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 THE GREAT MARRIAGE HUNT: FINDING A WIFE IN FIFTEENTH-CENTURY ENGLAND 
 
 Sharon Michalove, University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana
 
 Presented to the Mid-America Conference on History, 17-19 September 
 1992, The University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas.
 
 "It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of 
 a good fortune must be in want of a wife."  The young men we shall meet 
 in this paper fit Jane Austen's description very well. Unfortunately there 
 were no scheming Bennett women trying to snare them. On the contrary, 
 these young men all had great difficulty in finding spouses. 
 
   I must begin this paper with a disclaimer. The sample for this study on 
 one aspect of medieval marriage is very small. As far as primary sources 
 are concerned I have looked no farther than the well-known letter 
 collections of the Pastons and Celys. The bulk of the correspondence and 
 papers of these two English families dates from the fifteenth century. The 
 Pastons were a rising gentry family who would eventually enter the 
 aristocracy as earls of Yarmouth. They were based in Norfolk, although as 
 a family of lawyers and courtiers the men spent a great deal of time in 
 London. The Celys were prosperous wool merchants based in London and at 
 the staple in Calais, with frequent buying trips to the Cotswolds and the 
 Midlands. But whether or not the marriage difficulties experienced by 
 Richard and George Cely and Sir John and John Paston were typical, I cannot 
 say. (I should mention here that Sir John and John Paston were brothers 
 and John is usually referred to as John III.) While the Plumpton family 
 usually married off their sons and daughters as young children and 
 therefore did not experience these difficulties, this was not the usual 
 practice in any but the greatest families by the late fifteenth century. 
 Since most families did not leave extensive letter collections, we may know 
 about the eventual marriages that took place, but we do not know how many 
 abortive attempts may have occurred before each happy event. And it is 
 primarily, although not exclusively, the problems that the sons in the 
 Paston and Cely families had in finding wives that I will discuss in this 
 paper. 
 
   James Brundage characterizes marriage as the "connective tissue of late 
 medieval society."  And nowhere was it more important than among the 
 middle and upper classes of England. Examining the letters and papers of 
 the Paston and Cely families, the reader finds that the search for suitable 
 spouses sometimes seems to take on an aura of desperation. In 
 fifteenth-century England, finding a suitable wife was not always easy. 
 Even the most eligible bachelors could have one or more failures in the 
 marriage market before securing a spouse. (I should say here that by 
 "marriage market," I am not using the term in its later sense, where 
 finding a spouse was centered on the London season. For the fifteenth 
 century, the "marriage market" is a term used by historians to de note the 
 essentially commercial transaction that seemed to characterize the 
 proceedings. As can be seen from the examples in this paper, men looked 
 for prospective brides in places other than London.) The complaints of 
 difficulties in finding a willing and suitable bride run through the Paston 
 and Cely letters. Suitable is important here all the women that these four 
 men considered were acceptable to their families. After all, George Cely 
 had received a letter from a "Lady Clare," a Frenchwoman he met while at 
 the staple in Calais where she says, "If it please you to know, I have 
 loved you a long time, but I dared not tell you so. . . . And I let you 
 know that my heart is set on no man but you . . ."  He seems to have 
 accepted her as his mistress, but presumably she would not have been suitable
to be his wife. 
 
   On May 13, 1482, Richard Cely the Younger, a merchant residing in London, 
 reported on a wool-buying trip to the Cotswolds to his brother George, who 
 was residing in Calais. But for us, the interest in his letter has to do 
 with the unexpected chance he had to woo an eligible young woman. Richard 
 Cely, like his brother George, was in need of a wife. This was not the 
 first prospect he had considered, and it would not be the last. 
 
    The same day that I come to Norlache [Northleach in Gloucestershire], on a 
    Sonday befor mattens from Burforde, Wylliam Mydwyntter wyllcwmyd me, and in
    howr comynycacyon he askyd me hefe I wher in any whay of maryayge. I 
    towlde hyme nay, and he informeyd me that ther whos a [ eunge] 
    genttylwhoman hos father ys name ys Lemryke, and her mother ys deyd, and 
    sche schawll dyspend [inherit] be her moter xl li. a e(r), as thay say in 
    that contre, and her father ys the gretteste rewlar a(n)d rycheste mane in 
    that conttre . . . 
 
 The letter goes on to describe in detail Richard's initial, but ultimately 
 unsuccessful courtship of the young lady in question, Elizabeth Limrick, 
 who is described as "young, little and very well-favored." Richard went to 
 matins with his wool packer, William Bretten, be cause they knew the young 
 woman would be there.  He sent Mistress Limrick and her stepmother some 
 white wine to warm them after their mile-long walk in the cold weather. 
 After mass, Richard and William were introduced to the ladies and the women 
 invited Cely and his wool packer to dinner. While the men did not eat with 
 them, they agreed to drink wine with Mistress Limrick and her stepmother 
 after dinner and sent them a gallon of wine to have with the meal. In 
 return, Elizabeth and her stepmother sent Richard and William a roast 
 heron. After dinner the young men joined the ladies to drink some of the 
 copious wine that accompanied this encounter. Richard was prepared, after 
 this initial meeting, to marry Elizabeth. But, as nothing further is heard 
 about the match, all this wine notwithstanding, Richard's proposal came to 
 nothing. Perhaps Richard was not grand enough for Mr. Limrick, who was a 
 justice of the peace and M.P. for Gloucestershire, or perhaps the proposed 
 marriage settlement was too small, or the young lady was unwilling. 
 Alternatively, Richard and his family may have had second thoughts, 
 although this seems doubtful after the eagerness of his letter. 
 
   As George had also been in the marriage market for several years (he was 
 at this time 23), Richard, who was visiting Leicester in 1481, checked out 
 a prospect for his brother. He wrote to George, "Sir, and ye be 
 remembered, we talked together in our bed of Dalton's sister, and ye feared 
 the conditions of father and brethren [this probably refers to their 
 financial condition]; but ye need not. I saw her, and she was at breakfast 
 with her mother and us. She is as goodly a young woman, as fair, as 
 well-bodied, and as sad [serious] as I see any this seven year, and a good 
 height. I pray God that it may be imprinted in your mind to set your heart 
 there."  George may have set his heart there, but not successfully. He 
 was still looking around for a willing partner two years later. 
 
   In 1482, Richard married Anne Rawson, who had been introduced to him by a 
 friend, Harry Bryan. She was perhaps his fifth prospect. Anne was the 
 daughter of a wealthy Yorkshire mercer who had become a London alderman, and
she was an excellent match for a London wool merchant, giving him a 
 connection with the finished goods market and with the city government. 
 George, not to be outdone, married in 1483. While he was negotiating for 
 one possible marriage, he was introduced to yet another prospect. This was 
 Margery Rygon, a wealthy and childless widow, who became his wife. She 
 evidently needed a great deal of impressing. While her friends made 
 inquiries about George's income, "William Cely [Richard and George's 
 cousin] loyally observes that all George's friends, both merchants and 
 soldiers, say he deserves her, were she worth double what she is."  Later, 
 after Richard's death, Richard's widow was to accuse George of wasting the 
 joint trading stock of the company on jewelry, gifts, outings, and property 
 as part of his wooing and wedding of Margery. 
 
   Although Richard and his brother George were combing the countryside for 
 wives, the difficulties they encountered did not mean that most men did not 
 marry. Josiah Cox Russell found that percentage of the whole population 
 that married in 1377 varied from 65.8% to 86.1%, depending on the size of 
 the places surveyed: the smaller the place, the higher the percentage. It 
 also varied by sex, with the percentages being higher for women, who were 
 more likely to remarry.  The average age of men at marriage in late 
 medieval England was between 22 and 24, while John Paston III was 33 when 
 he finally married and George Cely was 25.  Joel Rosenthal has found that 
 "in the years between 1350 and 1500 about 430 Englishmen were summoned, as 
 peers of the realm, to sessions of the House of Lords . . . of these 430 
 men all but 7 married at least once."   While a large percentage of men 
 married, they did not always get their first (or even second or third) 
 choice of a spouse. Why did these eligible Paston and Cely bachelors have 
 so much trouble finding a suitable and willing bride? Was the "marriage 
 market" mentality so embedded in the fifteenth-century mind that only the 
 highest bidder won the prize? Or were some women independent enough to 
 want to marry for love rather than for money and so rejected suitors who 
 did not take their fancy? 
 
   Since the 1970s a spirited argument has been carried on in the literature 
 about whether or not romantic love was a component of marriage in later 
 medieval England. While Lawrence Stone's position that married love could 
 not and did not exist before the eighteenth century has been rejected, even 
 by Stone himself, most historians still see late medieval English people as 
 coldly calculating the profit and loss before making a commitment. 
 Fifteenth-century marriages have often been categorized merely as 
 cold-blooded business propositions where any affection be tween spouses was 
 established after the marriage ceremony. Certainly the marriage of John 
 Paston and Margaret Mautby (the parents of our two Paston men) has been 
 characterized in this way. Keith Dockray, looking at why the English 
 gentry married, states, "[p]roperty, status, social and political 
 connections, worldly advancement: these would seem to be the stuff of 
 which fifteenth-century marriages were made. And, let there be no doubt 
 about it, the Paston, Plumpton and Stonor letters do provide masses of 
 evidence and examples of the importance attached to such considerations in 
 landed circles."  But if this was the case, would it not follow that the 
 most eligible catch on offer would be accepted? And yet, eligible young 
 (and not so young) men were frequently turned down. Dockray cautions us 
 not to accept a simplistic view of how marriage decisions were made: 
 "Evidence relating to the Stonor marriages in this period suggests a complex
range of motives, including the desire for yet more property and 
 riches, concern with status and political connections, and the hope of 
 achieving alliances where affection and love were present as well." 
 
   If self-interest was not the only criterion for choice, what other factors 
 might have influenced the decision? Can we assume that the problem was 
 that these bachelors were younger sons, who in the ordinary course of 
 events would not inherit and were therefore less desirable candidates? 
 Certainly John Paston III, who will be discussed in a few minutes) and 
 Richard and George Cely were younger sons. But John III married before his 
 brother's death and his brother, who was the heir, never married at all. 
 In the case of George and Richard Cely, they were joint partners with their 
 brother Robert in the firm after their father died. And in the case of 
 Stephen Scrope, the stepson of Sir John Fastolfe and the only son of 
 Millicent Scrope, a wealthy widow, he was rejected several times as a young 
 man. His stepfather, Sir John, had sold his ward ship to Sir William 
 Gascoigne for 500 marks in the hope that he could marry Stephen off. This plan
to rid himself of his stepson came to naught when Gascoigne died and Stephen
was sent home. Even worse, Sir John had to return the money.  Stephen may also
have been rejected by Elizabeth Paston when he was a 50-year-old widower
although the letters do not make it clear whether her parents wished her to
marry Stephen and she refused or she wished to marry Stephen and her parents
would not allow it.  In any event, Scrope and Elizabeth Paston did not wed.
Birth order does not seem to be a major reason. And to have been married once
did not assure a second marriage. 
 
   Personality and looks also do not seem to be major issues, although sexual 
 at traction does seem to have been a factor in John Paston III's eventual 
 marriage. But in most cases these suitors were rejected sight unseen. 
 Frequently, as in the case of John Paston III, an intermediary was involved 
 who brought letters and tokens to the lady and her family. The only case 
 where looks seem to have been a factor was with Stephen Scrope, and even in 
 that case we only have his self-disparaging (and possibly face-saving) 
 remarks about his unattractiveness. 
 
   From the evidence it seems as if a case could be made for freedom of 
 choice by young women. Certainly consent by the proposed spouses was 
 necessary according to the medieval interpretations of canon law. The 
 case of Margery Paston, who married the family bailiff, Richard Calle, 
 despite the active disapproval of her family, demonstrates the power of 
 consensual marriage. In many of the marriage proposals I will discuss, the 
 prospective brides may have been instrumental in terminating the 
 negotiations. Some other factor, however, must have been at work for women 
 to have freedom of choice. 
 
   Perhaps demographics played a role? Is it possible that so many men were 
 available that a smaller number of women had their pick? This may be one 
 answer. Russell states that "[t]he proportion of men to women increased 
 from about 1250 to 1348 and again from 1430 to 1547 . . . The poll tax 
 returns show a higher proportion of men in the smaller places" (which 
 would go along with the figures showing a higher percentage of marriages in 
 the smaller places). But, K. B. McFarlane observed that "as we have 
 noticed, a large number of peers were executed or killed in battle; and so 
 were their sons and brothers. It is also true again that during the war period
some great houses failed in the direct male line. The danger lies 
 in putting these two together as cause and effect." He goes on to say that 
 one-quarter of the families failed in the direct male line every quarter of 
 a century throughout the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.  Joel T. 
 Rosenthal agrees with the effect of the war on the upper classes. He 
 states that "[t]he wars claimed, directly and indirectly, some 62 peers and 
 peers' heirs (in addition to a number of younger sons). Since the peerage 
 in the second half of the fifteenth century usually numbered about three or 
 four dozen men, summoned to any given session of the House of Lords, the 
 casualty list represents a significant blood-letting, drawn out though it 
 was."  Since gentry families with loyalties to these peers probably did 
 not sustain comparable losses, the number of young men in this class would 
 not have decreased markedly. If the gentry then mirrored the population as 
 a whole, more men would have been available than the women to marry them. 
 So demographics may have played a significant role. 
 
   Interestingly, while young women could not always be pressured to marry 
 the family choice of a suitable spouse, young men did not seem to be 
 pressured to marry at all. Colin Richmond notes that "Fatherless sons who 
 had attained their majority unmarried, and younger brothers, commonly 
 enjoyed considerable freedom in courtship even among the upper classes . . 
 ."  This was certainly the case for Sir John Paston, the eldest son of 
 John and Margaret Paston. 
 
   Sir John Paston was attached to the court of Edward IV and spent most of 
 his time in London, although he did serve with the garrison at Calais. He 
 became betrothed to Mistress Anne Haute, who was related to the 
 Woodville-Rivers clan. As a near relation of the king, this made her an 
 excellent catch for a young man who wished to rise in court circles and who 
 was the proud owner (although much disputed by the Duke of Norfolk) of 
 Caister Castle, which had been willed to the Pastons by the late Sir John 
 Fastolfe. 
 
   However, for all his long, desultory pursuit of Anne Haute, Sir John 
 Paston did not seem to be in a hurry to marry. Perhaps he was happy with 
 his mistress and his illegitimate child and pursued this unlikely romance, 
 knowing that it was doomed to failure (albeit a very expensive failure). 
 Certainly, as the Paston family sup ported the reinstated Henry VI in the 
 coup of 1470 that overthrew Edward IV, Anne, with her strong Yorkist 
 connection, would have seemed a less suitable choice. But the 1471 return 
 of Edward IV from Burgundy, his defeat of Warwick and Clarence with their 
 ally Margaret of Anjou, and the deaths of Henry VI and Edward, his heir, 
 reversed the situation. And yet Sir John was forgiven his transgression, 
 remained at Edward IVs court after 1471, and continued his on again-off 
 again romance. After all, if he did not produce a legitimate heir, he 
 still had three younger brothers to carry on the family name. As he was a 
 notable spendthrift, Margaret Paston, Sir John's mother, was always 
 cautioning him to be careful and not rush into a marriage he could not 
 afford. She must have assumed that he had plenty of time to marry and 
 produce an heir. 
 
   While Sir John was pursuing his desultory marriage course, his younger 
 brother John III was more anxious to marry. At one point he wrote 
 despairingly to his brother, "I pray you, get us a wife somewhere, for melius
est nubere in Domino quam urere [It is better to marry in the Lord 
 than to burn]" . . .  By the time he married in 1477, John III was 
 thirty-three and had been on the marriage market for ten years. And he 
 pursued many marriage prospects. The possibly lower class lady called 
 Balkin, whom John met while serving at Calais in the 1470s, may have been 
 the least suitable and the most fleeting in his consideration. 
 
   Possibly his first attempt at marriage was with the daughter of Lady 
 Boleyn. Sir John wrote to his brother "I cannot in any way find her [Lady 
 Boleyn] agreeable that you should have her daughter . . . Nevertheless, I 
 understand that she says 'If he and she can agree I will not prevent it'. . 
 . "  Lady Boleyn's daughter, given the choice, seems not to have agreed to 
 John's proposal. 
 
   In February 1470, Sir John again wrote to answer his brother's query about 
 a prospective bride. "[A]s for Mistress Katherine Dudley, I have many 
 times recommended you to her and she is nothing displesed with it. She 
 does not mind how many gentlemen love her: she is full of love. I have 
 spoken on your behalf, as I told her, without your knowledge. She answers 
 me that she will have no-one these two years, and I believe her, for I 
 think she has a life that she is well content with." 
 
   John had more hope in 1474 when he wrote to Sir John, "I pray you to 
 remember, before you depart from London, to speak with the wife of Harry 
 Eberton, draper, and to inform her that I am offered a marriage in London 
 which is worth 600 marks and better, and that I prayed you to discuss, as I 
 might not stay in London myself, but that I insisted that if Mistress 
 Eberton would deal with me, you should not conclude in the other place . . 
 . because I have such an attraction to wards Mistress Elizabeth Eberton . . 
 ."  Evidently Mistress Eberton and her family did not feel the same depth 
 of attraction toward John III. 
 
   Lady Waldegrave was another who did not seem interested in the young man's 
 pursuit. Sir John wrote, "I have, as I promised you, done my duty to know 
 my Lady Waldegrave's attitude towards you, which, as God help me, and to be 
 plain with you, I find in no way gives me cause for comfort. She will in 
 no way receive nor keep your ring, even though I told her that she would in 
 no way be bound thereby . . . And moreover, she prayed me that I should 
 not labour further therein, for she would hold by such answer as she had 
 given you before . . ." 
 
   In 1476 John III wrote to his brother Sir John, "I undyrstand that Mastres 
 Fytzwater hathe a syster, a mayd, to mary. I trow, and ye entretyd hym, 
 she myght come into Crysten menys handys. I prey yow spek with Mastyr 
 Fytzwater of the that mater for me . . ." 
 
   In the meantime, John III was also pursuing other possibilities. After at 
 least ten tries in as many years, John III had found the love of his life 
 and future wife, Margery Brews. Her fortune was small but adequate and 
 John had heard good re ports from various people. He wrote to her in 1476, 
 
    Mastresse, thow so be that I, unaqwenynted with yow as yet, tak up on me to
   be thus bold as to wryght on to yow with ought your knowlage and leve, yet,
   mastress, for syche pore servyse as I now in my mynd owe yow, purposyning,
   yet not dyspleaseyd, durng my lyff to contenu the same, I beseche you to 
    pardon my boldness, and not to dysdeyn, but to accepte thys sympyll byll to
   recomand me to yow in syche wyse as I best can or may imagyn to your most 
    plesure. 
 
   Margery happily accepted John III's love, even though the working out of 
 the marriage contract took some effort since the dowry was so small. But 
 John and Margery, having met and fallen in love at first sight, were 
 determined to marry. On Valentine's Day 1477, Margery sent John this 
 valentine: 
 
    Ryght reverent and wurschypfull, and my ryght welebeloved Voluntyne, I 
    recomande me unto yowe, ffull hertely desyring to here of yowr welefare, 
    whech I beseche Almyghty God long for to preserve unto Hys plesure, and 
    yowr herts desyre. And yf it please yowe to here of my welefar, I am not 
    in good heele of body, nor of herte, nor schall be tyll I her ffrom yowe . 
    . . 
 
   John Paston III's story ended happily. His brother Sir John was not so 
 lucky. Anne Haute and her relations considered her married to Sir John, 
 even though the couple seldom saw or spoke to each other. The "marriage" 
 was never consummated but Lord Scales always spoke of it as a marriage, 
 not as a betrothal. The Pastons never considered the relationship more 
 than an eventual possibility of a marriage. However, to ease the lady's 
 conscience, Sir John resolved this lengthy nonmarriage by obtaining a papal 
 dissolution of his betrothal that cost him 1000. He did not find another 
 suitable candidate. A year after his brother married, Sir John died of the 
 plague at the age of thirty-seven still a bachelor. 
 
   Although in the past historians have preferred to see marriage in 
 fifteenth-century England in fairly simplistic terms, stressing the desire 
 for social position, wealth, and property, marriage choices were as complex 
 then as they are now. We know that even the best prospects did not always 
 mean a smooth path to matrimony. But without more evidence we will 
 probably never completely understand the mechanisms and motives in finding 
 a wife in fifteenth-century England. 
 
 Sharon D. Michalove 
 Assistant to the Chair for Undergraduate Affairs 
 Department of History, UIUC 
 309 Gregory Hall, 810 South Wright Street 
 Urbana, IL 61801 
 217-333-4145