The Sun.
London, England, 1849-02-22 00:00:00

THURSDAY EVENING,

on this subject, it was not without the deepest study
which he could give to it, and the most mature dAiber
tion, that h had boin induced to bring in the Bill. In
1842 a Noble Lord, who was now a member
of another llouse (Lord Ellesmere), and than whom
there was no more true and faithful adherent
of the Church, introduced the question before the House,
but upon that occasion it refused to sanction the measure,
although the Noble Lord received a great deal of support.
The discussion upon that occasion tended to bring the
matter more prominently before the public, and there was
a general conviction that the law ought to be altered
If there had previously been any doubt entertained as to
the illegality of the marriages to which this Bill referred,
it had been entirely removed by the decision of the
Queen's Bench, which rendered them altogether null and
void. That decision would affect persons in
high situations of life as well as persons in
a lower station. So far from the general body of the
people having acquiesced in the present law, they had
extensively avoided it, and the law had tended to the
immorality of the lower classes, and to their making
false declarations. In consequence of various petitions
having been presented from parties interested in the
question, and from others who had no more interest in
it than as a matter of social feeling, and also from a
considerable body of the Established Church, a great
quantity of evidence had been collected of
which the House was already in possession.
He thought, therefore, he was justified in saying that
with the exception of himself a better qualified body
of commissioners could not have been selected.
Those selected were entitled by their position
and their acquirements, to command public
confidence and respect. At the head of it was the Right
Rev. Prelate, of the highest character in that church;
next there was Dr. Lushington, second to no man in au -
thority, the lamented Mr. Blake, a member of the Roman
Catholic body, and commanding, therefore, their confi-
dence, Mr. Justice Vaughan, the Lord Advocate, whose
knowledge of the marriage law of Scotland was very
great, and himself: He might say, therefore, with
perfect confidence, that with the exception of himself,
the Commissioners had their minds most perfectly open
to the matters into which they had been appointed to
inquire and report upon. Their report contained no
propositions with respect to the alteration of the
law, for this simple reason, that it was no part of the
task assigned to them to do. They simply confined their
attention to the collection of facts. He appre-
hended that no one would say that any of the
Commissioners had put their hands to the re-
port without being fully convinced that an alter-
ation of the. present law should take place. He
had, therefore, the testimony of the high
authorities he had mentioned that some relaxation
. of the law was necessary. The measure which he in-
' tended to propose dealt with marriage with a deceased
wife's sister, or with a neice ; and it merely partook of
a permissive character. There was nothing, however, in
it, that would do violence to the feelings of any one. The
marriage of two brothers with two sisters had been long
permitted. Up to 1835 the marriages dealt with in this
Bill were practically permitted. Unless property or a title
was involved in any such marriage, no process took
place with respect to them. There was no danger of
any proceedings being taken by parties contracting
such marriages. Accordingly, before the appointment
of the Commission, and the act of Lord Lyndhurst,
these marriages had been celebrated in every rank of
life. A small number had taken place among
the higher classes, a large number among the
middle classes, but a still greater number among the
industrious classes, whose poverty prevented them
from becoming acquainted with the state of the law.
Though these marriages had existed for years they
heard ofno complaints ; no petitions were presented against
them. He thought, therefore, he had a right to say that no
valid objection was urged against the continuance of the
system. But a case occurred in the hightst ranks of
lite which immediately attracted public attention, and
what was the consequence? Instead of the Legislature
reprobating that marriage in the higher classes of
lite, and enacting a measure against any such
for the future—(Hear)—a Bill was passed through
that House, and received the assent of the House of
Lords, including that of the Right Rev. Prelates, lega-
lising that marriage.—(Hear, hear.) The present re-
strictions could only be justified either on the ground that
such marriages were forbidden by the law of God, or that
some overwhelmning necessity rendered them necessary.
He should not, however, in that House enter into that
question, but with the important one, how far the
present law affected the social condition of the people.
After the corruptions of modern times and the middle
ages came councils, and canons innumerable were
made condemning this particular degree of
affinity, but condemning it with many more
which have since been established, as perfectly
legal by decisions of the House of Lords. St. Basil,
who was the founder of the Eastern Church, and the
founder of the monastic orders in that church, and was
a high authority on these subjects, in the fourth century
entered into a controversy with another bishop
of the Christian church who differed from him on the
practice of marriage between persons of that degree of
affinity. But undoubtedly this prohibition was imparted
into the canoe law, and it had been continued from the
time of the fourth century till the Reformation in England
The canon-law formed no part of the law of England,
except it was confimed by Act of Parliament. But,
although the law of England -said, if such a marriage
took place, and was not disturbed during the life
time of both the parties, it should be a valid
marriage to all intents and purposes; but if the
ecclesiastical law annulled that marriage, the law of
England acknowledged the authority of that court in
annulling the marriage.—(Hear, hear.) After the
authority of the Roman Oath( 'lit Church was established
in this country there came wi CI it all the canons of the
Romish Church, and that am ng many others. Such was
the state of the law until the reign of Henry VIII. From
that time those marriages had been forbidden down to
the Council of Trent; but they had been dispensed with
by the Roman Catholic Church, and in con-
s quence of • that power of dispensation it
was that Henry VIII. espoused Catherine
of Aragon, who was the wife of his deceased brother.
It was by the dispensation of the Pope that that mar-
riage took place, and the very ground of that dispensa-
tion was, that that marriage was not forbidden by the
law of God. Afterwards, when Henry was desirous
of marriage with Anne Boleyn, Archbishop Cranmer
wos instructed to procure the opinion of the highest
ecclesiastical authorities in this and foreign countries,
and Cranmer was convinced that the marriage was for-
bidders, and therefore he would not be responsible for it.
At that time the canon law was in so con-
fused and unsatisfactory a state that at the
time of the Reformation Cranmer undertook to revise
and regulate that canon law. The validity of Anne
Boleyn's marriage depended on the doctrine that mar•
riage with a deceased brother's wife was unlawful, and
the title of Queen Elizabeth to the throne depended on
that doctrine, and it was not to bo supposed that Cranmer
would have subscribed to that doctrine, unless he bad
been convinced of its overwhelming force and weight.
Uunder these circumstances, ho (Mr. Wortiey) said it
was that that table of prohibition was drawn up by
Archbishop Parker, which was now hung up in
the churches of this country, and sometimes
added to the Book of Common Prayer. It is univer-
sally acknowledged that that table was no part
of the Book of Common Prayer, and it
had been bound up with it for convenience sake.
There was just this difference between the working of
this limitation before the Reformation and after it—that
whereas before she Reformation there was a power of
dispensation from the results of illegal marriages, after
the Reformation the power of dispensation was gone. By
the Act—he believed it was 21st Hen. Vlll.—the power
of dispensation was transferred from the Pope to the
Archbishop of Canterbury, but the limits of this power
were unknown. The consequence of this, however, was,
that in all cases where the restriction was grievously
felt, and where inquiry showed that the marriage did
not interfere with the ascertained prescriptions of the law
of God, it was dispensed with. At any rate, thepower was
seldom exercised. He believed that the last time it
was used was in the reign of James /., in the year 1608,
and after that time all difficulties were referred to the
Ecclesiastical Courts until an Act of Parliament was
passed to regulate all the points which had been mooted
before the several tribunals, and the result was to esta-
blish a set of prinziples for • adjudicating on the laws of
marriage.—(Hear, hear.) By that law several kinds of
marriages were rendered .voidable, while others were
absolutely void. Marriages which were merely so far
as their morality was concerned were merely matters
of opinion, and come under the former category;
those which were contrary to the known will of God,
as declared in the pages of revelation, were included in
the second rule. Such was the state of the
law, and it led to great and grievous cruelties.--
(Hear, hear.) One instance he might mention, as he
had the facts on the high authority of his friend Dr.
Lushington. A gentleman had married a lady within
the restricted degrees of consanguinity and after they had
been married upwards of twenty years, and when
he had fallen into old age, the circumstance was taken
advantage of by a malicious relative, and the marriage
WAS declared void by the Ecclesiastical Courts,
and the children were illegitimatized and
the whole family after the father's death cast into po-
verty—(llear, hear.) Yet deep as was the injury felt
in many quarters, the evil received little notice until a
marriage without the restricted degrees took place
between persons in a high station of life (the family of
Downshire), and a Bill was introduced by Lord Lynd •
hurst, the object of which was certainly not to prevent
such marriages, as he was desirous of legalising
but in the course of the debate in the other House of
Parliament a suggestion was made, he believed, by
Lord Brougham, that these marriages should be
absolutely void. Unhappily, as he thought, this view
of' the case was adopted by the Bishops, and the Bill was
passed. But had it the effect desired? Certainly not, for
on inquiry by persons of the highest respectability, it
was found that it had altogether failed of its object.
now from such sources as these was their information
ostained, and he would direct the attention of the [louse
to the information itself, which was to be found in page
eight of the report. The inquiry was instituted in
1842, at the expense of some private individuals, for
the purpose of ascertaining the extent to which
the Act had been evaded. The inquiry was
limited to a period of less than three months, and
was comparatively a small portion of England, but the
district in which it was made was likely to afford a good
criterion of the extent of these prohibited marriages
throughout the whole country.—(Hear, hear.) The
inquiry was carried on fret in the manufacturing
portion of Lancashire and Yorkshire ; secondly,
in Norfolk and Suffolk ; thirdly, in Warwickshire
and Staffordshire, with the view of taking in Bir-
mingham and the Potteries ; fourthly, in part
of Hampshire; and, fifthly, in the towns
of Bristol, Bath, and Cheltenham. The information ob-
tained by the inquiry amounted to this, that 1,364
marriages within the prohibited degrees bad
been solemnized since the passing of Lord Lyndhurst's

1849.