These enactments appear, however, to have had little effect. In 1695 the Kirk Session of Greenock ordained that “persons having their children baptised on the Sabbath day abstain from keeping banquets and convening people at such occasions on that day, whereby much idle discourse and sin may be evited.” In 1701 it was very seriously complained by the Kirk Session of Kilmarnock that feasts continued to be held on Sundays after baptisms, and it was ordered that children should be baptised on the weekly sermon day (Thursday), except in case of necessity. But, either through attachment to old customs, or want of inclination to attend the week-day sermon, children continued to be presented for baptism on Sunday, and in 1720 the Session again ordered “that none make or hold feasts at baptising their children on the Lord’s day.”
In conformity with the Registration Act forScotland, passed in 1854, all parish registers are deposited in the Registry Office then established in Edinburgh. Most of the registers of births commence about the middle of the seventeenth century, those of only fifteen parishes, out of about nine hundred, dating from the preceding century. The register of baptisms of Errol, Perthshire, commences in 1553, but the entries for the years preceding 1573 are transcribed from an older register which has been lost. Many of the older registers have been injured by damp, others by fire, and not a few have suffered from the negligence of their custodians. In many of them blanks occur. In some instances session clerks of the sixteenth century recorded in their registers events unconnected with their own parishes. The clerk of the Kirk Session of Aberdeen made an entry in the register of the birth of James VI., who was born at Edinburgh, loyally and piously adding, in the curious spelling of the period (which in previous extracts in this paper, has been modernised,) “quhame God preserve in guid helth and in the feir of God, to do justice in punishing of wrayng and in manttinyen the trewht all the dais of his lyfe. So be itt.”
Thelaws relating to marriage differ so much in Scotland from those under which dwellers south of the Tweed live, that no comparison of social and religious life in the two countries can be made without knowledge of them. In no part of Christendom have the ecclesiastical laws relating to the relations of the sexes been more strict, or more strictly enforced, than in Scotland, and in no other have there been more irregularities. It was not until more than twenty years after the Reformation that the custom of “handfasting,” which had come down from old Celtic times, fell into disrepute and consequent disuse. By this term was understood cohabitation for a year, the couple being then free to separate, unless they agreed to make the union permanent. Lindsay, the chronicler, says of Alexander Dunbar, son of the sixth Earl of Moray, and Isobel Innes,—“This Isobel was but handfast with him, and deceased before the marriage.” WhenMargaret, widow of James IV., sued for a divorce from the Earl of Angus, she pleaded that he had been handfasted to Jane Douglas, “and by reason of that pre-contract could not be her lawful husband.” How such marriages were regarded at that time is shown by the fact that the marriage was dissolved by the Pope, though the issue of the Queen’s marriage with Angus was pronounced legitimate.
Sir John Sinclair’s “Statistical Account of Scotland” contains a report from the minister of Eskdale Muir, referring to the practice of handfasting as existing in that parish, under ecclesiastical sanction, at a period anterior to the Reformation. At a fair held there, unmarried men chose women to be handfasted with them, and a monk from Melrose Abbey visited the place annually, to marry those couples who wished the union to be made permanent. The first check given to the practice appears to have been the decree of the Kirk Session of Aberdeen, in 1562, that persons cohabiting under the sanction of a handfast contract of marriage should be united in lawful wedlock. But though this practice was discontinued, and those who wished to be thought respectableobtained the blessing of the Church on their marriage, irregularities continued to exist, and even to be permitted. An acknowledgment by a couple that they were husband and wife, either orally or in writing, followed or preceded by cohabitation, was regarded as a valid marriage, both by the Church and by society. In 1563, however, the General Assembly of the Church ruled that no contract of marriage so made should be recognised until the parties had submitted themselves to the discipline of the Church, and the contract had been verified by witnesses of good repute.
The custom of betrothal was very general, but it varied in form in different parts of the kingdom. The presentation of an “engagement ring,” as in England, is not found among these forms, nor does it appear that the sanction of parents was thought necessary; but after the contract was made it was usual for them to be informed and their sanction sought. Among the upper and middle classes there was usually a betrothal feast, but among the classes living by manual labour this was dispensed with. Dr Rogers says, in his “Social Life in Scotland,” that—“In betrothal, the parties usually moistenedwith the tongue the thumbs of their right hands, and then pressed them together. The violation of a contract so consecrated was considered tantamount to an act of perjury.” Another form of betrothal was the clasping of hands across a stream. In this way Burns, the laureate of the Scottish peasantry, and Mary Campbell vowed fidelity. In some counties silver coins were exchanged by plighted lovers, or a worn one was broken between them, each retaining one of the halves.
Marriages regarded by the ecclesiastical courts and Kirk Sessions as “regular” have always, from a long period anterior to the Reformation, been preceded by the publication of banns. In 1569 a case came before the General Assembly which shows the successive steps taken at that time before the solemnisation of a marriage. It is recorded that “ane promise of marriage made, before the readers and elders, in ane reformit church, the parties contractit compeirs before the minister and session, and requires their banns to be proclaimit.” In 1575 the question came before the General Assembly, whether the form of mutual declaration prior to the publication of banns should be longer continued; and it wasruled that it should be considered sufficient for the names of the parties desiring proclamation of banns to be given to the session clerk. Banns were ordered to be published, as in England, on three successive Sundays; but, after the Reformation, it was ruled that, on payment of a larger fee, one public announcement should be held sufficient, the words “for the first, second, and third time” being used.
It became customary towards the close of the sixteenth century for security to be given, with the notice of banns, for the solemnisation of the marriage, two friends of the parties depositing with the clerk a sum of money as a guarantee, and that for more than one purpose. In 1570 the Assembly ordered that “promise of marriage shall be made according to the order of the reformed Kirk to the minister, exhorter, or reader, taking caution for abstinence till the marriage be solemnised.” The minutes of Kirk Sessions show that, in numerous instances, during the latter half of the seventeenth century, such deposits were retained for the space of nine calendar months after the marriage. The Kilmarnock Kirk Session was not so strict. It was there ordered, in 1670, that thedeposit should be returned to the parties on the expiration of half a year. Whatever the term was, if scandal arose before it expired, the deposit became forfeited.
Kirk Sessions in some cases accepted personal security in lieu of cash, the bondsmen in such cases becoming liable in the event of scandal arising, or the non-solemnisation of the marriage. But this system, so convenient for those who could not raise the caution money, or “pawn,” as it was commonly called, was in course of time abandoned. The Kirk Session of Mauchline instructed the clerk, in 1691, “to take neither bond nor cautioner for consignation money, but to require that the money be laid down, to remain in his hand for the space of three-quarters of a year.” The example was followed by other Kirk Sessions, but the custom continued for a long time afterwards, and was never formally abolished, falling into abeyance gradually. Dr Edgar, in his “Old Church Life in Scotland,” states that “on a page at the end of a small volume of scroll minutes still extant there is a writing, under date 23rd November, 1771, which has all the appearance of being a genuine matrimonial consignation bond.”
The First Book of Discipline makes it peremptory that no persons should be married without the consent of the parents, unless it should appear that there was no reasonable ground for the refusal of their consent. The Westminster Directory qualifies this by ruling that the consent of parents should be obtained to first marriages, especially if the parties were under age. It is not clear whether non-age means under the age of twenty-one, or is to be interpreted by the decree of the General Assembly of 1600 that, “considering that there is no statute of the kirk,... defining the age of persons which are to be married, ordain that no minister within this realm presume to join in matrimony any persons in time coming, except the man be fourteen years of age, and the woman twelve complete.” The same ages are given in the First Book of Discipline.
Deviations from even this rule sometimes occurred, and may be classed among the permitted irregularities referred to at the beginning of this paper. The marriage of heiresses under the age of twelve was not infrequent, the plea of the guardians, that they feared the abduction of their wards if longer unmarried, being admitted.There is a record of the marriage of a girl in her eleventh year to a boy of fourteen in 1659; and no longer ago than 1859 a girl was married at Edinburgh, who was entered by the registrar as in her eleventh year. The official inspector thought there must have been an error in the registration, but inquiry proved that the entry was correct.
There was no laxity, however, in the matter of prohibited degrees of relationship. In 1731, an irregular marriage came before the Presbytery of Ayr. The banns had been forbidden on the ground that the woman’s first husband had been grand-uncle to the second bridegroom. The lovers thereupon proceeded to Carlisle, and were there united in marriage. The Presbytery pronounced them guilty of incest, prohibited them from cohabitation, and the interdict being disregarded, passed sentence of excommunication.
Marriage might be refused in former times when either of the parties was found to be “under scandal.” In 1565, the General Assembly enacted that “such as lie in sin under promise of marriage, deferring the solemnisation, should satisfy publicly, in the place of repentance, upon the Lord’s day before they be married.”Many instances are recorded of persons appearing before the Kirk Session, and denying upon oath that they had committed the sin of which they were accused. The Kirk Sessions were equally diligent in their endeavours to prevent scandals. In 1621, it was reported to the Kirk Session of Perth “that Janet Watson holds house by herself, where she may give occasion of slander,” wherefore an elder was directed “to admonish her in the Session’s name either to marry or to pass to service.”
But while the Church authorities were so zealous for the morals of the nation and the prevention of scandal, they appear to have sometimes thrown impediments in the way of lawful marriage. In the early years following the Reformation, it was a very frequent ordinance of Kirk Sessions that no persons should be allowed to marry until they were able to repeat to the minister or reader the Lord’s Prayer, the Apostles’ Creed, and the Ten Commandments. Either a “pawn” was required for the fulfilment of this condition or a fine was exacted in case of failure. In some parishes the Kirk Sessions went beyond this requirement, and insisted on regular attendance at public worship. In 1700, the KirkSession of Galston, “considering that there were some who lived within the parish who did not join with the congregation in public worship, nor submit themselves to discipline, and yet craved common privileges of members of this congregation, such as proclamation in order to marriage, concluded that none such should have privileges, until they should engage to live orderly for the time to come.” And a further entry, of the same date, states that one of the persons referred to applied for proclamation of banns, and, on the resolution being communicated to him, he “engaged, through God’s grace, to live orderly, and to wait upon gospel ordinances more particularly, and was then allowed to be proclaimed.”
There was some difference of opinion in the early days of the Reformed Church as to whether a pre-contract should be an impediment to marriage with another person. The minutes of the Westminster Assembly show that some of the divines maintained that a promise of marriage was a “covenant of God,” and could not be broken, even by mutual consent. The Church of Scotland did not adopt this view. In 1570, the General Assembly directed that persons desiring to withdraw from a contract ofmarriage should, if nothing had followed, be allowed to do so. In the same year, an appeal was made to the Assembly from the decision of a Kirk Session that a man should not be allowed to marry any woman other than a former servant of the appellant, whom he had seduced. He had applied to the Kirk Session for proclamation of banns, putting in the document known as a “discharge of marriage,” signed by the woman he had wronged, for three or four successive years, but it was persistently refused recognition. The Assembly sustained his appeal, gave him the liberty he sought, and added, “yea, and there is injury done to him already.”
Sometimes, however, contracted persons declined to set each other free, and forbade the publication of banns with any other person. In 1689, one John Meikle was cited to appear before the Presbytery of Ayr, to show cause why he forbade the banns of Janet Campbell. He pleaded that Janet had been engaged to him, and on that ground he objected to her becoming the wife of any other man. The Presbytery decided that Janet was free to do so. In 1777, a woman applied to the Kirk Session of Mauchline to have her banns stopped, on the groundthat she had changed her mind, and had become engaged to another man. The first lover opposed the application, pleading that she was his “by the covenant of God.” The Kirk Session did not admit his plea. The publication of banns was stopped, and a minute of the Session justifies this decision, on the ground that “there would be an obvious impropriety in proceeding further in the proclamation, after being certified by the woman of her resolution not to marry the petitioner.”
There were some superstitions connected with marriage as to lucky and unlucky days and seasons. Perthshire couples refrained from wedlock in January, and everywhere it was declined in May. In the Lowlands, Friday was considered an unlucky day for weddings, but in the Highlands, it was the day generally chosen for the ceremony. These notions had no weight with the compilers of the First Book of Discipline, who expressed their opinion that Sunday was the day “most expedient.” On the other hand, the Westminster Assembly advised that marriages should not be solemnised on the Lord’s day. The latter may have been influenced by the same reason that moved theKirk Session of Perth to adopt, in 1584, a resolution that “forasmuch as sundry poor desire to, because they have not to buy clothes, nor to make bridals, marriages should be as well celebrated on Thursday, within our Parish Kirk in time of sermon, as on Sunday.” The former, on the other hand, probably had in view the disorderly scenes to which a wedding was often the prelude. The General Assembly, in 1645, adopted the view of the Westminster Directory, and marriages from that date were generally solemnised on the day of the weekly lecture.
In former times, and down to the first quarter of the present century, the celebration of a marriage otherwise than in church was regarded as irregular and clandestine. In 1581, the General Assembly “concluded by common consent of the whole brethren, that in times coming no marriage be celebrated, nor sacraments administered, in private houses.” At that time, and long afterwards, ministers were liable to deposition, and were actually deposed, for marrying persons in private houses. It is a fact, nevertheless, that though the law of the Church remains as settled in 1581, marriages celebratedin private houses have not been regarded as irregular since the beginning of the last century; and the records of the General Sessions of Edinburgh show that, as long ago as 1643, private marriages were not infrequent in that city, where, however, they were restricted to the well-to-do classes by a fine of twenty marks.
Weddings were usually followed by great festivities, which were generally on a scale so extensive, and carried to so great an excess, that the records of Kirk Sessions during the seventeenth century show numerous regulations for their restriction. They fixed the number of guests who might be lawfully entertained on such occasions, and the hour at which the festivities should cease. Many of the customs observed were peculiar to the country, or to certain parts of it. In the Highlands, until about a century ago, the bride walked round the wedding party at the close of the ceremony, saluting each with a kiss. A dish was then passed round, in which each deposited a coin, the amount collected being given to the bride. The term “penny wedding” appears to have arisen from this custom. Owing to the large number of guests entertained, which KirkSessions did not venture to reduce to less than forty, it wasusualfor the neighbours to assist in providing for them. Landowners gave beef, mutton and venison; farmers, poultry and dairy produce; and the minister and the schoolmaster lent cooking utensils. The bridal feast was followed by a dance.
Some peculiar rites, of ancient and pagan origin, were practised at the home-coming of the bride. The guests assembled at the door, on the threshold of which a sieve containing bread and cheese was held over her head, and, as she entered the house, a cake of shortbread was broken over her head, the young folk present scrambling for the fragments. The ceremony was completed by the bride sweeping the hearth with a broom.
This paper would not be complete without some notice of an aspect of the matter with which it deals, which has not received the attention to which it is certainly entitled. The law relating to marriage remains unsettled. It has been so constantly regarded as a matter for ecclesiastical regulation, that it has been practically left to be dealt with by Presbyteries and Kirk Sessions. “As far back as any livingman remembers,” says Dr Edgar, “it has taken very few formalities to constitute in Scotland a marriage that is binding in law. A man and a woman have only had to take up house together, and declare themselves husband and wife. The law thereupon pronounced them married persons. But this was not always understood to be the law of the land in Scotland, and the Church of Scotland did not always recognise such unions as marriages.” But while writing of what was or was notunderstoodto be the law, he tells us nothing as to what the law really was or is.
It seems to have been the practice of the Church, in former times, to pronounce her own judgment, and then to ask the State to confirm it. In the first General Assembly held in Scotland, that of 1560, there was a declaration made concerning marriages within certain degrees of relationship, and “the authority of the Estates was craved to be interposed to that finding as the law.” There were many of the ministers of the Reformed Church who held that a religious ceremony was not necessary to constitute a valid marriage. One of the members of the Westminster Assembly, in 1644, expressed the opinion, previously given by Luther, that onlythe consent of the parties was necessary. This view appears to have prevailed very generally among the laity, notwithstanding the action taken so frequently by Kirk Sessions in opposition to it.
The question continued to be disputed throughout the last century. Writers on legal questions held one view, and judges on the bench pronounced contrariwise. Erskine argued that, in Scotland, the consent of the parties was all that was necessary to constitute a valid marriage. Lord Braxfield affirmed the opposite in 1796. Lord Fraser, on a later occasion, said that the view set forth by Erskine was never judicially pronounced to be the law of Scotland until 1811. Can we wonder, therefore, when lawyers and judges disagree, at the haziness of mental vision displayed by Kirk Sessions, and the frequent want of uniformity in their decisions?
Gretna Greenis the name of an insignificant village in the Border country between England and Scotland. It is situated in Dumfriesshire, near the mouth of the Esk, nine miles north-west of Carlisle, and consequently within a mile of the English border. Probably no place of such absence of pretension to size and population has attained the notoriety which attaches to the name of Gretna Green, a distinction it has obtained merely through its being the first place suitable for stoppage after the English border was once passed. This close proximity was utilised by runaway couples, who, dispensing, for various reasons, with the preliminaries of anyone’s consent to their union, or the publication of banns requisite by the English Marriage Laws, could, when once on Scottish ground, accomplish their wedding by simply declaring before witnesses their mutual willingness to undertake the contract. To thefacility, then, which the Marriage Laws of Scotland offered to amorous and impatient couples (minors or not), the fisher-village of Gretna Green owes its repute as a chosen altar of Hymen. A marriage once declared here was henceforward considered valid, and after exchanging before any witness the mutual promises, the pair might return to England at once, the knot being tied beyond all chance of dispute. As might be expected, haste was a great factor in these summary pairings, and consequently postillions were largely employed to get over the distance between Carlisle and Gretna, a course upon which, no doubt, many a tough race has been run between prudent parent or guardian and ardent runaways.
The “parsons” of Gretna were the ordinary inhabitants, who were weavers, fishermen (Gretna being at the head of the Solway), blacksmiths, &c., and their fees were entirely arbitrary, being fixed on the spot, according to the private information of the postillions, or according to the appearance and simplicity of the young couple. Marriages have been contracted here for a glass of whisky, while on the other hand a fee of twenty pounds has been paid, as in the case ofLord Chief Justice Erskine, who availed himself of the easy ceremony, and even much larger sums, as in the cases of the Earl of Westmoreland, Lord Deerhurst, and others, who paid to the officiating “cleric” upwards of one hundred guineas. In the absence of any local person to receive the attestations to the contract, the postillions themselves have been known to assume the sacerdotal functions.
The first broker in Gretna Green marriages was one Scott, who lived at a point called the Rigg, a few miles from the village. It is said that he commenced his infamous profession about the year 1750, but beyond the fact that he was a crafty fellow, who could turn the emergencies of the time to his own advantage, little is known of him. The next who undertook the remunerative duties of high priest was George Gordon, an old soldier, who invariably wore as canonicals a full military uniform of a by-gone type—a tremendous cocked-hat, scarlet coat, and jackboots, with a ponderous sword dangling from his belt. His “church,” which had the appearance of a barn, stood a little to the left of the public road; his altar was an ale cask upon which was placed an open Bible. Following Gordon, Joseph Paisley(sometimes called Pasley) became the recognised parson. He was a fisherman, who agreeably united with the duties of that position the pursuits of smuggler and tobacconist. He has been also called a blacksmith, but this was simply a fanciful allusion to the part he took in the Gretna Green marriages, Vulcan being the marriage maker of the gods as well as their smith. He commenced the matrimonial business in 1789, and from being retiring in his manner of dealing, became audaciously unscrupulous, going so far even as to supply fictitious signatures to the certificates, instead of, as at first, resorting to the less culpable proceeding of signing his own name as a witness. It is said of this man that at his death, about 1811, he weighed twenty-five stones. He was a coarse, blatant individual, and habitually appeared in a sort of priestly dress, even in his constant dissipations. At his death the priesthood was taken by his son-in-law, Robert Elliott, who kept an account of his transactions, and afterwards published them under the title of “The Gretna Green Memoirs.” In this he states that between 1811 and 1839, not less than 7744 persons were united by him at Gretna. TheTimes, in a review of the book, doubted theaccuracy of the assertion, which drew from him a reply in the form of a letter to that paper. He said, “I can show registers for that number from my commencement, and which either you or any respectable individual may inspect here, and which I can substantiate on oath.”
We give here an extract from the “Memoirs” of Elliott. He says:—“As the marriage ceremony performed by me and my predecessors may be interesting to many of my readers, I give it verbatim: The parties are first asked their names and places of abode; they are then asked to stand up, and inquired of if they are both single persons; if the answer be in the affirmative, the ceremony proceeds. Each is next asked, ‘Did you come here of your own free will and accord?’ Upon receiving an affirmative answer, the priest commences filling in the printed form of the certificate. The man is then asked, ‘Do you take this woman to be your lawful wedded wife, forsaking all others, and keep to her as long as you both shall live?’ He answers, ‘I will.’ The woman is asked the same question, when, being answered the same, the woman then produces a ring, which she gives to the man, who hands it to the priest; the priestthen returns it to the man, and orders him to put it on the fourth finger of the woman’s left hand, repeating these words, ‘With this ring I thee wed, with my body I thee worship, with all my goods I thee endow, in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen.’ They then take hold of each other’s right hand, and the woman says, ‘What God joins together let no man put asunder.’ Then the priest says, ‘Forasmuch as this man and this woman have come together by giving and receiving a ring, I therefore declare them to be man and wife before God and these witnesses, in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen.’”
The following are among the memorable matches effected through the agency of Robert Elliott, and recorded in his Memoirs:—
1812.—Rev. Wm. Freemantle, an English clergyman. C. Ewen Law, son of Lord Ellenborough, to Miss Nightingale.
1815.—A “droll gaberlunzie without legs or arms, to a comely damsel, both appearing anxious for the ceremony,” to the disgust of the not too fastidious parson himself.
1816.—Lord Chief Justice Erskine. Within a year, however, his lordship unsuccessfully triedto loosen his matrimonial chains by a divorce by the Scottish law.
1826.—E. Gibbon Wakefield, with Miss Turner. Of the trial which ensued upon this union we give particulars below.
During the latter part of Elliott’s “ministration” competition in the marrying business became brisk, and he had numerous rivals, the most powerful of these candidates for clerical emolument being another son of Mars, named David Laing. The competition became so pronounced that the rival parsons canvassed for the assistance and co-operation of the postillions, who, commencing by receiving a commission per runaway pair, at last ended by working upon a system of equal shares with their priestly co-partners.
In 1827, at the Kent Assizes, a Gretna Green marriage was the subject of a curious trial before Mr Baron Hullock. The action was taken against one Mrs Wakefield and her two sons, for conspiring “to take away by subtle stratagems” a young lady named Turner, who had not yet left school. The David Laing above mentioned was called as a witness on behalf of the defendants, and he affirmed that the couplewere married lawfully according to the Scottish fashion—namely, by putting on the lady’s finger a ring. The witness said he was seventy-five years old, and had spent more than half of his life in the performance of marriages. In cross-examination by Mr Brougham, he admitted obtaining £30 for this particular ceremony, or even £50, but could not remember exactly, “being somewhat hard of hearing.” The accused was found guilty of causing this young lady to “contract matrimony without the consent of her father, and to the great disparagement of the King’s peace.” The chief prisoner, E. Gibbon Wakefield, was convicted of abduction, and the marriage, which excited considerable public attention, was afterwards rendered invalid, and annulled by an Act of Parliament specially obtained. After this flagrant case Gretna Green marriages fell into disrepute, and the business showed a steady decline, though cases of the employment of pseudo-parsons are on much later record. In 1853, a person named Thomas Blythe, a witness before the Court of Probate at Westminster, stated that he lived at Springfield, Gretna Green, and that he obtained his livelihood by means of agriculture, but that he notunfrequently took advantage of opportunities to increase his income by small strokes of business in the “joining” line. Again, the demise of another “joiner” was announced so late as 1872, when the obituary of Simon Laing appeared in theGlasgow Herald. It is probable, however, that the pursuit of his “clerical” profession ceased long before the date of his death, for, in 1856, the old law by which the mere verbal declaration of consent before witnesses was sufficient to constitute a Scottish legal marriage became effete through the passing of the Act of Parliament, 19 and 20 Victoria, cap. 96. By this Act the laws of Scotland and England were brought into assimilation, and in that year the occupation of the northern hedge-parsons was virtually gone.
It may be said such marriages as those we have described were considered as clandestine and ill-advised in Scotland, as in more southern parts, the Church of Scotland doing all that lay in its power to discourage and prevent them. The only punishment, however, which it had for transgressors being excommunication, the restraint by the Kirk was very slight, its injunctions and fulminary condemnations being treated with contempt.
Probably the best known of the notable marriages which have taken place at Gretna is that of the Earl of Westmoreland with the daughter of Child, the banker, whose counting-house was at the sign of the Marygold, in the Strand. The romantic but determined couple had the advantage of an early start, one starlight night in May, but the pursuit was not less hot than the departure had been well arranged, and when within a few miles of the Border the coach was nearly overtaken by Mr Child’s carriage. The Earl, however, not to be baulked when so near the end of the journey, shot down one of the pursuing horses, while one of the servants cut the carriage straps behind. The crown of firs which mark Gretna from the surrounding country came quickly into view, the bridge was crossed, and the village was reached by the reckless couple. A parson was found, and quickly the Earl and Miss Child were made one. Within a year Mr Child died, it is said, of the mortification and disappointment connected with this affair. The elder daughter of the match, Lady Sophia Fane, afterwards married Lord Jersey, and inherited his immense fortune, including Child’s Bank at Temple Bar.
Amongthe many pagan beliefs and observances which were adhered to during many centuries of Christian creed and worship, and some of which have survived among the less enlightened even to the present day, a large place is held by those connected with death and burial. In Scotland, many trivial things were regarded as omens of death. In the northern Highlands, an itching of the nose was believed to prognosticate the death of a neighbour. In the southern parts, a humming in the ear was held to prelude the death of a relative. The crowing of a cock at an unusual hour was regarded as a token of the death of some person in the parish. In the Lowlands, the howling of a strange dog was accepted as a warning of the approaching death of some inmate of the house near which the melancholy wail was raised. The “death candle,” as the phosphoric light sometimes seen flickering overburial-grounds was called, was similarly regarded in the Hebrides.
In some parts of the Highlands it is still believed that the last moments of a dying person are prolonged by the door of the death-chamber being closed. It is usual, therefore, for it to be left ajar, so that there may be room for the departing spirit to take its flight, and yet the intrusion of any evil thing be prevented. When a death occurred, the clock was stopped, and its face covered, as were all the mirrors in the house. A bell was laid under the head of the corpse, and a vessel containing earth and salt placed upon the breast.
From the moment of death until the departure of the funeral procession to the place of burial, the corpse was watched night and day by parties of friends and neighbours, who relieved each other. Silence was observed, but this did not prevent the consumption of much ale and whisky. Among the poorer classes the interment took place soon after death, in order to lessen the cost of watching, but the well-to-do deferred the funeral for at least a week, and sometimes a fortnight, in order that the hospitality of the house might be more extensivelyoffered and enjoyed. Among these a feast was given on the evening preceding the funeral.
There were many superstitious beliefs and customs connected with funerals. As in England, the proverb was accepted that “happy is the corpse that the rain falls on.” If the funeral party, on the way to the burial-ground, walked in a straggling manner, it was regarded as an omen that another death would soon occur under the same roof. In the Hebrides, if one of the party stumbled and fell, the incident was held to indicate that he would be the next to die.
In the last century, there was a lamentable amount of ale and whisky drinking before and after funerals. The company began to assemble two hours before the time appointed for the corpse to be carried from the house. If the deceased was a farmer, each of the guests was offered a glass of whisky at the gate of the farm-yard, and another on crossing the threshold. On entering the guest-room, a portion of shortbread and another glass of whisky were handed to him, a reverential silence being observed for a time, after which conversation was carried on in whispers. When all the guests wereassembled, the minister commenced a religious service, which lasted about three-quarters of an hour. This was followed by the handing round of oatcake, cheese, and whisky, and afterwards shortbread and more whisky. Then the coffin was carried out, and followed to the grave by all those who were sufficiently sober to walk straight.
Religious ceremonies at burials have never found favour in the Church of Scotland. They were discouraged both by the First Book of Discipline and the Westminster Directory, the compilers of the former saying, “for avoiding all inconveniences, we judge it best that neither singing nor reading be at the burial,... yea, without all kind of ceremony heretofore used, other than that the dead be committed to the grave with such gravity and sobriety as those that be present may seem to fear the judgment of God, and to hate sin, which is the cause of death.” The Westminster Directory deals with the matter in much the same way, the Assembly maintaining that the burial of the dead is not a part of the work of the ministry, as baptisms and marriages are.
It appears to have been customary in the earlycenturies of the Church in Scotland, to bury the dead uncoffined; and this custom prevailed among the poor for some time after the Reformation. It lingered in rural districts longer than in towns, and in some later than in others; but the Kirk Session records of some parishes refer to the provision of coffins for the interment of persons who were practically paupers in the last quarter of the seventeenth century. As to the mode of burial before the use of coffins became general, the General Assembly ordained, in 1563, “that a bier should be made in every country parish, to carry the dead corpse of the poor to the burial-place, and that those of the villages or houses next adjacent to the house where the dead corpse lieth, or a certain number out of every house, shall convey the dead corpse to the burial-place, and bury it six feet under the earth.”
The biers appear to have been of more than one kind. Some of them were mere rails upon which the corpse was laid, covered only with a pall, called in Scotland a mort-cloth. Others were wooden boxes, with the lid on one side furnished with a hinge, so that the corpse could be taken out, and lowered into the grave byropes. In some parts of the Highlands, a long basket, made of twisted rushes, was used, and called the “death hamper.” There were three pairs of loop handles, through which short iron bars were passed for convenience of carriage; and on the grave being reached, it was lowered by ropes, so arranged that it could be turned over and recovered for future use.
Before the Reformation, it was the custom to bury unbaptised children apart from members of the Church, the north side of the churchyard being reserved for that purpose. This was afterwards regarded as contrary to the true principles of Protestantism, and in 1641 the Synod of Fife ordained that “all these who superstitiously carries the dead about the kirk before burial, also these who bury unbaptised bairns apart, be taken notice of and censured.” Suicides and excommunicated persons were also, at one time, buried apart, and at night. In 1582, the Kirk Session of Perth refused to allow the corpse of a man who had committed suicide by drowning to be “brought through the town in daylight, neither yet to be buried among the faithful,... but in the little Inch within the water.”
With regard to interment within the churches, the Scottish Reformers seem to have been in advance of those south of the Border. The Brownists were as much in advance of the former, for in 1590 one of the leaders of that denomination wrote:—“Where learned you to bury in hallowed churches and churchyards, as though you had no fields to bury in? Methinks the churchyards, of all other places, should be not the convenientest for burial; it was a thing never used till Popery began, and it is neither comely nor wholesome.” Interment in churches was, on sanitary grounds, even more objectionable than in the grounds adjacent to them, and in 1576 the General Assembly prohibited the practice, and ordered that those who contravened the ordinance should be suspended from the privileges of the Church.
Long after that time, however, burials in churches continued to take place, owing to the value attached by families of rank above that of the commonalty to the privilege of having their relatives buried apart. In 1643, the Assembly again prohibited all persons, “of whatsoever quality, to bury any deceased person within the body of the kirk, where the peoplemeet for hearing of the Word.” But the ordinance was disregarded by all who thought themselves powerful enough to do so, and as ministers had very little to do with a matter which had been declared to be unministerial, they usually found their will sufficient to serve their purpose. In 1695, the Kirk Session of Kilmarnock recorded a minute that, the north aisle being then filled with pews, “they shall, when required, cause lift six pews, on each end, next to the north wall of the aisle, so oft as any of the families of Rowallan, Craufordland, and Grange, shall have occasion to bury their dead;... and, after burial, the said pews shall be set up again in their places, at the expense of the session.” Kirk Sessions seem to have felt themselves powerless to enforce their ordinances in the face of a long existing custom and a fancied right of the gentry to burial within the church; and in one instance, which occurred in a Highland parish in 1727, the Kirk Session petitioned the Presbytery to “put a stop to such a bad practice.”
The custom of ringing a bell at funerals, which was a common one before the Reformation, was continued afterwards. There is an entry in the records of Glasgow, for 1577, of the sale of“the auld bell that yed throw the toun of auld at the burial of the dead.” In 1621, the Kirk Session of Dumbarton ordained that “the beadle, John Tome, and his successors, shall ring the mort-bell before all persons deceased within town, for such prices as the minister and session shall set down.” It may be that the custom, like the ringing of church bells, originated in the superstition that the sound of bells scared away evil spirits; for an edict of the Town Council of Aberdeen, passed in 1643, includes the tolling and ringing of bells among the “superstitious rites used at funerals,” which it prohibits.
Towards the close of the seventeenth century, it seems to have been usual for the church bell to be tolled at funerals, and that without any charge being made, for, in 1696, the Kirk Session of Mauchline made a minute that they “thought it reasonable that whoever desired the tolling of the bell at the funeral of their relations, should pay some small quantity of money to the kirk treasurer, to be disposed of for the poor’s use.” Similar ordinances were passed about the same time by the Kirk Sessions of other parishes in Ayrshire. It was decided, however, in the Civil Court, in1730, that the money arising from fees for the ringing of bells and burials within the church did not properly belong to the fund for the relief of the poor, but might be used for the maintenance of the fabric of the church. The poor, however, do not appear to have lost much by this decision, for during the year ended October, 1732, the “big” bell at Kilmarnock was tolled for funerals only seven times. It may be explained that there were two bells in many churches, the larger one to be tolled at the funerals of the rich, and the smaller at those of the poor. In the register of burials at Inverness, the words “big bells” are added to the entries of the funerals of “persons of quality.”
The burials register of the parish of Tough, in Aberdeenshire, record that, in 1784, forty-two of the parishioners joined in the purchase of a new bell for the church, stipulating that, when deaths occurred in their families, “the bell be rung once before the day of interment, that is, when the officer gets the first notice of a contributor’s death, and then upon the day of interment, from morning until the coffin be laid in the ground, in the manner that bells oughtto be rung at funerals, and that by no other person than the officer allenarlie.”
Palls were, from a very early period, regarded as essential parts of the funeral paraphernalia. In 1598, the Kirk Session of Glasgow ordered a black cloth to be bought “to be laid on the corpses of the poor,” and, for at least two hundred years afterwards, it was the custom for the “mort-cloth” to be taken to the house where a corpse awaited burial, and laid over it. The reason for this may be found in the early custom of burial without a coffin, and in the case of those who desired to show some regard for appearances, in the proclamation of Council in 1684, that coffins should not be covered with silk or decorated with fringes or metal-work. The mort-cloths kept “to be laid on the corpses of the poor” were probably of coarse black woollen cloth; but those used at the funerals of well-to-do people were, as a rule, of richer and more handsome material. In the sessional records of the parish of Mauchline for 1672 there is an entry of the payment of a sum of no less than £10, 12s. 4d. as completing the price of a new mort-cloth, which implies that some portion of the total cost had been paid previously. Another new mort-clothprovided for the same parish in the last quarter of the eighteenth century is described as having been made of Genoa velvet, conformably fringed.
The preaching of funeral sermons received little favour in Scotland during the early period of the Reformed Church. “We have,” says Baillie, writing from London during the sitting of the Westminster Assembly, “with much difficulty, passed a proposition for abolishing their ceremonies at burials, but our difference about funeral sermons seems irreconcilable. As it has been here and everywhere preached, it is nothing but an abuse of preaching, to serve the humours only of rich people for a reward. Our Church has expressly discharged them, on many good reasons; it’s here a good part of the minister’s livelihood, therefore they will not quit it. After three days’ debate, we cannot yet find a way of agreeance.”
It was in consequence of this inability to agree on the subject that the Scottish commissioners at Westminster declined to hear the sermon preached on the occasion of the funeral of Pym. Baillie wrote:—“On Wednesday, Mr Pym was carried from his house to Westminster on theshoulders, as the fashion is, of the chief men of the Lower House, all the House going in procession before him, and before them the Assembly of Divines. Marshall had a most eloquent and pertinent funeral sermon—which we would not hear, for funeral sermons we must have away, with the rest.”
The earliest registers of deaths are those of Aberdeen, which commence in 1560; Perth, beginning in 1561, and the Canongate, Edinburgh, in 1565. The register of burials in the last-named parish commences in 1612, and that of Greyfriars in 1658. Those of rural parishes generally commence in the last century, and they are, as a rule, more or less imperfect. It appears from the Edinburgh registers, in which the deaths are summarised annually, that the mortality has greatly diminished during the last hundred and fifty years. In the first four decades of the last century, nearly two-thirds of the deaths were those of children, and the deaths of adult females were double those of adult males. The dawn of a better state of things appears in 1741, when the deaths of 276 men, 401 women, and 942 children, were registered, which, if we accept the generallyreceived statement that the population of the city was then fifty thousand, gives an annual average death-rate of 34 per thousand. The average mortality of the ten years ending with 1878, as shown by the report of the Registrar General, was 24 per thousand; and that of the week ending October 8, 1898, was 20 per thousand; which was precisely that of the thirty-three largest towns of the southern portion of the island.
Contemporary events in other places were not unfrequently recorded in the local registers of deaths in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Thus, in the Aberdeen register, we have the murder of Lord Darnley very circumstantially recorded as follows, though under a wrong date:—“The ninth [10th] day of February, the year of God 1566, Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, King of Scotland, who married Mary Stuart, Queen of Scotland, daughter to King James the Fifth, was cruelly murdered under night, in Edinburgh, in the Cowgate, at the Kirk of Field, by James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell, and other his assisters, whose deed God revenge. So be it.”[13]The ascription of the crime to Bothwelldoes not appear in the Canongate register, which merely records the fact of Darnley being blown up with gunpowder.
The assassination of the Earl of Murray is recorded in several parish registers. The session clerk of Aberdeen recorded it, with much particularity, as follows:—“The twenty-third day of January, the year of God 1569, James, Earl of Murray, Lord Abernethy, Regent to the King and realm of Scotland, was cruelly murdered and shot in the town of Linlithgow, by a false traitor, James Hamilton of Bodywallhaucht, by the conspiracy and treason of his own servant, William Kircaldy, and John Hamilton, bloody Bishop of St. Andrew’s, whose deed we pray God to revenge. So be it.” With equal circumstantiality the same clerk made an entry in the register of the murder of Coligny, and the horrible massacre of the Protestants of Paris, on St. Bartholomew’s day, 1572, which event he prays God to revenge.
Some of the entries in the church registers of Edinburgh are of considerable historical interest. In that of St. Giles is chronicled the removal of the remains of the Marquis of Montrose from the Abbey Church of Holyrood to St. Giles’sChurch, where they were honoured with a magnificent and pompous funeral. The entry in the register of burials records the final interment as follows:—“11 May 1661.—The Rt. Hon. James, Marquis of Montrose, Earl of Kincardine, Lord Grahame and Mugdok, His Majesty’s late commissioner and Captain General for the kingdom of Scotland, and knt. of most hon. order of the Garter, was conveyed from the kirk of Holyrood House with great honour and solemnity to St. Giles’s kirk and buried.” The corpse had been, in the first instance, interred at the Burgh Muir, so that this was the third removal.
The register of the Greyfriars’ Church, Edinburgh, contains the following record of another and more generally interesting translation:—“Robert Garvock, Patrick Forman, James Stewart, David Fernie, Alexander Russell, was executed in the Gallowlee, for owning the truth, upon the 10 day of October 1681 years, and their heads fixed upon Bristo Port, taken down and buried privately in Louristone Yards, now accidentally dug up upon the 15 day of October 1726, and buried decently upon the 19 day of the said monthin the Greyfriars’ churchyard, close to the Martyrs’ Tomb.”
The grandeur of the final interment of the remains of the Marquis of Montrose, followed later by the costly obsequies of Lord Roslin, induced the Scottish Parliament, in 1681, to pass an Act which, besides restricting the number of persons who might attend the funeral of a person of rank to one hundred, prohibited “the using or carrying of any branches, banners, and other honours at church, except only the eight branches to be upon the pall, or upon the coffin where there is no pall.” The Act seems, however, to have had little effect in diminishing the excessive costliness of funerals among all classes above the very poorest. The funeral of Sir William Hamilton, who died in 1707, was attended with a display and an amount of hospitality which cost a sum equal to two years of his salary as a judge. The funeral of Lachlan Macintosh, chief of the Highland clan of that name, in 1736, cost (including the customary festivities) a sum which involved his successors in pecuniary embarrassments for a century afterwards. The funerals of Highland chiefs were attended by all the clan, sometimesnumbering thousands of persons, and the procession to the place of burial extending to more than a mile in length; the coronach—a hymn of lamentation, an example of which may be found in Scott’s “Lady of the Lake”—being chanted by hundreds of voices, accompanied by the bagpipes.
James I.after the Reformation introduced into Scotland bishops, and his son Charles I. attempted to force upon the Scottish church a book of canons and a liturgy. Both actions were regarded with strong aversion, and culminated in bitter strife. The king directed that on Sunday, July 23rd, 1637, the new service-book should be read in every parish church in Scotland. Before the appointed day arrived, opposition was manifest in all quarters, and few had the courage, even if they had the desire, to conduct their services from the new prayer-book.
On the eventful Sunday when the new order of service was to be formally introduced, the chief church of the capital of Scotland, the old Cathedral of St. Giles, was filled by an unusually large congregation. Among those present were two archbishops, several bishops, the lords chancellor and treasurer, privy council, judges, and magistrates. A large number of the humblepeople, composed chiefly of the wives of citizens and their maids, filled the body of the church. In those days no pews were in the church, and the poor-folk brought clasp-stools.
When Dean Hannay, attired in a surplice, commenced reading prayers from the service-book a riot arose which has seldom been equalled in the house of God. The Dean could not be heard for the clamour of many voices. The voice of a female—that of Jenny Geddes—was heard above others. She cried, “Out, out! does the false loon mean to say his black mass at my lug?” and then threw her stool at the Dean’s head.
This was the signal for a riot: an attempt was made to tear from the Dean his surplice, but he disengaged himself from it, and with difficulty made his escape. Hand-clapping, hisses, curses, &c., put an end to any attempt to conduct the service. The Bishop of Edinburgh attempted from the pulpit to restore order, but a stool was thrown at him, and, had not a friendly hand averted its course, doubtless he would have been seriously injured, or even killed. Stones and other missiles were thrown at the pulpit.
The Lord Chancellor, it is recorded, commanded the magistrates to call out the town-guard to drive the ringleaders from the church. The church was cleared of the rioters, but outside they battered the doors, broke the windows, cried out, “A Pope! A Pope!” “Antichrist!” “Stone him! Stone him!” The Dean tried to resume his reading, but the shouts of the multitude without drowned his voice.