A Young Married Couple Excommunicated

CLANDESTINE MARRIAGE IN PEEL IN 1628.

In the September issue of the ‘Journal,’ pp. 220-221, there is an account of the excommunication of Robert Quaile of Patrick and Mary Lucas of the Castle Syde for their clandestine marriage’ on 23rd January, 1628. The ceremony it appears had taken place ‘ in a rash humour precipitantly assembled . . . at an unlawful time of ye night into ye house of William Corrine of Holme towne,’ and they were ‘ clandestinately married in ye presence of ye subsequent irregular congregations & contemptuous consociatione by Mr. Richard Stallman a pretended minister to ye Laudable Lawes and sacred ordinance of holy Church.’

After the parties had humbly confessed their fault, they were excommunicated by Bishop John Phillips in the following words:

Document No. 196.

Welwishinge.

You all men & women, sonnes & daughters of my kinde ifriends and neighboures in my Diocesse of this Isle, & being much aggreeved that you greeved against ye good of yor soules, our merciful God yor disorderly carriage:

These are first to Admonishe you, therefore enter to serious consideration with yorselves yt some of you whose names are underwritten to this monitione & processe, have drawn upon yorselves ipso facto ye fearefull & greevous sentence of Excomunicatione, onely yt uppon deliberate & compassionate consideration of your errors, & infyrmities, wee doe for ye time, for-beare to denounce you Excoffiunicated for a time w^ch shall nor must bee any longer delayed:

Again, others of you have countenanced & given way to these & the like disorders, as companions of ye evill, & are thereby enwrapped in ye like danger:

Others though under ye pretence of marrige, have defiled ye bed of marriage, as is both sinne and shame to hereof, besides many exorbitant sensualities hardly to be paralleled & unheard of in this Isle (unlesse we should draw in for example ye horse & mule without understanding, whereof the prophet David spake) All wch enormities being odious to God:

Therefore yt wee in our place, & charge, may doe our best, & uttermost endeavoures to redress such grosse abuses, & so to extirpate such weeds of impiety as cumber this poore countrey (some times tearmed An Holy Island or Blessed, witnesse ye Ancient name that Ellan Shiant).*

These are in ye name of God to pronounce you all excomunicated out of the Church & Christian Congregatione, & you are not to be admitted to ye company or prayers of the faithfull whiles you stand in this accursed state, unreconsyled by your penitential! repentance & without ye Churches absolutione as God doth authoryze her, wherefore least delay breeds further danger to yor soules especially, or greevous Scandall to our Church, state or faithfull Christian community.

I give commission & authority in my name to Sr Hugh Cannel!, priest, Viccar of KK Michaell, and (one of my principall officers for Ecclesiasticall causes) to denounce all & every of you ( after you have been once convented to be ipso facto excomunicated, & so stand of Record, yt so, & hereupon severall citations may be sent forth whereby a pub!icke warninge may be given to all ye faithfull, yt none presume (but such as are of yor own house meany or domesticks) to accompany wth you upon ye like danger yt yo^r selves lye under.

And therefore in further cautione, I hereby monish & appoint yt this escript of comissione, monitione, & decree be read and published in every parish Church & Chapple wthin this Isle as soone as convenient may be done, beginning first at our Cathredrall Church within ye Pee!e, then in ye Chapp!e in Holme towne, serving for both parishes, then in ye Chapple in Cast!etowne before ye Lieutenant & Governor & so from Church to Church & chapples throughout ye Isle where divine service is read by ye Ministers or Lycensed reader ( for publicke sinners & scandales ought to be pub!ickly notyfied & rebuked).

And this monitorie precept to be sent from minister to minister by ye sumner of ye parishes, & ye ministers accordingly to certify & our Episcopall Register to record this, and for more expeditions to examplyfie this & give coppies of ye service may have it speedier dispatch to ye glory of God, by suppressing of sinne by due censure for example sake to ye faithfull, to give some satisfaction to ye Church & country for so great & so scandalous an enormity & fact comitted.

In witness whereof wee have exemplyfied this our censure & decree under our Lesse Episcopall Seale, Wth subscriptions of our name this third of December, Anno Domini. 1628.

Jo : Sodor de Man. concordat cum decreto Teste me

Willm Cosnahan. Registry Office, Isle of Man.

*Ellan Shiant. Kelly, Manx Dic. states the Isle of Man was called yn Ellan Sheeaynt, the Holy Island.’