and destroyed prisoners for debt, treating them in the most barbarous and cruel manner, in high violation and contempt of the laws of this kingdom.” He was committed to Newgate, and an act was passed to prevent his enjoying the office of warden or any other office whatsoever. The liberties or rules of the Fleet were the limits within which particular prisoners were allowed to reside outside the prison walls on observing certain conditions.
Fleet Marriages.—By the law of England a marriage was recognized as valid, so long as the ceremony was conducted by a person in holy orders, even if those orders were not of the Church of England. Neither banns nor licence were necessary, and the time and place were alike immaterial. Out of this state of the marriage law, in the period of laxness which succeeded the Commonwealth, resulted innumerable clandestine marriages. They were contracted at first to avoid the expenses attendant on the public ceremony, but an act of 1696, which imposed a penalty of £100 on any clergyman who celebrated, or permitted another to celebrate, a marriage otherwise than by banns or licence, acted as a considerable check. To clergymen imprisoned for debt in the Fleet, however, such a penalty had no terrors, for they had “neither liberty, money nor credit to lose by any proceedings the bishop might institute against them.” The earliest recorded date of a Fleet marriage is 1613, while the earliest recorded in a Fleet register took place in 1674, but it was only on the prohibition of marriage without banns or licence that they began to be clandestine. Then arose keen competition, and “many of the Fleet parsons and tavern-keepers in the neighbourhood fitted up a room in their respective lodgings or houses as a chapel,” and employed touts to solicit custom for them. The scandal and abuses brought about by these clandestine marriages became so great that they became the object of special legislation. In 1753 Lord Hardwicke’s Act (26 Geo. ii. c. 33) was passed, which required, under pain of nullity, that banns should be published according to the rubric, or a licence obtained, and that, in either case, the marriage should be solemnized in church; and that in the case of minors, marriage by licence must be by the consent of parent or guardian. This act had the effect of putting a stop to these clandestine marriages, so far as England was concerned, and henceforth couples had to fare to Gretna Green (q.v.).
The Fleet Registers, consisting of “about two or three hundred large registers” and about a thousand rough or “pocket” books, eventually came into private hands, but were purchased by the government in 1821, and are now deposited in the office of the registrar-general, Somerset House. Their dates range from 1686 to 1754. In 1840 they were declared not admissible as evidence to prove a marriage.
Authorities.—J. S. Burn, The Fleet Registers; comprising the History of Fleet Marriages, and some Account of the Parsons and Marriage-house Keepers, &c. (London, 1833); J. Ashton, The Fleet: its River, Prison and Marriages (London, 1888).
FLEETWOOD, CHARLES (d. 1692), English soldier and
politician, third son of Sir Miles Fleetwood of Aldwinkle,
Northamptonshire, and of Anne, daughter of Nicholas Luke of
Woodend, Bedfordshire, was admitted into Gray’s Inn on the
30th of November 1638. At the beginning of the Great Rebellion,
like many other young lawyers who afterwards distinguished
themselves in the field, he joined Essex’s life-guard, was wounded
at the first battle of Newbury, obtained a regiment in 1644 and
fought at Naseby. He had already been appointed receiver of
the court of wards, and in 1646 became member of parliament
for Marlborough. In the dispute between the army and parliament
he played a chief part, and was said to have been the
principal author of the plot to seize King Charles at Holmby,
but he did not participate in the king’s trial. In 1649 he was
appointed a governor of the Isle of Wight, and in 1650, as
lieutenant-general of the horse, took part in Cromwell’s campaign
in Scotland and assisted in the victory of Dunbar. The next
year he was elected a member of the council of state, and being
recalled from Scotland was entrusted with the command of the
forces in England, and played a principal part in gaining the
final triumph at Worcester. In 1652 he married [1] Cromwell’s
daughter, Bridget, widow of Ireton, and was made commander-in-chief
in Ireland, to which title that of lord deputy was added.
The chief feature of his administration, which lasted from
September 1652 till September 1655, was the settlement of the
soldiers on the confiscated estates and the transplantation of
the original owners, which he carried out ruthlessly. He showed
also great severity in the prosecution of the Roman Catholic
priests, and favoured the Anabaptists and the extreme Puritan
sects to the disadvantage of the moderate Presbyterians, exciting
great and general discontent, a petition being finally sent in for
his recall.
Fleetwood was a strong and unswerving follower of Cromwell’s policy. He supported his assumption of the protectorate and his dismissal of the parliaments. In December 1654 he became a member of the council, and after his return to England in 1655 was appointed one of the major-generals. He approved of the “Petition and Advice,” only objecting to the conferring of the title of king on Cromwell, became a member of the new House of Lords; and supported ardently Cromwell’s foreign policy in Europe, based on religious divisions, and his defence of the Protestants persecuted abroad. He was therefore, on Cromwell’s death, naturally regarded as a likely successor, and it is said that Cromwell had in fact so nominated him. He, however, gave his support to Richard’s assumption of office, but allowed subsequently, if he did not instigate, petitions from the army demanding its independence, and finally compelled Richard by force to dissolve parliament. His project of re-establishing Richard in close dependence upon the army met with failure, and he was obliged to recall the Long Parliament on the 6th of May 1659. He was appointed immediately a member of the committee of safety and of the council of state, and one of the seven commissioners for the army, while on the 9th of June he was nominated commander-in-chief. In reality, however, his power was undermined and was attacked by parliament, which on the 11th of October declared his commission void. The next day he assisted Lambert in his expulsion of the parliament and was reappointed commander-in-chief. On Monk’s approach from the North, he stayed in London and maintained order. While hesitating with which party to ally his forces, and while on the point of making terms with the king, the army on the 24th of December restored the Rump, when he was deprived of his command and ordered to appear before parliament to answer for his conduct. The Restoration therefore took place without him. He was included among the twenty liable to penalties other than capital, and was finally incapacitated from holding any office of trust. His public career then closed, though he survived till the 4th of October 1692.
FLEETWOOD, WILLIAM (1656–1723), English divine, was
descended of an ancient Lancashire family, and was born in the
Tower of London on New Year’s Day 1656. He received his
education at Eton and at King’s College, Cambridge. About
the time of the Revolution he took orders, and was shortly
afterwards made rector of St Austin’s, London, and lecturer of
St Dunstan’s in the West. He became a canon of Windsor in
1702, and in 1708 he was nominated to the see of St Asaph, from
which he was translated in 1714 to that of Ely. He died at
Tottenham, Middlesex, on the 4th of August 1723. Fleetwood
was regarded as the best preacher of his time. He was accurate
in learning, and effective in delivery, and his character stood
deservedly high in general estimation. In episcopal administration
he far excelled most of his contemporaries. He was a
zealous Hanoverian, and a favourite with Queen Anne in spite
of his Whiggism. His opposition to the doctrine of non-resistance
brought him into conflict with the tory ministry of 1712 and with
Swift, but he never entered into personal controversy.
His principal writings are—An Essay on Miracles (1701); Chronicum preciosum (an account of the English coinage, 1707); and Free Sermons (1712), containing discourses on the death of Queen Mary,
- ↑ He had lost his first wife, Frances Smith; and later he had a third wife, Mary, daughter of Sir John Coke and widow of Sir Edward Hartopp.
