A Discourse of the English Stage, was reprinted in W.C. Hazlitt’s English Drama and Stage (Roxburghe Library, 1869); Robert Southey, in his Omniana (1812), protested against the wholesale depreciation of Flecknoe’s works. See also “Richard Flecknoe” (Leipzig, 1905, in Munchener Beiträge zur ... Philologie), by A. Lohr, who has given minute attention to his life and works.
FLEET, a word in all its significances, derived from the root of the verb “to fleet,” from O. Eng. fleotan, to float or flow, which ultimately derives from an Indo-European root seen in Gr. πλέειν, to sail, and Lat. pluere, to rain; cf. Dutch vliessen, and Ger. fliessen. In English usage it survives in the name of many places, such as Byfleet and Northfleet, and in the Fleet, a stream in London that formerly ran into the Thames between the bottom of Ludgate Hill and the present Fleet Street. From the idea of “float” comes the application of the word to ships, when in company, and particularly to a large number of warships under the supreme command of a single officer, with the individual ships, or groups of ships, under individual and subordinate command. The distinction between a fleet and a squadron is often one of name only. In the British navy the various main divisions are or have been called fleets and squadrons indifferently. The word is also frequently used of a company of fishing vessels, and in fishing is also applied to a row of drift-nets fastened together. From the original meaning of the word “flowing” comes the adjectival use of the word, swift, or speedy; so also “fleeting,” of something evanescent or fading away, with the idea of the fast-flowing lapse of time.
FLEET PRISON, an historic London prison, formerly situated on the east side of Farringdon Street, and deriving its name from the Fleet stream, which flowed into the Thames. Concerning its early history little is known, but it certainly dated back to Norman times. It came into particular prominence from being used as a place of reception for persons committed by the Star Chamber, and, afterwards, for debtors, and persons imprisoned for contempt of court by the court of chancery. It was burnt down in the great fire of 1666; it was rebuilt, but was destroyed in the Gordon riots of 1780 and again rebuilt in 1781-1782. In pursuance of an act of parliament (5 & 6 Vict. c. 22, 1842), by which the Marshalsea, Fleet, and Queen’s Bench prisons were consolidated into one under the name of Queen’s prison, it was finally closed, and in 1844 sold to the corporation of the city of London, by whom it was pulled down. The head of the prison was termed “the warden,” who was appointed by patent. It became a frequent practice of the holder of the patent to “farm out” the prison to the highest bidder. It was this custom which made the Fleet prison long notorious for the cruelties inflicted on prisoners. One purchaser of the office was of particularly evil repute, by name Thomas Bambridge, who in 1728 paid, with another, the sum of £5000 to John Huggins for the wardenship. He was guilty of the greatest extortions upon prisoners, and, in the words of a committee of the House of Commons appointed to inquire into the state of the gaols of the kingdom, “arbitrarily and unlawfully loaded with irons, put into dungeons, and destroyed prisoners for debt, treating them in the most barbarous and cruel manner, in high violation and contempt of the laws of this kingdom.” He was committed to Newgate, and an act was passed to prevent his enjoying the office of warden or any other office whatsoever. The liberties or rules of the Fleet were the limits within which particular prisoners were allowed to reside outside the prison walls on observing certain conditions.
Fleet Marriages.—By the law of England a marriage was recognized as valid, so long as the ceremony was conducted by a person in holy orders, even if those orders were not of the Church of England. Neither banns nor licence were necessary, and the time and place were alike immaterial. Out of this state of the marriage law, in the period of laxness which succeeded the Commonwealth, resulted innumerable clandestine marriages. They were contracted at first to avoid the expenses attendant on the public ceremony, but an act of 1696, which imposed a penalty of £100 on any clergyman who celebrated, or permitted another to celebrate, a marriage otherwise than by banns or licence, acted as a considerable check. To clergymen imprisoned for debt in the Fleet, however, such a penalty had no terrors, for they had “neither liberty, money nor credit to lose by any proceedings the bishop might institute against them.” The earliest recorded date of a Fleet marriage is 1613, while the earliest recorded in a Fleet register took place in 1674, but it was only on the prohibition of marriage without banns or licence that they began to be clandestine. Then arose keen competition, and “many of the Fleet parsons and tavern-keepers in the neighbourhood fitted up a room in their respective lodgings or houses as a chapel,” and employed touts to solicit custom for them. The scandal and abuses brought about by these clandestine marriages became so great that they became the object of special legislation. In 1753 Lord Hardwicke’s Act (26 Geo. ii. c. 33) was passed, which required, under pain of nullity, that banns should be published according to the rubric, or a licence obtained, and that, in either case, the marriage should be solemnized in church; and that in the case of minors, marriage by licence must be by the consent of parent or guardian. This act had the effect of putting a stop to these clandestine marriages, so far as England was concerned, and henceforth couples had to fare to Gretna Green (q.v.).
The Fleet Registers, consisting of “about two or three hundred large registers” and about a thousand rough or “pocket” books, eventually came into private hands, but were purchased by the government in 1821, and are now deposited in the office of the registrar-general, Somerset House. Their dates range from 1686 to 1754. In 1840 they were declared not admissible as evidence to prove a marriage.
Authorities.—J.S. Burn, The Fleet Registers; comprising the History of Fleet Marriages, and some Account of the Parsons and Marriage-house Keepers, &c. (London, 1833); J. Ashton, The Fleet: its River, Prison and Marriages (London, 1888).
FLEETWOOD, CHARLES (d. 1692), English soldier and politician, third son of Sir Miles Fleetwood of Aldwinkle, Northamptonshire, and of Anne, daughter of Nicholas Luke of Woodend, Bedfordshire, was admitted into Gray’s Inn on the 30th of November 1638. At the beginning of the Great Rebellion, like many other young lawyers who afterwards distinguished themselves in the field, he joined Essex’s life-guard, was wounded at the first battle of Newbury, obtained a regiment in 1644 and fought at Naseby. He had already been appointed receiver of the court of wards, and in 1646 became member of parliament for Marlborough. In the dispute between the army and parliament he played a chief part, and was said to have been the principal author of the plot to seize King Charles at Holmby, but he did not participate in the king’s trial. In 1649 he was appointed a governor of the Isle of Wight, and in 1650, as lieutenant-general of the horse, took part in Cromwell’s campaign in Scotland and assisted in the victory of Dunbar. The next year he was elected a member of the council of state, and being recalled from Scotland was entrusted with the command of the forces in England, and played a principal part in gaining the final triumph at Worcester. In 1652 he married [1] Cromwell’s daughter, Bridget, widow of Ireton, and was made commander-in-chief in Ireland, to which title that of lord deputy was added. The chief feature of his administration, which lasted from September 1652 till September 1655, was the settlement of the soldiers on the confiscated estates and the transplantation of the original owners, which he carried out ruthlessly. He showed also great severity in the prosecution of the Roman Catholic priests, and favoured the Anabaptists and the extreme Puritan sects to the disadvantage of the moderate Presbyterians, exciting great and general discontent, a petition being finally sent in for his recall.