[1360] "Therefore there were in the Fleet a number of men who placed themselves at the disposal of female prisoners for marriage; as Armstrong, who, within fourteen months, married four women, and, as an entry in the register reads, received eight shillings 'for his trouble.'"—Friedberg, Eheschliessung, 342. Gally, Some Considerations upon Clandestine Marriages (London, 1750), 14-16, appears to believe that women could thus escape their debts. Cf. Norton, Die Frauen in England (Berlin, 1855), 267; and Burn, Fleet Marriages, 83.
With this should be compared the companion error that a man is not liable for his bride's debts if he takes her only in her "smock" or "shift": Burn, Parish Registers, 153, 154, note; Ashton, The Fleet, 386, 387; idem, Social Life in the Reign of Queen Anne, 41; and further notices of "smock marriages" in Brand, Popular Antiquities, III, 205, 380; Notes and Queries, 1st series, VI, 485, 561; VII, 17, 84; Tegg, The Knot Tied, 299-301; Wood, The Wedding Day, 115, 116; and Radcliffe, The Parish Registers of St. Chad, Saddlworth, 58.
"Another error, common amongst the lower orders, is, that a man may lawfully sell his wife to another, provided he deliver her over with a halter about her neck.—And another, that a woman's marrying a man under the gallows, will save him from the execution. 'While we lay here (New York, A. D. 1784), a circumstance happened which I thought extremely singular. One day, a malefactor was to be executed on a gallows, but with a condition that if any woman, having nothing on but her shift, married the man under the gallows, his life was to be saved. This extraordinary privilege was claimed, a woman presented herself, and the marriage ceremony was performed' (Life of Oulandah Equiano, vol. ii, p. 224).—If this took place, our American cousins must have jumbled the two popular errors together."—Burn, Parish Registers, 154, note. Cf. Brand, op. cit., III, 379; also Barrington, Observations on Our Ancient Statutes, 475, who traces the error to the ancient right of the woman to "appeal" for murder of her husband.
[1361] Marriages were often antedated (see especially the case of John Mottram, 1717: Burn, Fleet Marriages, 11, 12, note; Ashton, The Fleet, 343, 344; Friedberg, Eheschliessung, 337; Tegg, The Knot Tied, 204); and false oaths were common. The notorious parson Walter Wyatt complains that "if a clark or plyer tells a lye, you must vouch it to be as true as ye Gospel; and if disputed, you must affirm with an oath to ye truth of a downright damnable falsehood.—Virtus laudatur & alget."—Burn, op. cit., 7; Ashton, op. cit., 337. The Grub Street Journal, July 20, 1732, says: "On Saturday last a Fleet parson was convicted before Sir Ric. Brocas of forty-three oaths, (on the information of a plyer for weddings there) for which a warrant was granted to levy 4l. 6s. on the goods of the said parson; but, upon application to his Worship, he was pleased to remit 1s. per oath; upon which the plyer swore he would swear no more against any man upon the like occasion, finding he could get nothing by it."—Burn, op. cit., 7 n. 1; also in Ashton, op. cit., 338.
[1362] In 1690 James Campbell, brother of the Duke of Argyle, caused to be abducted and then married Mrs. Wharton. For managing this abduction Sir John Johnston was executed at Tyburn: this case is in Reports of the Historical Manuscripts Commission, V, 380, XIII, App. V, 217. Cf. ibid., IV, 345, for a case of abduction in Ireland, 1801.
[1363] On the tout or plyer see Burn, op. cit., 7, passim; Ashton, op. cit., 337, 338, 344, 350, 357; Jeaffreson, op. cit., II, 142, 143.
[1365] Occasionally someone was committed for complicity in procuring Fleet marriages: see cases in Ashton, op. cit., 379, 380; and at least one Fleet marriage was declared illegal: General Evening Post, June 27/29, 1745: Ashton, op. cit., 382.
[1366] Friedberg, op. cit., 337. See similar remarks in Gally, Considerations upon Clandestine Marriages, 28, 29.
[1367] See the names of several places in Burn, Parish Registers, 146.