A similar entry occurs on the marriage of Margaret, fourth daughter of the same monarch, when the King gave sixty shillings to be placed on the missal with the spousal ring.
The ‘heathenish origin,’ as it was termed, of the wedding-ring, led during the Commonwealth to the abolition of its use during weddings, and is thus referred to in Butler’s ‘Hudibras:’—
Others were for abolishing
That tool of matrimony, a ring,
With which the unsanctified bridegroom
Is marry’d only to a thumb[57]
(As wise as ringing of a pig,
That’s used to break up ground and dig),
The bride to nothing but her will
That nulls the after-marriage still.
This ‘heathenish’ origin may have been derived from the supposition that the ring was regarded as a kind of phylactery, or charm, and to have been introduced in imitation of the ring worn by bishops.
‘Though the Puritans,’ remarks Mr. Jeaffreson, in his ‘Brides and Bridals,’ ‘prohibited and preached against the ring, to the injury of goldsmiths, and the wrath of ring-wearing matrons, they did not succeed in abolishing the tool, or even in putting it so much out of fashion as some people imagined. Even Stephen Marshall, the Presbyterian minister of Finchingfield, Essex, when his party was most prosperous, married one of his lightly-trained daughters with the Book of Common Prayer and a ring; and gave this for a reason, that the statute establishing the Liturgy was not repealed, and he was loth to have his daughter turned back upon him for want of a legal marriage.’
The Rev. George Bull, subsequently Bishop of St. David’s, also in these Presbyterian times, who married a Miss Gregory, in defiance of tyrannical enactments used a wedding-ring with the motto: ‘Bene parere, parêre, parare det mihi Deus.’ (See chapter on ‘Posy, Motto, and Inscription Rings.’)
The Puritan scruples against the wedding-ring were much criticised at the time:—
Because the wedding-ring’s a fashion old,
And signifies, by the purity of gold,
The purity required i’ the married pair,
And by the rotundity the union fair,
Which ought to be between them endless, for
No other reason, we that use abhor.
A Long-winded Lay-lecture (published 1674).
They will not hear of wedding-rings
For to be us’d in their marriage;
But say they’re superstitious things,
And do religion much disparage:
They are but vain, and things profane;
Wherefore, now, no wit bespeaks them,
So to be tyed unto the bride,
But do it as the spirit moves them.
A Curtain-lecture (‘Loyal Songs,’ vol. i No. 15).
The objections of the Dissenters to the ring in marriage were answered by Dr. Comber, (‘Office of Matrimony,’ &c., folio edition, part 4,) by Dr. Nicholls upon the Office of Matrimony, and Wheatley in his ‘Rational Illustration.’
In the ancient ritual of marriage the ring was placed by the husband on the top of the thumb of the left hand, with the words, ‘In the name of the Father;’ he then removed it to the forefinger, saying, ‘and of the Son,’ then to the middle finger, adding, ‘and of the Holy Ghost;’ finally he left it on the fourth finger, with the closing word ‘Amen.’