easily conceal'd, and too much practised.' [Footnote 43: There was a law against marrying the heiress of a noble family before the age of twenty-one years without the consent of her guardians.] Sometimes they were married at a tavern.[44] 'Whereas a Couple was marryed at the Ship Tavern without Temple Barr, London, in March, 1696. The Parson, or any other that was then Present, is desired to come or send to the Publisher of this Paper, and give an account of the said Marriage, and shall be satisfied for their charges of coming or sending, and loss of time.' [Footnote 44: _Postman_, August 28/31, 1703.] The irregular marriages were a crying evil of the times--in spite of legislative efforts to stop them. There was an Act passed, 6 and 7 Wm. III. cap. 7, sec. 52, for the better levying the 5_s._ duty on licences, and imposing a penalty of 100_l._ for marrying without one--and the 7 and 8 Wm. III. cap. 35 recites this Act, and says it was ineffectual, because the penalty of 100_l._ was not extended to every offence of the same parson--because the parsons employed poor and indigent ministers, without benefices, or settled habitations, and because many ministers, being in prison for debt or otherwise, married persons for lucre and gain. There have been certain churches and chapels[45] exempted from the visitation of the ordinary--and the ministers of such, usually married without licence or banns--and these were called 'lawless churches.' In Anne's reign there was one famous one, St. James', Duke's Place, by Aldgate. Another was Holy Trinity, Minories, which exercised the same privilege. The Savoy had not yet been much heard of, and they did a good business. In the former case, privilege was claimed, because the Mayor, Commonalty, and Citizens of London were lords of the manor and patrons of the church, and therefore set up an exemption from the jurisdiction (in matters ecclesiastical) of the Bishop of London. In the latter, it was pleaded that the living was held direct from the Crown, in whose gift it was, and that the minister held the same by an instrument of dotation, under the Great Seal of England, and that it was neither a rectory nor vicarage institutive. However, the arm of the ecclesiastical law did once reach Adam Elliott, rector of St. James', and on Feb. 17, 1686, he was suspended for three years, _ab officio et beneficio_, for having married, or having suffered persons to be married, at the said church, without banns or licence. He was, however, reinstituted on May 28, 1687, after having petitioned the Ecclesiastical Commissioners; but he began his old trade very shortly afterwards, in fact the next day, as appears in the marriage register of the church--'There were no marriages from the tenth of March till y{e} 29 day of May' 1687.