Of course, this did not stop the practice, although it prevented Marriages in the Fleet Chapel. Yet there were the Rules, and real and pretended clergymen for many years plied their illicit vocation with impunity.
But there seems to have been some compunctions of conscience even among this graceless lot, for one of them, Walter Wyatt, has left behind him, in a pocket-book dated 1736, the following moral reflections.
"Give to every man his due, and learn ye way of Truth. This advice cannot be taken by those that are concerned in ye Fleet Marriages; not so much as ye Priest can do ye thing yt is just and right there, unless he designs to starve. For by lying, bullying, and swearing, to extort money from the silly and unwary people, you advance your business and gets ye pelf, which always wastes like snow in sun shiney day."
"The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. The Marrying in the Fleet is the beginning of eternal woe."
"If a clark or plyer [154] 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 et alget."
That this custom of swearing prevailed at Fleet Marriages is borne out by contemporary evidence. 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 £4 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 got nothing by it."
And an anonymous Newspaper cutting dated 1734, says, "On Monday last, a tall Clergyman, who plies about the Fleet Gate for Weddings, was convicted before Sir Richard Brocas of swearing 42 Oaths, and ordered to pay £4 2s."
There were regular Chaplains attached to the Fleet Prison to serve the Chapel there, and, as we have seen, the Warder made every prisoner pay 2d. or 4d. weekly, towards his stipend. Latterly the Chaplaincy was offered to a Curate of St. Bride's Church—as is now done in the case of Bridewell.
A complete list of Chaplains cannot be given, because all documents were destroyed when the Fleet was burnt by the Lord George Gordon rioters; but Mr. Burn in his "History of Fleet Marriages" (a book to which I am much indebted, for it has all but exhausted the subject) gives the names of some, as Haincks in 1698; Robert Elborough, 1702; John Taylor, 1714; Dr. Franks, 1728; 1797, Weldon Champneys; 1815, John Manley Wood, and John Jones: and in 1834, the date of the publication of Mr. Burn's book, the Rev. Richard Edwards, was the Chaplain.
These Clergymen, of course, married couples according to Law, and probably used the Chapel for that purpose. We know that it was so used, for the Original Weekly Journal of Sept. 26, 1719, says: "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 have used the young lady so barbarously, that she now lyes speechless."