1698 end of the line oddity

[Mitch in Notts]

John COOPER and Anne GREATOREX married November ye 1st. Then what does it say?






Thoughts?

Thanks, Mitch

[fullscott]

My stab in the dark:

"his Majesties due 2 - -"

Could it mean that £2 was owing?

Jane

[Pam Downes]

It looks a if there's a £ sign above the 2.
Did they have special licences back in those days (you don't give a date), and if so, did one cost £2.00? And the cost went to the Crown rather than the Church?

ADDED: Is there a similar note against any other marriage for at least two years either side of this marriage?

Pam

[Mitch in Notts]

Thanks Jane - I thought it said Majesties but was unsure whether it was 'This majesty die', the obvious 'due' hadn't crossed my mind!

Pam - sorry I put the date - 1698 - in the title. The couple did though marry by Licence, but there is nothing similar against other Licence entries, nor against any other entry and I have currently gone through 1687-1756 page by page.

Could it say '2d' and that was the cost of having the entry recorded in the register? So 'His Majesties due 2d..... ye 6th'

Thanks

Mitch

[Pam Downes]

Thanks Jane - I thought it said Majesties but was unsure whether it was 'This majesty die', the obvious 'due' hadn't crossed my mind!

Pam - sorry I put the date - 1698 - in the title. The couple did though marry by Licence, but there is nothing similar against other Licence entries, nor against any other entry and I have currently gone through 1687-1756 page by page.

Could it say '2d' and that was the cost of having the entry recorded in the register? So 'His Majesties due 2d..... ye 6th'

Thanks

Mitch

Yes, you did indeed, Mitch. You can blame me not seeing it either because I don't wear my specs on when I'm on the computer, or not having my brain cell properly engaged when reading your query.

Pam

[fullscott]

Thanks Jane - I thought it said Majesties but was unsure whether it was 'This majesty die', the obvious 'due' hadn't crossed my mind!

Pam - sorry I put the date - 1698 - in the title. The couple did though marry by Licence, but there is nothing similar against other Licence entries, nor against any other entry and I have currently gone through 1687-1756 page by page.

Could it say '2d' and that was the cost of having the entry recorded in the register? So 'His Majesties due 2d..... ye 6th'

Thanks

Mitch

2d or £2??
Because of the two dashes after the number (I grew up with £sd), I'm more inclined to £2 ... but it does seem a lot of money for 1698!

Jane

[arthurk]

I read it as 2s 6d. I don't think it could be a fee for the licence itself, because I doubt they'd have been able to get hold of the licence unless they'd paid for it - and in any case the fee would have been paid to the church rather than the king. However, I don't know what else it could be.

[macwil]

I'm with Jane on this one. Two pounds no shillings and no pence, followed by a full stop. (I also grew up with £sd) The two characters at the extreme edge of the page are unrelated to the £2, but I believe are 6s, compare with 9s above, but what they mean, apart from the obvious six/nine shillings, is anyone's guess. It was certainly very expensive in those days.

Edit: Looking two lines below the is 3s or possibly a small capital D, so the marginal entries could be threepence (thrupence), sixpence (a tanner) and nine pence. So maybe not as expensive as first thought.

[Mitch in Notts]

I'm with Jane on this one. Two pounds no shillings and no pence, followed by a full stop. (I also grew up with £sd) The two characters at the extreme edge of the page are unrelated to the £2, but I believe are 6s, compare with 9s above, but what they mean, apart from the obvious six/nine shillings, is anyone's guess. It was certainly very expensive in those days.

Edit: Looking two lines below the is 3s or possibly a small capital D, so the marginal entries could be threepence (thrupence), sixpence (a tanner) and nine pence. So maybe not as expensive as first thought.

The 2 lines below are 'November ye 30th' - with the th raised above the 30. Our line ends with 6 - it is either 6th with the th raised or ye 6 as in 'His Majesties due £2....' '6th' or 'ye 6' ie of November..... or something else entirely. It does not though relate to the entry above ours which is a burial on October 1st.

[arthurk]

I'm with Jane on this one. Two pounds no shillings and no pence, followed by a full stop. (I also grew up with £sd)

I also grew up with £sd, and I don't ever remember seeing sums written as £d with no mention of the shillings, either then or more recently when I've been looking at old documents. If it was 2 pounds and sixpence, I would expect there to be a 0 for the shillings, and a separate letter above.

In any case, the letter above the 2 here, with the loop at the bottom and no horizontal line to the right of the loop, is far more consistent with one possible form of 's' than with either upper or lower case 'L'.