Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7fkt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T23:26:33.676Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Marriage among the English Nobility in the 16th and 17th Centuries1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 June 2009

Lawrence Stone
Affiliation:
Wadham College, Oxford

Extract

In this paper an attempt is made to study the marriage customs and family relationships of the titular peerage and the 500 or so leading county families who together formed the dominant political and social grouping of Tudor and Stuart England. Generalisations here made apply only to this restricted class and not necessarily to those below it. When it comes to be investigated, the behaviour of the lesser gentry, the yeomanry, the peasantry and the merchants may well show significant differences from the model set by their betters.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Society for the Comparative Study of Society and History 1961

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

2 The Sermons of John Donne, ed. Simpson, E. M. and Potter, G. R., IX (Los Angeles, 1958), p. 59Google Scholar.

3 Boughton House, Buccleuch MSS, U.W. 27/63. History of Northumberland, IV, p. 415; X, p. 285Google Scholar. Surtees, R., The County Palatine of Durham, 18161840, II, p. 7 n. 1, P.C.C., 12 WellesGoogle Scholar.

4 Cal S. P. Colonial, East Indies, 1513–1616, p. 335.

5 Fuller, T., The Worthies of England, 1662, p. 234Google Scholar.

6 See, for example, P.C.C., 22 Nevill, 51 Stafforde, 23 Dorset, 54 Saville, 91 Ridley, 70 Seager. For the 1603 Canons, see Gibson, E., Codex Juris Ecclesiastici Anglicani. 1761, p. 421Google Scholar.

7 Cal. of Wynn Papers, 1926, no. 2011.

8 P.C.C., 12 Babington.

9 Wilkins, G., The Miseries of Inforst Marriage, 1607 and 1611Google Scholar. Marston, J., The Scourge of Villainy, bk. I, Satyre iiGoogle Scholar. Strong, S. A., A Catalogue… of Documents at Welbeck, 1903, p. 195Google Scholar.

10 Harl, B. M.. MSS 7582 f. 53v. Dudley Lord North, A Forest of Varieties, II (1645), p. 141Google Scholar.

11 Stockwood, J., A Bartholmew Fairing, 1589, p. 76Google Scholar. Wright, L. B., Middle-Class Culture in Elizabethan England (Chapel Hill, 1935), pp. 208–9, 217–23, 484, 505–7Google Scholar. Thomas, K., “The Double Standard”, Journal of the History of Ideas, XX (1959Google Scholar).

12 Habakkuk, H. J., “Marriage Settlements in the Eighteenth Century”, T.R.H.S., 4th Series, XXXII (1950)Google Scholar; and his preface to Finch, M. E., Five Northamptonshire Families, 1956, pp. XVXVIIIGoogle Scholar.

13 Quoted by Hill, C., Puritanism and Revolution, 1958, p. 35Google Scholar.

13a Under these circumstances the increased size of families which must have accompanied the remarkable growth of population of the late sixteenth century would itself have upset the balance, by producing a larger number of marriageable daughters, but relatively few more heirs male with whom to match them. This factor alone would go far to explain the increase in the size of portions.

14 See Habakkuk, H. J., “Marriage Settlements in the Eighteenth Century”, T.R.H.S., 4th Series, XXXII (1950)Google Scholar.

15 Osborne, F., Advice to a Son, 5th ed. (1656), pp. 5051, 66Google Scholar.

16 Peck, F., Desiderata Curiosa, I, i, pp. 6366Google Scholar.

17 L. B. Wright, op. cit., ch. VII. Boughton House, Buccleuch MSS, N.C. 13/2. Waterhouse, E., The Gentlemans Monitor, 1665, p. 383Google Scholar.

18 F. Osborne, op. cit., p. 67. H. M. C. Hastings MSS, IV, p. 332Google Scholar.

19 H. M. C. Finch MSS, I, p. 21Google Scholar.

20 Winwood, R., Memorials of Affairs of State, 1725, II, p. 43Google Scholar. Cf. Pepys, S., Diary, 31 07, 1665Google Scholar.

21 For the legal position, see E. Gibson, op. cit., I. pp. 445–7. The peer was the Marquis of Northampton.

22 Advice to his Son, by Henry ninth Earl of Northumberland, pp. 55–6. Cogan, T., The Haven of Health, 1589, pp. 242, 249Google Scholar. H. M. C. Hastings MSS, IV, p. 333Google Scholar. See also Niccoles, A., “A discourse of Marriage and Wiving”, 1615 (Harl. Misc., II, p. 148Google Scholar).

23 Halliwell, J. O., Autobiography of Sir Simonds d'Ewes, I, p. 319Google Scholar

24 Smyth, J., Lives of the Berkeleys, I, pp. 224–5Google Scholar.

25 Papers of the Royal Commission on Population, 1950, IV, pp. 35–8Google Scholar. Family Doctor, September, 1959.

26 Peller, S., “Studies in Mortality since the Renaissance”, Bull. Hist. Med., XIII (1943), p. 457Google Scholar.

27 Hunter, J., South Yorkshire, II, p. 143, n. 1Google Scholar.

28 Krause, J. T., “The Implications of recent Research into Demographic History”, Comparative Studies in Society and History, I (19581959Google Scholar). Navarro, J. Huarte, The Examination of Men's Wits, 1594, pp. 296, 319Google Scholar. Grosart, A. B., Lismore Papers, 2nd Ser., IV, p. 83Google Scholar. Bodl Rawlinson MSS Poet. 26 f. lv (I owe this reference to Mr. Julian Mitchell). S. Peller, op. cit., XXI (1947), pp. 57–8.

29 Sackville-West, V., Diary of Lady Anne Clifford, 1923, p. 17Google Scholar.

30 Quoted by Thomas, Keith, “Women and the Civil War Sects”, Past and Present, 13 (1958), p. 57CrossRefGoogle Scholar.