ABSTRACT

In April of 1895, spectators disrupted a wedding at St. Mark’s Church, North Audley-street, London. The groom, Theodore Brinckman, had been identified as the guilty party in an undefended divorce suit. When the engagement of Mr. Brinckman to Miss Linton, the stepdaughter of Lord Aylesford, was publicized, several ‘Churchmen’ petitioned the Bishop of London not to allow the ceremony to take place in a church. After the Bishop of London declined to reply to those petitions, representatives of the English Church Union decided to stage a public protest. Father William Black, the most vocal of the group, protested when the bridal party took their places at the chancel. When the Reverend Ker Gray, who was officiating, said ‘If any man can show any just cause why they may not lawfully be joined together, let him now speak’, Father Black attempted to read a statement that ‘one of the parties has his canonical wife living, and . . . therefore his marriage with any other person is contrary to the law of God and to the doctrine and discipline of the Church of England’. The interruption caused a commotion and evoked expressions of sympathy for the bride. The Reverend Ker Gray stated that he had the Bishop’s mandate, and concluded the service. Police outside the church controlled the crowd, but the protesters were loudly hissed as they departed. 1

Remarriage after divorce in the Church of England was once controversial enough to evoke such public protest. Guided by the injunction in the Gospel of Mark, ‘What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder’ (Mark 10:9), the post-Reformation Anglican Church, through the ecclesiastical courts, enforced the view that marriage was indissoluble. That position, however, became more difficult to maintain after the Divorce Act of 1857 made divorce available in English secular courts. Although the statute clearly indicated that marriages could be legally dissolved, the Church continued to define marriage as a lifelong union.