The marriage of children forms a curious feature in old English life. In the days of yore, to use the words of a well-informed writer on this theme, "babes were often mated in the cradle, ringed in the nursery, and brought to the church porch with lollipops in their mouths." Parents and guardians frequently had joined together in matrimony young couples, without any regard for their feelings. Down to the days of James I., the disposal in marriage of young orphan heiresses was in the hands of the reigning monarchs, and they usually arranged to wed them to the sons of their favourites, by whom unions with wealthy girls were welcomed. Edward I. favoured early marriages, and his ninth daughter, Eleanor, was only four days old, it is stated on good authority, "when her father arranged to espouse her to the son and heir of Otho, late Earl of Burgundy and Artois, a child in custody of his mother, the Duchess of Burgundy." Before she had reached the age of a year, the little princess was a spouse, but, dying in her sixth year, she did not attain the position of wife planned for her. Careful consideration is paid to early marriages in an able work by the late Rev. W. Denton, M.A., entitled "England in the Fifteenth Century" (London, 1888.) Mr. Denton says that the youthful marriages "probably originated in the desire of anticipating the Crown in its claim to the wardship of minors, and the disposal of them in marriage. As deaths were early in those days, and wardship frequent, a father sought by the early marriage of his son or daughter to dispose of their hands in his lifetime, instead of leaving them to be dealt out to hungry courtiers, who only sought to make a large profit, as they could, from the marriage of wards they had bought for the purpose. Fourteen was a usual period for the marriage of the children of those who would save their lands from the exactions of the Crown." He adverts to marriages at an earlier age, and even paternity at fourteen. In 1583 was published a work entitled "The Anatomie of Abuses," by Philip Stubbes, and it supplies a curious account of the amusements and other social customs of the day. Marriage comes in for attention, and, after referring to it with words of commendation, he adds: "There is permitted one great liberty therein--for little maids in swaddling clothes are often married by their ambitious parents and friends, when they know neither good nor evil, and this is the origin of much wickedness. And, besides this, you shall have a saucy boy often, fourteen, sixteen, or twenty years of age, catch up a woman without any fear of God at all." The protests of Stubbes and others had little effect, for children continued to be married, if not mated.