Gretna Green

Lady Sybil Crawley (performed by Jessica Brown Findlay)
and Tom Branson (performed by Alan Leech)
using logic on the family before eloping

"They've gone to Gretna Green..."


Those who have watched enough period drama, or if you've done the hard work and actually have researched Scotland, know that the words Gretna Green can cause gasps from audience members.  "Oh no, she didn't!  Not Gretna Green!" one thinks, or perhaps that is just me.  Gretna Green, none the less, has developed quite a reputation in the world of English elopements.  Think of it as the Vegas of the U.K., in a much classier sense of the whole idea.  What happens in Gretna Green, stays in Gretna Green.

Gretna Green is the "runaway hub" of Scotland.  It is right on the border of England and Scotland, the first town outside the jurisdiction of England.  1753's Lord Hardwicke's Marriage Act started all of the scandal; if a couple couldn't wait until the age of 21 (legal age to marry without family consent) and they could not get the parents' permission, then one hoped on a carriage and ran away to Gretna Green.  For anyone who is thinking, "you couldn't wait until 21 to marry?", just remember Romeo and Juliet.  Both in their mid-teens and yet one of the greatest love stories in our culture to this day. 

Scotland didn't abide by England's rules and in fact, in Scotland way back when, as long as there were two witnesses, anyone could conduct a marriage.  Many of the blacksmiths moonlighted as marriage officials, getting the nickname of "anvil priests". 

In 1856, Scotland changed its laws and required all runaway couples to take up residence for three weeks (I suppose it helped bolster the economy).  Lydia, in Pride and Prejudice, is thought to have eloped with Wickham to Gretna Green, but she was living before this restriction was passed.  Lady Sybil Crawley, however, is subject to these laws.  This is why it is mentioned in season two of Downton Abbey that she will live with Branson's mother until they can have the wedding. 

Gretna Green today hosts approximately 5,000 weddings each year, only 1/6 of them being Scottish.  Apparently it is still in vogue to run away to Gretna Green.

With the Chauffeur?

I looked it up.  As scandalous as the potential union of Lady Sybil with the chauffeur, Mr. Branson, would be, it was possible.  Once in a while, high-born ladies married their gentlemen servants, after all, one would know them better than an upper class man who one met at tea, was proposed to at dinner and married the next season.  However, it goes without saying that if one did marry down in rank, it provided great amounts of gossip.  If a lady married outside of her class, then she joined him, not the other way around.  Lady Henrietta Wentworth had plans to marry her footman, John William Sturgeon in 1764.  She planned to become simply Mrs. Sturgeon, give up her fancy clothes and move with him to Ireland to be with his family.  Sound familiar, non? 

The reality though was as Lady Mary expresses to Lady Sybil, "Oh darling, darling, don't be such a baby.  This isn't fairyland.  What did you think? You'd marry the chauffeur and we'd all come to tea?". Sybil would have to be prepared to give up everything: all money, family, status, everything she has and knows to marry a man.  Can you blame her for stalling in her decision?

Thanks to E. S. Turner for publishing What the Butler Saw: Two Hundred and Fifty Years of the Servant Problem by Penguin Books, 1962, and for helping me expand my knowledge of this area.