MARRIED IN A FRISKY MODE: CLANDESTINE AND IRREGULAR MARRIAGES IN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY BRITAIN Summer Smith, B.A. Thesis Prepared for the Degree of MASTER OF ARTS UNIVERSITY OF NORTH TEXAS August 2016 APPROVED: Marilyn Morris, Major Professor Clark Pomerleau, Committee Member Walter Roberts, Committee Member Richard B. McCaslin, Chair of the Department of History David Holdeman, Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences Victor Prybutok, Vice Provost of the Toulouse Graduate School Smith, Summer. Married in a Frisky Mode: Clandestine and Irregular Marriages in Eighteenth Century Britain. Master of Arts (History), August 2016, 109 pp., 3 figures, bibliography, 153 titles. The practice of irregular and clandestine marriage ran rampant throughout Britain for centuries, but when the upper class felt they needed to reassert their social supremacy, marriage was one arena in which they sought to do so. The restrictions placed on irregular marriages were specifically aimed at protecting the elite and maintaining a separation between themselves and the lower echelon of society. The political, social, and economic importance of marriage motivated its regulation, as the connections made with the matrimonial bond did not affect only the couple, but their family, and, possibly, their country. Current historiography addresses this issue extensively, particularly in regards to Lord Hardwicke’s Marriage Act of 1753 in England. There is, however, a lack of investigation into other groups that influenced and were influenced by the English approach to clandestine marriage. The Scots, Irish, and British military all factor into the greater landscape of clandestine marriage in eighteenth-century Britain and an investigation of them yields a more complete explanation of marital practices, regulations, and reactions to both that led to and stemmed from Hardwicke’s Act. This explanation shows the commonality of ideas among Britons regarding marriage and the necessity of maintaining endogamous unions for the benefit of the elite. Copyright 2016 by Summer Smith ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Chapters 1. INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................................1 2. COMPARING IRREGULAR AND CLANDESTINE MARRIAGE IN SCOTLAND AND ENGLAND.......................................................................................................16 3. IRREGULAR AND CLANDESTINE MARRIAGE IN THE EARLY MODERN BRITISH MILITARY................................................................................................43 4. IRREGULAR AND CLANDESTINE MARRIAGE IN EIGHTEENTH-CENUTRY IRELAND……………………………………………………………………...……73 5. CONCLUSION………………………..………………………………………………94 BIBLIOGRAPHY .........................................................................................................................99 iii CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION In May 1782, Sarah Anne Child and John Fane began their journey to the most famous site associated with clandestine marriage in Britain, Gretna Green. Their impending marriage was put in peril when Sarah Anne’s father caught up to the couple and a gunfight ensued between Fane and Robert Child. The altercation would become memorialized by Thomas Rowlandson’s series of etchings depicting the events surrounding the Child-Fane marriage and become a famous example of clandestine marriage in eighteenth-century Britain. Clandestine marriages caused much debate in this era; children wanted to assert their power, parents wanted to retain theirs, and the elite struggled to enact legislation to prevent the popular method of marriage that was threatening their social structure. Matrimony shaped the social scene by allowing prominent families to gain and maintain elite status, so understanding the role of marriage as a social determinant and political tool is crucial to investigating the social hierarchy of Britain. Histories of marriage in Britain often center on England. Politically powerful and culturally influential, it is not surprising that historians would favor this country and its elite in their studies. However, the history of marriage in Britain also requires an investigation into the less popular realms of Ireland and Scotland. Even English histories lack a study of the marriages in marginalized groups, like the military. In order to understand the attitudes toward marriage of these groups and the English, it is necessary to understand the flow of ideas among them. The British military, being a necessarily British rather than English or Scottish institution, provides insight on ideas and regulations that shaped the population of Britain as a whole. Therefore, an investigation of this group lends itself to a better explanation of shared ideas between the two countries. The Anglo elite controlled Ireland, 1 making Irish legislation and regulations a reflection of English ideas even though the country was not technically part of Britain. The Scots not only shared an island, but a monarch and, after 1707, a parliament with the English, making their relationship a close one. With such strong ties between the two nations, an exchange of ideas was inevitable. Together, the three groups form a broader explanation of British ideas about class and status that their respective marital regulations reflect. In this thesis the “elite” will be defined as the titled classes of England, Scotland, and Ireland as well as the commissioned officers of the military, who often originate from the titled classes as well. Due to fluctuating understandings of class in the eighteenth century, at times the very wealthy will also be considered part of the elite group. An examination not only of England, but of these groups on the periphery, leads to a more complete explanation regarding not only English, but British attitudes toward irregular marriage, how to restrict it, and the responses of the public to these restrictions. Historians of gender and the family such as Lawrence Stone and Randolph Trumbach have written a great deal on the history of marriage in England, and rarely do they neglect to mention the Marriage Act of 1753 and its impact on the institution of matrimony.1 However, because they focus on England, these scholars do not endeavor to explore the acts that led to and precipitated from the 1753 Act outside of those applicable to the English peerage. While the Act of 1753 heavily influenced marriage, other legislation and other reactions to clandestine marriage deserve similar exploration for understanding motives and consequences of Hardwicke’s Act, as well as the common British ideas regarding clandestine marriage. For instance, while Rebecca Probert has explicitly shown that the English Parliament enforced the Act out of a desire to 1 Lawrence Stone, The Family, Sex and Marriage in England 1500-1800 (New York: Harper & Row, 1977); Randolph Trumbach, The Rise of the Egalitarian Family: Aristocratic Kinship and Domestic Relations in Eighteenth-Century England (New York: Academic Press, 1978). 2 control the marital habits of daughters, Leah Leneman has alternatively illustrated the desire to control sons in Scotland. Leneman has also shown the influence of Scottish courts on the Act, arguing that the case of Cochrane v. Campbell was the catalyst of its inception.2 The different, but similar concerns of Scotland and England regarding their children’s susceptibility to clandestine marriages is just one example of the different but similar ways that the Scottish and English contended with this marital issue. R.B. Outhwaite’s study of clandestine marriage does well to cover the history of Parliament’s efforts to make these secret marriages illegal in England, which began well before the Marriage Act finally passed in 1753.3 He not only discusses the legal debates leading up to the Act, but also the debates that led to the Marriage Act of 1836. Christopher Lasch similarly shows English efforts to enact regulations on irregular marriages prior to 1753.4 Rebecca Probert provides an excellent legal history that explains not only Hardwicke’s Act but also other legal issues regarding marriage law in Britain.5 However, a study of clandestine marriage in Britain that examines regulations enacted in Ireland or in the British military is in order, as these regulations are certainly linked to the English acts. The overviews of marriage Stone and Trumbach published in the late 1970s focused on England’s 1753 act. Scholars have started to develop the longer durée of marriage law 2 Rebecca Probert, “Control over Marriage in England and Wales, 1753-1823: The Clandestine Marriages Act of 1753 in Context,” Law and History Review 27, no. 2 (2009): 413- 450; Leah Leneman, “Marriage north of the border,” History Today 50, no. 4 (2000): 20-25; Leneman, “The Scottish Case That Led to Hardwicke’s Marriage Act,” Law and History Review 17, no. 1 (1999): 161-169. 3 R.B. Outhwaite, Clandestine Marriage in England 1500-1850 (London: The Hambledon Press, 1995). 4 Christopher Lasch, “The Suppression of Clandestine Marriage in England: The Marriage Act of 1753,” Salmagundi 26 (1974): 90-109. 5 Rebecca Probert, Marriage Law and Practice in the Long Eighteenth Century (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009). 3 enforcement in England and how rationales differed in Scotland and Wales. In this thesis I will continue that trajectory by drawing together the Scottish, Irish, and British military’s responses to clandestine marriage that precipitated Hardwicke’s Act. In showing the relationship between this 1753 Act and other responses to the Act,