Easier than Gretna Green

Maria Grace author photoRelevant History welcomes Regency romance author Maria Grace, who has her PhD in Educational Psychology and is a sixteen-year veteran of the university classroom, where she taught courses in human growth and development, learning, test development and counseling. None of which have anything to do with her undergraduate studies in economics/sociology/managerial studies/behavior sciences. She blogs at Random Bits of Fascination—mainly about her fascination with Regency era history and its role in her fiction. Her newest novel, The Trouble to Check Her, was released March 2016. To learn more about her and her books, visit her group blog, and follow her on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and Pinterest.

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Edmund Blair Leighton "The Elopement"A couple eloping to Grenta Green is a fairly common plot device for romances set in the early 1800s. But why was it done (other than because it sounds really romantic), and what cheaper, easier alternatives were at hand for a couple inclined to elope?

The Hardwicke Act
Starting with the ‘why’: Marriage back at the start of the 1800s was pretty different than it is today. For many years marriage only required words of consent uttered by the parties involved (at least age fourteen for men and twelve for women) in front of two witnesses.

While that approach made things fairly simple, it proved a record-keeping nightmare as there was no real way to prove a marriage did or did not exist. To rectify this dilemma, the Hardwicke Act of 1753 stipulated:

* A couple needed a license or the reading of the banns to marry
* Parental consent if either was under the age of twenty one
* The ceremony must take place within a public chapel or church, by authorized clergy
* The marriage must be performed between eight a.m. and noon before witnesses
* The marriage had to be recorded in the marriage register with the signatures of both parties, the witnesses, and the minister.

Usually parental consent was the fly in the ointment, but sometimes, the reading of the banns might raise an objection. Perhaps one of the parties was promised to marry another, or worse, had already married another. Either could put a crimp on a young couple’s plans.

An obvious solution might be to go somewhere else to get married, like perhaps Scotland. Scottish law merely required two witnesses and a minimum age of sixteen for both parties. (Of course for now, we’ll ignore the fact that whether or not Scottish marriages were legally valid in England was a matter of some debate.)

Gretna Green was just nine miles from the last English staging post at Carlisle and just one mile over the border with Scotland. The town took advantage of the situation and made something of a business in quick marriages, not unlike Los Vegas today. Hence, it was known for elopements, and it became a favorite plot device.

The Trouble with Gretna Green
If it was so simple and convenient, why not go to Gretna Green to marry? Barring the fact that elopements were a good way to get ostracized from good society, there were practical considerations that made it unsuitable for many.

Off to Gretna GreenGretna Green is three hundred twenty miles from London, the largest British population center of the early 1800s. My local highways boast an 80 or 85 mile-per-hour speed limit, so I can travel that distance in half a day, no bother. In the early 1800s those speeds were unheard of. Most people walked. Everywhere. Only the very wealthy had horses and carriages of their own.

If one were moderately well off, they might purchase tickets on a public conveyance to go long distances. While better than walking, one could still only expect to travel five to seven miles per hour. Traveling twelve hours a day, with only moderate stops to change horses and deal with personal necessities, the trip would take about four days.

Four days packed in a carriage with as many other people as the proprietors could squeeze into the space and more sitting on top of the coach.

A lovely, romantic picture, yeah?

Luckily, Gretna Green was not the only option. Other locations were available to facilitate a clandestine marriage. Towns along the eastern borders of Scotland, like Lamberton, Paxton, Mordington, and Coldstream also catered to eloping couples. In some cases, the toll-keepers along the road provided the marriages at the tollhouses.

From the south, those willing to sail might go to Southampton, Hampshire and purchase passage to the Channel Islands. The Isle of Guernsey in particular provided another alternative for a quick marriage.

Far simpler and closer to home
A far less romantic but simpler, cheaper and closer to home alternative existed. All a couple really had to do was have their banns read for three consecutive weeks in a church, then have the ceremony performed.

In a large urban center, like London, parishes could be huge and the clergy hard-pressed to verify each couple’s age and residency. If a couple could manage to get to a large town, or better London itself, they could lose themselves in the crowd and get married the conventional way, and their families were unlikely to get word of it in time to prevent anything.

After such a wedding occurred, the only recourse an aggrieved parent had was to go to the church where the banns had been called and challenge that the banns had been mistaken or even fraudulent. The process was public, inconvenient and embarrassing and thus not very common.

Despite a Gretna Green (or other Scottish) elopement being a romantic idyll, marrying in a big city parish was by far the most likely way young people married against their parents’ wishes.

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The Trouble to Check Her book cover imageA big thanks to Maria Grace. She’ll give away an ebook copy of The Trouble to Check Her to two people who contribute comments on my blog this week. I’ll choose the winners from among those who comment by Friday at 6 p.m. ET.

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Comments

Easier than Gretna Green — 28 Comments

  1. They would have to live in town for three weeks without being married which was scandalous. The trip to Scotland would take about 4 days by post chaise, still scandalous but less so. People who were already living in town could s have the banns read in a different parish and hope no one who knew them heard or saw the posting. Waiting for the wind and tide delayed trips to the channel islands. they weren’t considered safe during the war. The trip there and back could take longer than the trip to Scotland and could be much more uncomfortable if one got sea sick or if the weather and water was rough.
    Every town and village in Scotland was a place where one could marry by declaration but in some one had to find a person to give them a certificate attesting to their union. Poorer people who lived in London did often use a different parish though a father had his son’s marriage annulled for doing so when the boy was around 15 and the woman was an adult and the move was done because the father didn’t approve of his rich son marrying a maidservant.

  2. Interesting. In the book I’m currently reading (The Painter’s Daughter by Julie Klassen), the characters go to Guernsey to elope, although the couple is not in love.
    Maria – so far, I’ve only read a few of your novellas, but I really liked them.

  3. It certainly is not as simple as so many books make it seem, and I’m sure a lot of young people embarked in the journey without full knowledge of what they were fetting into.

    • I think we really fail to recognize just how difficult travel was in those days. Thanks, June!

  4. I love historic information like this. Makes the stories even better! Thanks for that.

  5. Been to Gretna Green (when living in Scotland) and never appealed to me as somewhere to get married

    • I hope to get there one of these days, mostly to say I’ve been. Thanks, Vesper!

  6. Thank you so much for the research and history behind the 18th century marriage laws. I love knowing these things and how it enriches the stories.

    • It really does change perspective when you take a look at the practical considerations, doesn’t it?

  7. The reminder of the reality of travel at that time reminds me of the discussion between Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy when he says that 50 miles of good road is easy while Elizabeth believes that 50 miles is not easy or convenient.

    • That kind of travel was much more convenient if one had their own transportation which required a pretty hefty income. Even Longbourn did no have dedicated carriage horses, but shared them with the farm. So there travel had to ben worked around the farm needs.

  8. I enjoyed reading this. I’ve read many historical romances in which the couple eloped to Gretna Green. It sounded much more do-able in those novels, than in your commentary. LOL

    • That’s one of the things with fiction, you can kind of gloss over some of the facts when they don’t fit the plot! LOL It can be very frustrating when the facts don’t line up with what your plot needs!

  9. This is really interesting. I didn’t know about the Guernsey alternative. I’d like to know more about the reading of the banns–was this something that was stuck in at the end of a sermon? I visualize some poor pastor with a list a yard long at the end of fire and brimstone preaching, with: “First reading, Delauncey and Merriweather, Stake and Milton, Wilberfource and… what IS this? Mc.. Kennick? Kenna? Something Scottish. Don’t know why they didn’t go home. Second reading: Ashton and Frakes, Devon and Wiley…”

    • The reading of the banns was formal and specified. The form of solemnization of matrimony said:
      First the Banns of all that are to be married together must be published in the Church three several Sundays, during the time of Morning Service, or of Evening Service, (if there be no Morning Service,) immediately after the second Lesson; the Curate saying after the accustomed manner,

      I PUBLISH the Banns of Marriage between M. of _____ and N. of _____. If any of you know cause, or just impediment, why these two persons should not be joined together in holy Matrimony, ye are to declare it. This is the first [second, or third] time of asking.

      I rather like your interpretation though…;)