Pregnant bride, 1600's

[smudwhisk]

17 Nov 1578 and the first child was baptised 16 Feb the following year

Don't want to go off topic but to clarify:
16th. Feb. 1579 will be over a year later as the Julian calendar was in use at the time & the new year started on April 1st.

To clarify further as I'm well aware that the Julian calendar was in use and the calendar year ran to March.  The child was born within three months of the marriage so the bride was very pregnant at the time of the marriage and the child was baptised 15 Feb 1578-9.

And as aelfric has already pointed out, the new year started on 25 March not 1 April.

[aelfric]

Now we're back on track, I seem to remember a piece in the old BBC Tonight programme in the sixties about a village in the Netherlands where the strong Calvinist tradition coexisted with the practice of waiting for the woman to become pregnant before marrying.
And Thomas Hardy records the time when a number of London stonemasons went to get stone for, I think the Embankment, from Portland Bill in Dorset. The same practice was usual there, and the men thought they had died and gone to Heaven until they found that the second part of the contract was compulsory.
In communities where fertility was essential for their continuance - either economically or socially - the custom would be likely, unless there was the possibility of divorce. And even Martin Luther didn't think Henry VIII had the right to get rid of Katherine of Aragon.

[Nick93]

Hey guys, thanks for the info. It's really interesting. Fascinating stories, especially liked Smudwhisk's. Didn't know that about the Julian calendar either.

[clayton bradley]

I am researching round Halifax in the 1500s and you would be amazed how many wills say "enfeoff my bastard son in all my lands". These were people with money and property and yet they were still having illegitimate children. I wondered if sometimes they spent so long arguing about the dowry, the baby arrived first.cb

[groom]

That doesn’t surprise me in the least as it was very common for kings, princes and lords to have illegitimate children with no intent to marry the woman. They often gave the child a surname that acknowledged them eg Kings’ children were called Fitzroy. John of Gaunt and Katherine Swynford’s children were called Beaufort (although they were later made legitimate when John and Katherine married) The children were educated and often, if male, became squires or knights. Daughters were married off to lower gentry.

[Mowsehowse]

That doesn’t surprise me in the least as it was very common for kings, princes and lords to have illegitimate children with no intent to marry the woman. They often gave the child a surname that acknowledged them eg Kings’ children were called Fitzroy. John of Gaunt and Katherine Swynford’s children were called Beaufort. The children were educated and often if male became knights.

In fairness, I must add that John of Gaunt and Katherine Swynford did eventually marry thus legitimising the Beaufort line.

[groom]

Sorry, yes I added that afterwards. That's a real love story with them isn't it?

[Mowsehowse]

Sorry, yes I added that afterwards. That's a real love story with them isn't it?

    Anya Seton's book "Katherine" is one of my all time faves.

[groom]

Sorry, yes I added that afterwards. That's a real love story with them isn't it?

    Anya Seton's book "Katherine" is one of my all time faves.

I've recently read that and also The Scandalous Duchess by Anne O'Brien.