers stood committed to Lancaster-castle.
To a second indictment, under the statute of 4 and 5 Philip and Mary, against the brothers, for the abduction of Miss Turner, they withdrew their plea of “not guilty,” and pleaded “guilty” to the fifth count.
In the course of the defence to the first indictment, David Laing, the celebrated blacksmith of Gretna-green, was examined; and, indeed, the trial is only mentioned in these pages, for the purpose of sketching this anomalous character as he appeared in the witness-box, and represented his own proceedings, according to The Times’ report:—viz.
In appearance this old man was made to assume a superiority over his usual companions. Somebody had dressed him in a black coat, and velvet waistcoat and breeches of the same colour, with a shining pair of top boots—the shape of his hat, too, resembled the clerical fashion. He seemed a vulgar fellow, though not without shrewdness and that air of familiarity, which he might be supposed to have acquired by the freedom necessarily permitted by persons of a better rank of life, to one who was conscious he had the power of performing for them a guilty, but important ceremony.
On entering the witness-box, he leaned forward towards the counsel employed to examine him, with a ludicrous expression of gravity upon his features, and accompanied every answer with a knitting of his wrinkled brow, and significant nodding of his head, which gave peculiar force to his quaintness of phraseology, and occasionally convulsed the court with laughter.
He was interrogated both by Mr. Scarlett and Mr. Coltman in succession.
Who are you, Laing?
Why, I live in Springfield.
Well, what did you do in this affair?
Why, I was sent for to Linton’s, where I found two gentlemen, as it may be, and one lady.
Did you know them?
I did not.
Do you see them in court?
Why, no I cannot say.
What did you do?
Why I joined them, and then got the lady’s address, where she come from, and the party’s I believe.
What did they do then?
Why, the gentleman wrote down the names, and the lady gave way to it.
In fact, you married them after the usual way?
Yes, yes, I married them after the Scotch form, that is, by my putting on the ring on the lady’s finger, and that way.
Were they both agreeable?
O yes, I joined their hands as man and wife.
Was that the whole of the ceremony—was it the end of it?
I wished them well, shook hands with them, and, as I said, they then both embraced each other very agreeably.
What else did you do?
I think I told the lady that I generally had a present from ’em, as it may be, of such a thing as money to buy a pair of gloves, and she gave me, with her own hand, a twenty-shilling Bank of England note to buy them.
Where did she get the note?
How do I know.
What did the gentleman say to you?
Oh, you ask what did he treat me with.
No, I do not; what did he say to you?
He did nothing to me; but I did to him what I have done to many before, that is, you must know, to join them together; join hands, and so on. I bargained many in that way, and she was perfectly agreeable, and made no objections.
Did you give them a certificate?
Oh! yes, I gave it to the lady.
[Here a piece of paper was identified by this witness, and read in evidence, purporting to certify that Edward Gibbon Wakefield and Ellen Turner had been duly married according to the form required by the Scottish law. This paper, except the names and dates, was a printed register, at the top of which was a rudely executed woodcut, apparently of the royal arms.]
Did the gentleman and lady converse freely with you?
O, yes; he asked me what sort of wine they had in Linton’s house, and I said they had three kinds, with the best of Shumpine (Champagne.) He asked me which I would take, and I said Shumpine, and so and so; while they went into another room to dine, I finished the wine, and then off I came. I returned, and saw them still in the very best of comfortable spirits.
Mr. Scarlett.—We have done with you, Laing.
Mr. Brougham.—But my turn is to come with you, my gentleman. What did you get for this job besides the Shumpine? Did you get money as well as Shumpine?
Yes, sure I did, and so and so.
Well, how much?
Thirty or forty pounds or thereabouts, as may be.
Or fifty pounds, as it may be, Mr. Blacksmith?
May be, for I cannot say to a few pounds. I am dull of hearing.
Was this marriage ceremony, which you have been describing, exactly what the law and church of Scotland require on such occasions, as your certificate (as you call it) asserts?
O yes, it is in the old common form.
What! Do you mean in the old common form of the church of Scotland, fellow?
There is no prayer-book required to be produced, I tell you.
Will you answer me when I ask you, what do you mean by the old ordinary form of the church of Scotland, when this transaction has nothing whatever to do with that church? Were you never a clergyman of that country?
Never.
How long are you practising this delightful art?
Upwards of forty-eight years I am doing these marriages.
How old are you?
I am now beyond seventy-five.
What do you do to get your livelihood?
I do these.
Pretty doing it is; but how did you get your livelihood, say, before these last precious forty-eight years of your life?
I was a gentleman.
What do you call a gentleman?
Being sometimes poor, sometimes rich.
Come now, say what was your occupation before you took to this trade?
I followed many occupations.
Were you not an ostler?
No, I were not.
What else were you then?
Why, I was a merchant once.
That is a travelling vagrant pedlar, as I understand your term?
Yes, may be.
Were you ever any thing else in the way of calling?
Never.
Come back now to what you call the marriage. Do you pretend to say that it was done after the common old form of the church of Scotland? Is not the general way by a clergyman?
That is not the general way altogether.
Do you mean that the common ordinary way in Scotland is not to send for a clergyman, but to go a hunting after a fellow like you?
Scotland is not in the practice altogether of going after clergymen. Many does not go that way at all.
Do you mean to swear, then, that the regular common mode is not to go before a clergyman?
I do not say that, as it may be.
Answer me the question plainly, or else you shall not so easily get back to this good old work of yours in Scotland as you think?
I say as it may be, the marriages in Scotland an’t always done in the churches.
I know that as well as you do, for the clergyman sometimes attends in private houses, or it is done before a justice depute; but is this the regular mode?
I say it ent no wrong mode—it is law.
Re-examined by Mr. Scarlett.
Well, is it the irregular mode?
No, not irregular, but as it may be unregular, but its right still.
You mean your own good old unregular mode?
Yes; I have been both in the courts of Edinburgh and Dublin, and my marriages have always been held legal.
What form of words do you use?
Why, you come before me, and say—
Mr. Scarlett.—No, I will not, for I do not want to be married; but suppose a man did who called for your services, what is he to do?
Why, it is I that do it. Surely I ask them, before two witnesses, do you take one and other for man and wife, and they say they do, and I then declare them to be man and wife for ever more, and so and so, in the Scotch way you observe.
The Court.—Mr. Attorney, (addressing Mr. Scarlett, who is attorney-general for the county palatine,) is it by a fellow like this, that you mean to prove the custom of the law of Scotland as to valid marriage?
Here the blacksmith’s examination terminated.