Dashing marriages forged at Gretna Green

Otago Daily Times

3 days ago

In a small, unassuming village in the Scottish Borders, there's an old blacksmith's shop with an anvil over which countless lovers have pledged their love and commitment.
I first visited Gretna Green some 10 years ago, on a daytrip from Edinburgh University. To be frank, I was rather underwhelmed by the sleepy hamlet.
I had, of course, encountered Gretna Green in Jane Austen novels and my favourite period drama Downton Abbey, but the true significance of this sleepy hamlet was lost on my 19-year-old self. At the time, I couldn't imagine wanting to marry someone so desperately I'd make a mad rush across the country in order to do so.
In 1753, England passed the Marriage Act (aka Lord Hardwicke's Act), which required parental consent for couples under the age of 21 who wished to wed. This legislation was a bid to crack down on clandestine and impulsive marriages, and decreed that all marriages had to be performed by a clergyman in a church after banns were read, or with a special licence.
You see, there was something of a moral crisis taking place in England in the mid-18th century — too many young people were marrying in haste, secrecy or rebellion. Fortune-hunters were on the prowl, and far too many marriages were performed without banns or blessings, to the shock and horror of the church.
Scotland however was far looser — boys could marry at 14, girls at 12, and crucially, no parental consent was required.
Marriage was as simple as a couple declaring themselves husband and wife in front of two witnesses. No church required, no priest, no paperwork, no complications.
And so, this quiet little village, the first across the border on the main coach route from London to Edinburgh, came to represent love and freedom for untold star-crossed lovers over the centuries.
In Scotland, almost anybody had the authority to conduct the marriage ceremony. In Gretna Green, enterprising blacksmiths set themselves up as "anvil priests", performing thousands of marriages over the anvil in their workshops. The anvil, already connoting union and strength, became the ceremonial centrepiece of the whole affair.
One such anvil priest, a fellow called Richard Rennison, charged a fee of £1 per marriage (although was known to earn up to £20 for a ceremony), and married some 5147 couples between 1926 and 1940.
There were, of course, several attempts to block the phenomenon of Gretna Green marriages. In 1855, a Newcastle MP complained bitterly about Scotland's marriage laws, accusing the Gretna Green dash of "lowering the habits, injuring the character and destroying the morality of the people of the northern counties of England".
He had his way; a year later, Lord Brougham introduced an act which required a "cooling-off" period of 21 days' residency in the parish in which a couple wished to marry. Then in 1940, the institution of "marriage by declaration" was outlawed in Scotland.
In 1977, English couples could finally get married without parental consent at the age of 18.
Gretna Green's reputation as a romantic frontier flourished in novels, plays and salacious tabloid tales. In Pride and Prejudice, of course, the fickle and flighty Lydia Bennet elopes with the dastardly George Wickham, ostensibly to Gretna Green, although later the naughty couple is found cohabitating in London, having failed to travel to Scotland.
Interestingly, Austen wrote the first draft of Pride and Prejudice in 1797 (although it wasn't published until 1813); clearly, she did not feel the need to explain to her readers what the phrase connoted. Gretna Green became a firm fixture in the public imagination, representing youthful rebellion, the power of love over law and custom, romantic risk and a sense of urgency.
Eloping to Gretna Green wasn't all sunshine and rainbows, however. Some couples fled there to escape arranged marriages, scandal or even legal trouble.
For others, the elopement brought down a heap of shame and disgrace on their families, and it wasn't uncommon for angry fathers to set out in pursuit of the couples, ready to kill or be killed in order to reclaim their daughters' honour.
For many young women, the promise of Gretna Green never eventuated. Lured by promises of eternal love and marriage, they were seduced in roadside inns and abandoned before reaching the border. Those couples that did successfully wed at Gretna Green often returned with stained reputations; their wedding vows deemed as grubby as the soot-covered blacksmith who had officiated the ceremony.
Quite a few notable marriages took place at Gretna Green. One such pairing was that between Sarah Anne Child and John Fane, 10th Earl of Westmorland, which took place on May 20, 1782. Sarah Anne's irate father, Robert Child, pursued the couple all the way from London to Gretna Green, but was unable to prevent the marriage.
When questioned by her parents as to why she wanted to marry John Fane, Sarah Anne said: "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush." (Honestly, she sounds hilarious). Unfortunately for Sarah Anne, her father cut her off completely, and directed his fortune to his eldest granddaughter, Sarah Child Villiers, Countess of Jersey.
Gretna Green is still a cherished wedding location, although not as a refuge for desperate teenagers, but for couples who want their wedding to mean something more.
I've always joked that if I were to get married, my ideal wedding would take place in Las Vegas, under flickering neon lights, in front of an Elvis impersonator.
But increasingly, the idea of a quick elopement to Gretna Green attracts me — the charming simplicity of pledging eternal love and faithfulness over an anvil, far from the madding crowd is something quite pleasant and peaceful.
I'm chronically single, so it doesn't matter anyway. But who knows what the future holds?
I'll be sure to let you know, but don't expect an invitation.
— Jean Balchin is an ODT columnist who has started a new life in Edinburgh.