William and Elizabeth were probably married during the Commonwealth period, so there may not be a proper record of thier marriage. They were probably married about 1657 as their son John's baptism in 1658. Perhaps they were married at Irthlingborough Cross.
From Mark Heber's "Ancestral Trails":
"Between 1653 and 1660 responsibility for the registers was taken out of the hands of the church and given to a local official (the Parish Register). He registered births (rather than baptisms), marriages and deaths (rather than burials). Some started their own registers (few of which have survived), but often the Parish Register was the former parish clerk and he would carry on making entries in the church register. More of these have survived.
From 1653 to 1660 only civil marriages, conducted by a Justice of the Peace, were legally valid and marriages were not supposed to be conducted in church. A document known as the "publications of intention to marry" would be posted in the market place or in the church porch for three weeks before the civil ceremony. Few parish registers note these civil marriages but the publications of intention were sometimes recorded. ..... After the restoration of Charles II in 1660, these Commonwealth marriages were recognised by the church as valid and they were sometimes retrospectively recorded in a parish register. |