[1345] Violations of the law did not, however, invalidate the marriage: Lecky, England in the 18th Century, I, 531.
[1346] Cf. Jeaffreson, op. cit., II, 168, 169.
[1347] Extract from 7 and 8 W. III., c. 35: Statutes at Large, III, 422.
[1348] "But this penalty was not renewed at each violation of the act, and the offender was able by a writ of error to obtain a delay of about a year and a half, during which time he carried on his profession without molestation, made at least 400 l. or 500 l. and then frequently absconded."—Lecky, Hist. of Eng. in the 18th Century, I, 533; cf. Burn, Fleet Marriages, 6.
[1349] For full details as to the history of the Fleet, see Ashton, The Fleet: Its River, Prison, and Marriages, especially 233 ff., 237 ff., 331 ff. "The rules of liberties of this comprehend all Ludgate-Hill to the Old Bailey on the north side, and to the Cock-alley on the south; both sides of the Old Bailey to Fleet-lane; all Fleet-lane and the east-side of the marcket, from Fleet-lane to Ludgate Hill."—Harrison, New and Universal Hist. of London (London, 1776), II, 447; Friedberg, 336 n. 4. Cf. also Jeaffreson, op. cit., II, 122 ff.
[1350] Burn, op. cit., 7, 8; Ashton, op. cit., 332, 338; Tegg, The Knot Tied, 202. These chaplains "of course, married people after publication of banns in their own chapels according to law;" and doubtless some of the weddings before them were entirely respectable. Such was probably the marriage in the Fleet of George Lester and Mistress Babbington as early as 1613: Burn, op. cit., 5; Ashton, op. cit., 335, 338; Tegg, op. cit., 199. But in these chapels as well as out of them clandestine marriages were solemnized. Here is an example from the Original Weekly Journal of Sept. 26, 1719: "One Mrs. Anne Leigh, an heiress of £200. per annum and £6000. ready cash, having been decoyed away from her friends in Buckinghamshire, and married at the Fleet chapel against her consent; we hear the Lord Chief Justice Pratt hath issued out his warrant for apprehending the authors of this contrivance, who had used the young lady so barbarously, that she now lyes speechless."—Burn, op. cit., 7 n. 2; also Ashton, op. cit., 338, 339. Celebration in the Fleet chapel, not elsewhere, was put an end to by the act of 10 Anne, c. 19. Cf. Hammick, The Marriage Law of England, 11; Burn, op. cit., 8.
[1351] Ashton, op. cit., 340.
[1352] The following is a copy of the "hand-bill" of Peter Symson taken from Burn's Fleet Marriages, 54:
G. R.
At the true Chapel
at the old red Hand and Mitre, three doors from Fleet Lane
and next Door to the White Swan;
Marriages are performed by authority by the Reverend Mr.
Symson educated at the University of Cambridge, and late
Chaplain to the Earl of Rothes.
N.B. Without Imposition
Symson, as he says, was not a prisoner. Like "many of his fellows," he was witness in a bigamy trial in 1751. He was asked: "Why did you marry them without license?"