———Bade her gallant cup-bearer a golden beaker take,
And bear it to the palmer poor to quaff it for her sake.
It was the noble Moringer, that dropp’d amid the wine
A bridal-ring of burning gold, so costly and so fine.
Now listen, gentles, to my song, it tells you but the sooth,
’Twas with that very ring of gold he pledged his bridal troth.
Then to the cup-bearer he said, ‘Do me one kindly deed,
And, should my better days return, full rich shall be thy meed.
Bear back the golden cup again to yonder bride so gay,
And crave her of her courtesy to pledge the palmer grey.’
The cup-bearer was courtly bred, nor was the boon denied,
The golden cup he took again, and bore it to the bride.
‘Lady,’ he said, ‘your reverend guest sends this and bids me pray
That, in thy noble courtesy, thou pledge the palmer grey.’
The ring hath caught the lady’s eye, she views it close and near,
Then might you hear her shriek aloud, ‘The Moringer is here!’
Then might you see her start from seat, while tears in torrents fell,
But whether ’twas for joy or woe, the ladies best can tell.
The veneration for a wedding-ring is shown in the instance of the great lexicographer, Dr. Samuel Johnson. He writes, under date March 28, 1753: ‘I kept this day as the anniversary of my Letty’s death, with prayers and tears in the morning. In the evening I prayed for her conditionally, if it was lawful.’ Her wedding-ring was preserved by him, as long as he lived, with an affectionate care, in a little round wooden box, and in the inside of which was a slip of paper inscribed: ‘Eheu! Eliz. Johnson, nupta Jul. 9, 1736; mortua, eheu! Mart. 17, 1752.’
According to the ‘London Press,’ Mr. John Lomax, bookseller, of Lichfield, who died lately at the age of eighty-nine, possessed, among many other Johnsonian relics, this wedding-ring of Mrs. Johnson.
The poet Moore, in his ‘Diary,’ mentions the gift of his mother, of her wedding-ring. He writes: ‘Have been preparing my dear mother for my leaving her, now that I see her so much better. She is quite reconciled to my going, and said this morning: “Now, my dear Tom, don’t let yourself be again alarmed about me in this manner, nor hurried away from your house and business.” She then said she must, before I left her this morning, give me her wedding-ring as her last gift; and accordingly, sending for the little trinket-box in which she kept it, she herself put the ring on my finger.’
The value, even to death, attached to wedding-rings has been frequently shown. In a testamentary document made at Edinburgh Castle by Mary, Queen of Scots, before the birth of her son James, and when under the impression that she would die in childbed, among numerous bequests, she enumerates her rings, of which she had a large number. Among them was a diamond ring, enamelled red, recorded by the Queen herself as that with which ‘she was espoused.’ On the other side is written ‘For the King who gave it me.’ This is presumed to be the ring with which Darnley wedded Mary in the privacy of Rizzio’s chamber at Stirling, for at the public solemnity of their nuptials in the Chapel Royal of Holyrood three rings of surpassing richness were used.
The ring with which James, Duke of York (afterwards King James the Second), married Mary of Modena, had a small ruby set in gold. The Queen showed it to the nuns of Chaillot, with whom she resided chiefly in the days of her sorrowful widowhood, exile, and poverty. Although obliged to part with most of her jewels, she would never give up this ring, which she valued above everything. Even William of Orange, remarkable for his stern and taciturn disposition, felt sensibly the tender feelings which a marriage-ring can nourish after the death of a beloved object. On his decease a ribbon was found tied to his left arm, with a gold ring appended to it, containing some hair of the Queen. The Londesborough Collection contained a royal ring, which is supposed to have been the same given by the Prince of Orange to the Princess Mary. It is of gold, the strap and buckle set with diamonds, and is enamelled black. Engraved in letters in relief is the motto of the Order of the Garter. The following words are engraved within: ‘I’ll win and wear thee if I can.’ ‘This posy’ (as the late Crofton Croker observed) ‘has a double construction; whether addressed to the princess before marriage or after is doubtful, with reference to William’s design to contest the crown of England with her father.’
Baron Rosen was sent a captive to Siberia, in consequence of political tumults which occurred on the accession of the Emperor Nicholas to the throne of Russia. On his arrival he was searched, and some family trinkets taken from him. He was then required to give up a gold ring which he wore on his finger. He replied: ‘It is my wedding-ring, and you can only have it by taking the finger also.’ Fortunately the ring was spared.
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.”’