"Being the last day before the commencement of the marriage act before 11 o'clock 45 couple were married at Mr. Keith's chapel, and when they ceased, near 100 pair had been joined together; two men being constantly and closely employed in filling up licenses for that purpose." See Keith's appeal for charity, because the act had reduced him "from a great Degree of Affluence" to "such a deplorable state of misery in the Fleet Prison," in Ashton, The Fleet, 364, 365.
Clandestine contracts, however, were not entirely put an end to by the Hardwicke act. In the Savoy chapel Dr. John Wilkinson and his representatives solemnized many hundreds of marriages contrary to the provisions of the law; but these were, of course, absolutely void: Jeaffreson, Brides and Bridals, II, 192-202; Burn, Fleet Marriages, 139-41. Burn is in error when he says (139) "there does not appear to have been any clandestine marriages" at the Savoy "until after the Marriage Act." Such a marriage took place there in 1596. Under date of June 14, in that year, W. Monne, Master of the Savoy, writes to Lord Cobham, whose grandchild and ward was a party to this contract, that he has "conferred with Archb. of Canterbury concerning Mr. Bigge, the chaplain of the Savoy who performed the marriage. Bigge said he thought he might well do it because his fellow chaplains were in the habit of marrying people without license. Archb. committed Bigge to the Gate House pending Cobham's pleasure, also ordered that 'no such disorderly marriage shall be offensively in the Savoy performed.'"—Reports of the Hist. Manuscripts Commission, V, 136, 139.
[1415] Hammick, Marriage Law, 13, 14; cf. Geary, Mar. and Fam. Rel., 33.
[1416] Walpole, Hist. of Eng., IV, 69.
[1417] Cf. Green, Hist. of English People, IV, 212, 124, 176 ff., 257; May, Const. Hist., I, 15 ff., 263 ff. By the Toleration Act of 1 Will. and Mary dissenters were formally recognized and relieved from the pains and penalties attaching to non-conformity; hence thereafter marriages "according to their own forms and usages" were "treated as marriages de facto." The Hardwicke act robbed them of this privilege: Hammick, Marriage Law, 14.
[1418] In favor of the dissenters bills were introduced, either in the Commons or in the Lords, in 1782 (Hansard, Par. Debates, 2d series, 1825, XII, 1236 ff.), 1819 (ibid., XL, 1200 ff., 1504 ff.), 1823 (ibid., IX, 967 ff.), 1834 ("Bills, Public," 1834, II); and by Sir Robert Peel in 1835 ("Bills, Public," 1835, III). A bill for registration of marriages, births, and deaths was brought forward in 1834 ("Bills, Public," III); and already in 1833 a special committee to report on the state of the parochial registers and the necessary legislation was appointed by the Commons. This committee reported on Aug. 15 of the same year ("Reports, Committees," 1833, XIV). See the history of the attempts to grant relief to dissenters by Oppenheim, "Über Einführung der Civil-Ehe in England," ZKR., I, 8-33.
[1419] The Unitarians could not conscientiously make the declaration of belief in the Trinity contained in the Anglican marriage ritual: "I thee wed," etc., "in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost": Walpole, Hist. of England, IV, 69-71, who discusses the efforts of William Smith and Lansdowne in their behalf.
[1420] The same argument is advanced by a writer in the Quarterly Review, LI (1834), 493 ff., 513, 514.
[1421] Oppenheim, op. cit., 13-17: "Bills, Public," 1826-27, II. Cf. also Walpole, Hist. of Eng., IV, 70, 71. Griffin-Stonestreet, Nuptiae Sacrae: Objections to the Amended Unitarian Marriage Bill (London, 1828), is especially bigoted in his opposition, holding that the sanctity of matrimony will be violated; that the magistrate will have religious functions thrust upon him; and concludes with the remark (38) that "it is no recommendation of this measure, that it is in many parts a mere transcript of Oliver Cromwell's method of putting down the offices of the Church by the Act of 1656." On the other hand, "A Presbyter of the Church of England," who objects to allowing "Socinian ministers" a share in the solemnization of marriages, admits that there is a real grievance and recommends the "alternative of a marriage before a civil magistrate, according to certain civil forms." To provide a model (31-37), he reprints the whole of Cromwell's ordinance of 1653. The measure is opposed in a spirit of intolerance by Le Geyt, Observations on the Bill (London, 1827).
[1422] Burn, Parish Registers, 146; cf. Geary, Mar. and Fam. Rel., 60, 61.