Baptisms and marriages were formerly solemnised here, and twenty register-books, some very small, and others quarto and folio size, are still preserved. Many of them, however, are but duplicates of the others, and three are memorandum-books of the clerks, with registrations, expenses, notices, and other entries therein. The _regular register of baptisms_ has been missing a very long while, but duplicates of several years have been preserved; with the exception of a few leaves, all the books of expenses are lost also. {67} I have stated before that the books of the Lazar-house are also missing, and so is the burial book, if such ever existed. I shall be glad to quit this statement, so disgraceful to some of the former officials of the Chapel, and give a few extracts from those still fortunately preserved. Previous to the passing of Lord Hardwick’s celebrated Marriage Act, in 1753, it was not necessary to the validity of a marriage that such should be performed in a church, or solemnised by any religious ceremony. And although the law of the Church visited with censure those who neglected its canon in this respect, yet the Common Law recognised other and more private modes. Consequently around and in London, at almost all the chapels, marriages were performed, and at some in a very discreditable manner. Lord Hardwick’s bill made it necessary to the validity of a marriage that it should be solemnised in a parish church or public chapel where banns had been regularly published. The result was, that as at these chapels banns were not published, marriages therein solemnised were no longer legal; and among others obliged to succumb to this law, Knightsbridge Chapel was one. It would almost appear that our Chapel had some reputation for its irregularities in this solemnity, if we are to trust some of the pointed allusions in the literature of a bygone currency. Shadwell, in his play of “The Sullen Lovers,” published in 1668, makes Lovell say:— “Let’s rally no longer: there is a person at Knightsbridge, that yokes all stray people together; we’ll to him, he’ll despatch us presently, and send us away as lovingly as any two fools that ever yet were condemned to marriage.” And in the _Guardian_ (No. 14, March 27, 1713), a run-away marriage is spoken of as being celebrated “last night at Knightsbridge.” Although such references seem to illustrate what could be only known as a fact, I yet think they were but a jocular remark as regards Knightsbridge, and not indications of a reality. It is scarcely possible to think such would have been allowed in a place of worship, so much under the control of the Dean and Chapter as this was; and many memoranda in the books vindicate its ministers from the charge of winking at wrong, as these allusions insinuate. Of these curious entries I give the following as specimens:—