FLEET MARRIAGES: The name applied to a class of clandestine and more or less irregular marriages performed by chaplains of the Fleet Prison in London during the seventeenth and first half of the eighteenth centuries. In order to regu late the disorders in regard to marriage which the Reformation had introduced, a law was passed under the Commonwealth (1653) permitting civil marriage before a justice of the peace. At the Restoration the earlier law was reestablished and strictly enforced; but clandestine marriages, avoid ing the regular alternatives of banns or license, were still possible, since there were a number of churches in which on the plea of exemption from episcopal jurisdiction, the law could be disregarded. The Fleet Prison, or the territory legally held to belong to it, was a favorite place for them marriages. Disreputable clergymen here made a trade of marrying all comers, without respect to the ful filment of any necessary conditions, and shameless competition among them led to the greatest lsaity. From 1666 various attempts were made to suppress the evil, but it rather increased, until it was possible for one abandoned man, named John Gayhan, who was technically a prisoner there from 1701 to' 1740, to boast that during that time he had performed 36,000 marriages. Finally in 1753 a bill was introduced into the House ef Lords by Hardwicke, the Lord Chancellor," for the better preventing of clandestine marriages," and became a law on June 6. Its working was not altogether satisfactory in detail, and later enactments, espe cially in 1823, were required to amend it, until a final settlement of all difficulties was made under William IV. in 1834 and 1836.

Bibliography: J. 8. Burn, The Fleet Registers, Comprising the History of Fleet Marriages, London, 1834: H. B. Op penheim, in ZICR, i (1881), 8-9; E. Friedberg, Dw Racht der Rluechiiessung. aoe-31o, 335-s36, Leipsic, lass: J. Ashton, Flat River, Prison, and Marriages, London. 1888.

FLEETWOOD, JOHN: The name, probably assumed, under which was issued The Life of . Jesus Christ . . . together with the Lives and Suf_ ferings of his Holy Apostles, Evangelists, and Other Primitive Martyrs (London, 1767 and often), a work which enjoyed great popularity until it was superseded by modern and more scholarly lives of Jesus. Two other volumes, The Christian's Prayer Book or Complete Manual of Devotions (London, t 1772) and The Christian's Dictionary (1775) are attributed to the same author.