The House of Lords, sitting as a Court of Appeal,
decided a nice point on Monday. It was an appeal from the Irish Courts of Ex- chequer and Queen's Bench. The point in dispute was whether a clergyman was legally able to perform the marriage ceremony between himself and another person. This question the Court below decided in the affirmative, and against that decision the present appeal was brought. The case had been argued during the two last sessions, and the learned judges before whom it was heard were of opinion that the marriage was invalid. The Lord Chancellor, in delivering judgment, said tins was a writ of error from a judgment of the Court of Exchequer Chamber in Ireland, affirming a judgment of the Court of Queen's Bench in that country, pronounced in an action of eject- ment brought by the respondent against the appellant, his uncle, to recover lands of which John Samuel Beamish, the grandfather of the respondent and the father of the appellant, had been seised in fee- simple at his death, which happened after the death of the Rev. Samuel Swayne Beamish, the father of the respondent. The ques- tion turned entirely upon the validity of the marriage between the respondent's father and mother, which took place under the following circumstances : The Rev. Samuel Swayne Beamish, a clergyman of the Church of England, on the 27th of November, 1831, performed a ceremony of marriage between himself and Isabella Frazer, the mother of the respondent, at a private house in Cork, by reading the form of marriage from the Prayer-book. There was not any clergy- man present besides the respondent's father, and the only witness was a woman who saw the ceremony through the window. Had this case been brought before the House previously to the decision of " The Queen v. Millis" in 1844, he should not have hesitated to advise their Lordships to affirm the judgment of the Court below in favour of the validity of the marriage and the legitimacy of the re- spondent. The parties believed they had contracted a valid marriage, and before the passing of Lord Hardwicke's Act in 1753 this would have been sufficient to make the marriage valid even without the presence of a priest. The canon law held such a marriage legal, and, according to Lord Stowell and numerous other authorities, the canon law rated our law of marriage until Lord Hardwicke's Act was passed. However, it must now be considered as determined by that House that no marriage was legal without the presence of a priest. He had deemed the decision in " The Queen v Millis" so unsatis- factory that he had deemed it his duty to enter a protest against it, as he considered there ought to be a public form to which no person could object, and which might, by registration, be of easy, safe, and perpetual proof, the addition of the religious ceremony being highly desirable, although not absolutely necessary. He would have asked their Lordships to reconsider their decision in "The Queen v. Millis," only he felt bound by it so long as it was the settled law of the land. The question then arose whether the clergyman could officiate at his own marriage. He thought not. Could a testator witness his own will ? Could a donee witness his own act in executing a power ? Surely not. He could find neither principle nor authority to support the judgment appealed against, and, therefore, with much reluctance, he must advise their Lordships to reverse the decision of the Court below. The other Law Lords present concurred in this judgment.
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