FLEET MARRIAGES. 716 FLEETWOOD. FLEET MARRIAGES. Irregular and clan- destine marriages, celebrated in the Fleet Prison and vicinity toward the end of the seventeenth and during the eighteenth century. The Fleet Prison naturally had its chapel where regular marriages could be contracted; and there is no reason for believing that the earliest recorded marriages in the Fleet (1613-74) were in any way irregular. But in the latter half of the sev- enteenth century clandestine marriages became very common in England, owing to the great ex- pense of the public ceremony. In many of the churches marriages were performed without li- cense or banns. By an act of 1696 (17 and 18 Wm. III., e. 35 sees. 2-3) a penalty of £100 was imposed upon any clergyman who married or permitted another to marry couples otherwise than by banns or license. This act partially checked clandestine marriages in the Fleet Chapel, but it had no restraining influence upon the debtor clergymen of the prison, for whom the penalty of a fine could have no terrors. Accordingly it came to be common for those who desired to be married in secret to resort to the Fleet. Irregular clergymen and even laymen gathered in the vicinity to share in the business of performing marriage ceremonies. They opened offices in ale-houses and barber-shops, and em- ployed 'pliers' or 'touts' to secure the custom of those desiring their services. A scandalous com- petition arose in which these clergymen strove to outdo one another in laxity, in order to increase their business. Registers of marriages were kept and manipulated to suit the desire of the con- tracting parties. Youths were enticed into mar- riage with persons of low degree ; bigamous mar- riages were connived at by the clergyman who thus gained an additional fee. The abuses of the system, in short, would be beyond credence were they not attested by a vast amount of evidence. These marriages were not illegal, since before the Act 26 Geo. II., c. 33, there was no neces- sity in England for any religious ceremonial in the performance of a marriage, which might be contracted by mere verbal consent. But those who had contracted a Fleet marriage had no evidence of the fact. The Fleet parsons kept reg- isters, indeed, but they were so notoriously falsi- fied that they were not received as evidence in courts of law (Doe I. Davies vs. Gatacre, 8 Carr and P., 578). Thus innocent parties were fre- quently involved in the greatest hardships. Fi- nally, conditions became so intolerable that it was necessary to sweep away the whole system. The 25 Geo. II., c. 33, declared void all marriages in England that should be solemnized otherwise than in a church or public chapel where banns had been published, unless under a special license. The Fleet marriage disappeared when this act went into force. Consult: Burn. History of Fleet Marriages: Ashton, The Fleet (London, 1.SS9I. FLEET PRISON. A celebrated London jail, which stood on the east side of Farringdon Street, on what was formerly called Fleet Market. The keeper of it was called the Warden of the Fleet. It derived its name from the Fleet, rivulet (so named from its rapidity), which flowed into the Thames. In 1842 the separate jurisdiction an- ciently vesled in the wardens of the Fleet and the Marshalsea was abolished, and their func- tions transferred to the Court of Queen's Bench, the Fleet being thenceforth known as the Queen's prison. The Fleet was the royal prison as far back as the twelfth century. The followers of Wat Tyler burned it in the reign of Richard II. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries it acquired a high historical interest from its hav- ing been the prison of the religious martyrs of the reigns of Mary and Elizabeth, and of the po- litical victims of the courts of the Star Chamber and High Commission in that of Charles 1. On the abolition of the Star Chamber, in 1641. the Fleet became a place of confinement for debtors and persons committed for contempt by the courts of Chancer}', Exchequer, and Common Pleas. During the eighteenth century it was the scene of every kind of atrocity and brutality, from the extortion of the keepers and the custom of permitting the warden to underlet it. The Fleet was several times rebuilt; the last building was erected after the burning of the older one in the Gordon riots of 1780, the predecessor of which had been de- stroyed in the great fire of London in 1666. Lat- terly it usually contained 250 prisoners, and kept ward of about 60 outdoor detenus for debt priv- ileged to live within the rules. See Debtor. FLEET STREET. An old street of London, which takes its name from the Fleet stream; formerly a favorite place for shows and now noted for its banking, newspaper, and printing offices. FLEET'WOOD, or FLEETWOOD-ON- WYRE. A seaport and military station in Lan- cashire, England, on the estuary of the Wyre, about twenty miles southwest of Lancaster (Map: England, C 3). It was founded in 1836, and is a favorite resort for sea-bathing. It has a fine harbor with extensive docks and an im- portant shipping trade. Population, in 1891, 9000; in 1901, 12,100. FLEETWOOD, Charles (?-1692). An Eng- lish Parliamentary soldier. He was studying at Gray's Inn at the outbreak of hostilities between Charles I. and the Parliamentary forces, and joined the latter, enrolling in 1642 as a private trooper in the life-guard of the Earl of Essex, but was promoted rapidly and was colonel of a regiment of horse at Naseby. In 1646 he entered the House of Commons, and took a prominent part in the quarrel between Parliament and the army in 1647, being one of the officers appointed by the army to treat with the Parliamentary commissioners. He took no part in the King's trial, but accompanied Cromwell to Scotland in 1650, participated in the battle of Dunbar, and as a lieutenant-general commanded the cavalry at the defeat of Charles II. at Worcester, in 1651. In 1052 he married Cromwell's daughter, Brid- get, the widow of Ireton, and was made com- mander-in-chief of the Parliamentary forces in Ireland, which position he retained until 1655, the last year with the rank of Lord Deputy. He ardently supported the proclamation of the Pro- tectorate. His rule in Ireland was not a success, and Cromwell recalled him in 1655, although he continued to hold the title of Lord Deputy until succeeded by Henry Cromwell in 1657. In 1655 Fleetwood was one of the major-generals ap- pointed to look after the interior administra- tion of the realm. He opposed the proposal to make Cromwell King, was a member of the newly constituted House of Lords, and supported the Protector in all his later quarrels with Parlia- ment. After Cromwell's death he was accused
