Filial Affection, or a Trip to Gretna Green

Thomas Rowlandson British
 Publisher John Raphael Smith British

Not on view

An eloping couple is carried north towards Scotland in a fast post-carriage or chaise, pursued by the woman's angry father and a posse of riders. A signpost at right points "To Gretna Green". The father urges his horse forward and holds a whip, as the man and woman lean out of the coach windows and brandish pistols. A new restrictive marriage law, passed in England in 1754, encouraged couples to elope to Scotland. At Gretna Green, the first village over the Scottish border, they could marry under a medieval practice that required them only to make a statement of their intenstions before a witness.

Filial Affection, or a Trip to Gretna Green, Thomas Rowlandson (British, London 1757–1827 London), Hand-colored etching with aquatint

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Filial Affection, or a Trip to Gretna Green, Thomas Rowlandson (British, London 1757–1827 London), Hand-colored etching with aquatint
Filial Affection, or a Trip to Gretna Green, Thomas Rowlandson (British, London 1757–1827 London), Hand-colored etching with aquatint

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