Quite why these two love stories are reported in November is unclear. We always though it was in the spring that ‘a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love‘*. However, the village, first over the scottish border, became a haven for lovers following the 1754 Marriage Act (England and Wales). Youngsters under 21 were forbidden to marry without parental permission.
“During the last ten days, there have been several flights of ‘happy pairs’ through Carlisle, towards the shrine of Gretna. On the 3d inst. an old man from Askham, Westmoreland, (aged sixty,) flew thither on the wings of love, with a buxom damsel of twenty. And on the 5th inst. a more elevated couple drove northward in a chaise and four full gallop. Who they were, or whence they came, no one can tell: but, like the late Lord Erskine, the gentleman was veiled (if not petticoated) as he hurried through the town! – These are rare times for the brandy-loving noose-tyer. – Carlisle Journal.”
“A religious sect has recently spring up in the county of Surrey, one of whose tenets is to salute each other a meeting with a holy kiss. One of the female devlotees, a young lady of a thousand charms, happened to encounter a young gentleman, of whom she was enamoured, and gave him a more cordial and loving salute than was quite becoming. The next day she received a message from the High Priest of the sect, saying that she had been excommunicated for ‘kissing with an appetite’.”
The Stamford Mercury, 12th November, 1824.
*From Lockslely Hall, by Alfred, Lord Tennyson.