“As I have seene upon a Bridall day, Full many maids clad in their best array, In honour of the Bride come with their Flaskets Fill’d full with flowers: others in wicker baskets Bring forth from the Marsh rushes, to o’erspread The ground whereon to Church the lovers tread; Whilst that the quaintest youth of all the Plaine Ushers their way with many a piping straine.” --_Brown’s “Pastorals,” written before 1614._ From the reign of Elizabeth to the Restoration of Charles II., the Presbyterian form of church government, with its rigorous discipline, prevailed in the Island, and the betrothal--“fiançailles”[42] of persons intending to take upon themselves the holy state of matrimony was a solemn act, performed in the presence of the ministers and elders of the church, and which by an ordinance of the Royal Court of the year 1572, was to be followed by marriage within six months at the latest. The legislature of that day evidently disapproved of long engagements. The promise was usually confirmed by a gift on the part of the bridegroom of some article of value, which was to be held by the bride as an earnest for the performance of the contract, and returned in case the match was broken off by mutual consent. Traces of this custom are still to be observed in the formal announcement of the engagement to relations, and in the visits paid to them by the young couple in order to introduce each other reciprocally to those with whom they are to be hereafter more closely connected, as well as in the importance attached to the presents, locally termed “gages”[43] (pledges) given by the young man to his affianced bride. A round of entertainments usually succeeds the announcement of the intended marriage, at which in former days mulled wine used to be “de rigueur,” as indeed it was at all family merry makings and occasions of rejoicings.