SOURCE: “The Betrothals of All's Well That Ends Well,” in Huntington Library Quarterly, Vol. 26, No. 2, February, 1963, pp. 179-92.

[In the following essay, Ranald discusses the nature of Elizabethan matrimonial contracts in order to elucidate the marriage theme of All's Well That Ends Well.]

Of Shakespeare's three so-called problem comedies, All's Well That Ends Well has been the most neglected. Some of the situations (notably the bed trick) undoubtedly do repel some readers, and scholars have largely concentrated on explaining their significance to the play. One allied topic has, however, gone almost unnoticed: the betrothals and resultant matrimonial situations. Certainly W. W. Lawrence discusses them in his study of this play, and G. K. Hunter appends some thought-provoking annotations to the new Arden edition of Shakespeare; but in general too much attention seems to have been paid to the bed trick, while the nature of matrimonial contracting, a topic which appears continuously throughout the play, has been largely ignored.

The aim of this paper is, therefore, to study the somewhat confused yet generally accepted laws surrounding Elizabethan matrimonial practice and to examine their relevance to the marriage of Bertram and Helena. The marriage contracts seem to be largely representative of English practice, so it would appear that Shakespeare has “Englished” his source (Boccaccio) in this way also. Thus through an understanding of Elizabethan matrimonial law some of the material in Act II may become more clear, and some of the immense confusion of Act V may be seen to have an underlying order and dramatic significance.

Many of the difficulties of All's Well were admirably solved by W. W. Lawrence when he showed how much of the action of the play had its roots in the conventions of folk and fairy tale. But despite Lawrence's assurance that “The Elizabethan audience would have accepted these ‘tricks’ [of Helena] as valid without question; that Bertram's sudden change of heart was a convention of mediæval and Elizabethan story, which must be expected to follow Helena's triumph,”¹ critics have still had difficulty in matters of characterization and meaning and often end by merely classifying the play as a “problem comedy.” Yet, as Madeleine Doran remarks, “the only ‘problem’ in it is Helena's problem of getting the man she wants for a husband.”² Certainly, as John F. Adams points out, Helena is no cold virgin. She is a virtuous woman whose aim in the play is to fulfill her function of procreation by losing her virginity through marriage to a man who pleases her.³ This motivation makes of Helena a really “clever wench” in her interestingly legal attempts to gain Bertram's person and his love.

The first move in any Elizabethan arrangement, after the financial details were settled, was the betrothal, or the espousal. This ceremony was of such great importance in both civil and ecclesiastical law that it was surrounded with specific official formulas, chiefly concerning the promises which the Church of England recommended that its members make in public and before witnesses.⁴ Elizabethan law recognized two different kinds of betrothal. The first of these was sponsalia per verba de praesenti, which meant an exchange of consents in words of the present tense, preferably spoken in public. This espousal in effect created the status of marriage immediately and was indissoluble except in cases of diriment impediments,⁵ earlier contract to another, or adultery committed by one of the parties to the unconsummated contract.⁶ Though the sponsalia per verba de praesenti did not confer the sexual privileges of marriage, it was treated almost like a valid marriage and could be upheld in the courts.⁷ The second kind of betrothal was sponsalia per verba de futuro, which meant an exchange of consents in words of the future tense, preferably spoken in public, and merely entailed an obligation to marry at some later date. At that time a public exchange of consents in the present tense would take place in facie ecclesiae.⁸ Consent was therefore recognized as the basis of matrimony, but the view of Gratian was still upheld even in post-Reformation England: the contract effected matrimonium initiatum only, and consummation was required for matrimonium ratum, a marriage made quite indissoluble by sacramental symbolism.⁹

Consent could also be given subject to conditions, providing that they were not impossible, frivolous, involving grave sin, or concerned with necessary natural conditions such as “if the sun rise tomorrow.”¹⁰ If, however, the parties to the conditional contract later expressed their mutual consent in words of the present tense, they were considered joined in simple matrimony.¹¹ Again, if the parties to a conditional espousal later had carnal knowledge of each other before the fulfillment of the condition they were then considered to have renounced the condition.¹² In short, carnal knowledge of the contracting parties meant that they had contracted simple matrimony.¹³

The ceremonies of public espousal included the exchange of consents by the contracting parties before sufficient witnesses (at least two) and, generally, handfasting. The exchange of nuptial kisses and rings was also considered important, and rings were sometimes exchanged even in cases of secret and unsworn espousals.¹⁴ This last point ought to be remembered in the study of All's Well.

The state of mind of the parties was also important. As William Harrington said in 1528, “it is to be knowen that man and woman dothe entre this holy ordre and sacramente of matrymony by expresse and free consente of both partyes.”¹⁵ This insistence on free and unforced consent was often paid only lip service in Elizabethan arranged matches, but consent given through intimidation caused by threats sufficient to put the fear of death into a strong man (metus qui posset in virum constantem cadere), could render a marriage null and void ab initio even if it had been consummated.¹⁶

This situation is important in All's Well because Bertram is the ward of the king and is forced into marrying Helena. Certainly under Elizabethan law the king is within his rights in choosing Helena for Bertram, or rather in agreeing to her choice of Bertram; but he follows the often castigated practice of Elizabethan guardians by unjustly exercising his prerogative and forcing his will upon an unwilling ward “by the rigour of the law.”¹⁷ As Glenn H. Blayney notes, this occurrence is extremely important to the later development of the play: “The enforcement motif has been heightened in Shakespeare, and Bertram's neglect of Helena follows more dramatically from this motivation. … Perhaps we should today regard Bertram in the light of seventeenth-century attitudes which explained his behavior as a victim of a king's will unjustly imposed through the prerogatives of wardship.”¹⁸

The actual scene of choice and espousing in II.iii seems to follow contemporary Elizabethan practice and to reproduce most of the legal requirements of betrothal. The espousal actually begins when Helena approaches Bertram with these words:

I dare not say I take you; but I give
Me and my service, ever whilst I live,
Into your guiding power. This is the man.

(II.iii.109-111)¹⁹

Obviously in this speech we have a classic statement of a de praesenti espousal with the slight distinction humbly made by the young lady in the first line. Customarily in espousals one would say “I take thee for my wife, or husband.” Here Helena seems almost too conscious of the social difference between her and Bertram and therefore she changes the words slightly, though the meaning is doubtless the same.

The king, standing in loco parentis, promptly gives his blessing and consent to the match: “Why, then, young Bertram, take her; she's thy wife” (II.iii.112). The use of the word “wife” here is noteworthy, because although espousals did not confer all the rights of marriage, the titles “wife” and “husband” were frequently used for betrothed couples.²⁰ Bertram's reply is one that has on occasion incensed critics:

My wife, my liege! I shall beseech your Highness,
In such a business give me leave to use
The help of mine own eyes.

(II.iii.113-115)

It must not be forgotten, however, that Bertram is really asking for nothing more than the elemental right to choose his own wife rather than to have one forced upon him. The young ward, with some justice, fails to understand why he should pay the price for his guardian's cure. Almost in desperation he concocts reasons which might make the match unsuitable, beginning with the difference in rank and fortune:

                    I know her well;
She had her breeding at my father's charge.
A poor physician's daughter my wife! Disdain
Rather corrupt me ever!

(II.iii.120-123)

The king promptly dismisses that reason by offering to give Helena a title and money, while at the same time rebuking Bertram for his false values in equating nobility with rank and wealth instead of with virtue. The king also takes care to state Helena's fitness to be Bertram's wife:

          She is young, wise, fair;
In these to nature she's immediate heir,
And these breed honour. That is honour's scorn,
Which challenges itself as honour's born
And is not like the sire. Honours thrive,
When rather from our acts we them derive
Than our foregoers. …
.....If thou canst like this creature as a maid,
I can create the rest. Virtue and she
Is her own dower; honour and wealth from me.

(II.iii.138-151)

Obviously he considers Helena more than a fit match for his stubborn and unappreciative ward, and most Elizabethan courtesy books would agree.

Bertram then seeks for another reason: “I cannot love her, nor will strive to do't” (II.iii.152). At this point Helena attempts to withdraw her offer; but by now the king's anger is aroused at the flagrant disobedience of his ward, and he exercises his prerogative as a guardian to enforce Bertram's consent, even to the extent of threatening the young man with punishment and the loss of royal favor (II.iii.156-173).

The king's threat speedily brings Bertram to heel. All his objections are overruled and the quality of “liking” or “fancy” is all that is lacking. So, with a very bad grace, Bertram acquiesces:

Pardon, my gracious lord; for I submit
My fancy to your eyes. When I consider
What great creation and what dole of honour
Flies where you bid it, I find that she, which late
Was in my nobler thoughts most base, is now
The praised of the King; who, so ennobled,
Is as 'twere born so.

(II.iii.174-180)

Bertram then takes the lady's hand, saying merely “I take her hand” (II.iii.183). It is evident that the king considers this act one of hand-fasting and takes it as an outward sign of consent. This situation would presumably equal a binding contract because, as Henry Swinburne notes:

… albeit neither of the Parties express any words at all, but some third person recite the words of the Contract, willing them if they be there-with content, to joyn their hands together, or to embrace each other; the Parties so doing, the Contract is of like Efficacy, as if they themselves had mutually expressed the words before recited by the third Person.²¹

The king then gives his blessing and consent as guardian, taking the joining of hands as consent on the part of the two betrothed, and the rest of the court act as witnesses. Apparently neither nuptial kisses nor rings are exchanged, but the words of the king indicate that he considers a contract to have been made:

Good fortune and the favour of the King
Smile upon this contract, whose ceremony
Shall seem expedient on the now-born brief,
And be perform'd to-night. The solemn feast
Shall more attend upon the coming space,
Expecting absent friends. As thou lov'st her,
Thy love's to me religious; else does err.

(II.iii.184-190)

Such a ceremony of espousing was, of course, followed by a religious ceremony in facie ecclesiae. Usually, in Elizabethan England, banns would have been called; but in many cases, including Shakespeare's own marriage, the banns were dispensed with. It was this ceremony in facie ecclesiae—and not the sponsalia per verba de praesenti—that actually conferred all the rights and privileges of matrimony.²² William Harrington's statement of 1528 was also true of Shakespeare's day:

… yet the man maye not possesse the woman as his wyfe / nor the woman the man as her husbonde / nor inhabyte / nor flesshely meddle togyther as man and wyfe: afore suche tyme as that matrymony be approved and solempnysed by oure mother holy chyrche / and yf they do in dede they synne deedly. …²³

If, however, a betrothed couple did consummate their contract before the church ceremony, the sin was generally considered venial rather than mortal because of the existence of the contract.²⁴ Nevertheless the Church would still insist upon the ceremony, and ecclesiastical penalties could be imposed.

The king proposes that the church ceremony be held that very evening and that the wedding banquet, a purely social appendage, be postponed until a later date. Apparently the religious service takes place almost immediately, because later in the same scene Lafeu enters with “Sirrah, your lord and master's married; there's news for you. You have a new mistress” (II.iii.257-258). Bertram also reinforces this evidence that the public espousals have been ratified in facie ecclesiae:

Ber. Although before the solemn priest I have sworn, I will not bed her.
Par. What, what, sweetheart?
Ber. O my Parolles, they have married me! I'll to the Tuscan wars and never bed her.

(II.iii.286-290)

This action has also been used to paint Bertram as a singularly nasty young man, but as Blayney says, “We may find an excuse for his treatment of Helena in the contemporary attitudes and conduct which accompanied wardship and the enforcement of marriage.”²⁵

Bertram seems, in fact, to be taking the only course open to him. The religiously ratified de praesenti matrimonial contract that he has just entered into is binding and almost indissoluble, but the important element of consummation is lacking. Should Bertram avoid cohabitation and refuse to consummate the marriage, then he would still have the possibility of escape on several grounds: (1) consent obtained by threats sufficient to arouse fear in a strong man; (2) consent obtained through respect for authority (per metus reverentialis); (3) mental reservation at the time of the ceremony;²⁶ (4) refusal to consummate the marriage indicated by a three-year absence from the province, or a two-year absence within the province.²⁷ Therefore one may say that by refusing to go to bed with Helena, Bertram is doing the only sensible thing possible under the circumstances, because the act of consummation would be considered the outward sign of consent on both sides. He would then be condemned without recourse to indissoluble marriage with his unwanted, unloved wife. It is interesting to note that Bertram can on occasion disobey the king, but only in his guardian's absence. In both the espousal scene of Act II and the concluding scene of Act V he is quite unable to protest satisfactorily when the king is present.

The central emphasis in the matrimonial affairs of the play now shifts from Bertram to Helena, and the remainder of the plot is concerned with what W. W. Lawrence called the theme of the “clever wench” or “the fulfilling of the task.” In the manner of a truly obedient wife, Helena at first acquiesces in Bertram's desire to postpone consummation of the match. She then leaves the court to return to the only home she has ever known, Roussillon, where she is shown to have gained the consent of the countess herself, who also stands in loco parentis to Helena: “It hath happen'd all as I would have had it, save that he comes not with her” (III.ii.1-2). At this time Shakespeare plays on the sympathies of his audience by having even the countess comment disparagingly on the conduct of her own son and praise the virtues of Helena. All blame is now fastened on Bertram, and Helena is all-praised—and decidedly resourceful.

Bertram's letter to his mother is exactly what one would expect, and it is significant that this is the first time the young man has put a statement of his attitudes and proposed actions in writing:

“I have sent you a daughter-in-law; she hath recovered the King, and undone me. I have wedded her, not bedded her; and sworn to make the ‘not’ eternal. You shall hear I am run away: know it before the report come. If there be breadth enough in the world, I will hold a long distance. My duty to you.”

(III.ii.21-27)

This letter is Shakespeare's addition to the Boccaccio source and it serves two purposes: it could be excellent evidence for the annulment of the marriage, and it gains further sympathy for Helena when she reads Bertram's accompanying letter of conditions:

“When thou canst get the ring upon my finger which never shall come off, and show me a child begotten of thy body that I am father to, then call me husband; but in such a ‘then’ I write a ‘never.”’

(III.ii.59-63)

Such conditions are of course typical of those in the “clever wench” genre of folk tales so admirably described by Lawrence,²⁸ but the letter can also be read as a conditional espousal added to the earlier, public and unwilling one. It will be recalled that such conditions were not supposed to be impossible or to cause grave sin, and Bertram is saying nothing more than that he will refuse to accept the title of husband until he has acted as Helena's husband, consummated the marriage—which he has so far obstinately refused to do—and begotten a child on Helena. All that Helena does from that time is to find a way to fulfill Bertram's conditions, to obtain her conjugal rights and to lose her virginity to her own “liking,” a situation entirely different from that described in Measure for Measure. We now have the picture of a woman desperately in love who wants quite frankly to consummate her marriage and is prepared to go to almost any lengths to do so. Certainly the means she uses to obtain her end seem to arise rather too much from coincidence—but then Shakespeare was following his source. It is the treatment of this part of Boccaccio's tale that is important, and one cannot fail to note how carefully Shakespeare seems to make his material fit the Elizabethan patterns of espousing. This statement is particularly true of Bertram's relations with Diana, the maiden whom the young man solicits, and it seems to serve as a key to many of the problems surrounding the conclusion of the play.

At the opening of Act V the entire court is mourning the supposed death of Helena, and in a situation reminiscent of Much Ado about Nothing we have a second match suggested as a consolation prize for the young man who has learned the worth of his jilted lady too late:

          she whom all men prais'd and whom myself,
Since I have lost, have lov'd, was in mine eye
The dust that did offend it.

(V.iii.53-55)

As in the case of Claudio, these lines should be taken at their face value. What is lost is now loved. Bertram is also more mature and less hasty. In the public espousal scene which follows and which parallels that of II.iii his behavior shows considerable alteration. Instead of protest we have deference and obedience to his guardian's wishes (V.iii.28-31). The king expresses a desire for the match, and “The main consents are had” (V.iii.69). In other words, the king and the countess of Roussillon as guardian and parent, Lafeu as the father of the young lady, and Bertram himself have all agreed, and Maudlin has been reported as consenting to the match. Lafeu then asks for the usual token, and Bertram naturally gives a ring—but it is the ring given him by the supposed Diana, and both Lafeu and the king instantly recognize it as the king's gift to Helena.

Thus at the moment of what would seem to be Bertram's success his bubble is pricked, and the young man's pride is broken. Bertram seizes upon the first plausible lie, but the king's suspicions are aroused to the extent of wondering whether the unwilling bridegroom might not have done away with his unwanted wife, Helena (V.iii.115-120). On top of these revelations Shakespeare produces a letter from Diana in which she claims, in the best legal manner, that Bertram is now contracted irrevocably to her:

“Upon his many protestations to marry me when his wife was dead, I blush to say it, he won me. Now is the Count Roussillon a widower; his vows are forfeited to me, and my honour's paid to him. He stole from Florence, taking no leave, and I follow him to his country for justice. Grant it me, O king! In you it best lies. Otherwise a seducer flourishes, and a poor maid is undone. Diana Capilet.”

(V.iii.138-146)

Immediately upon this discovery Lafeu withdraws his offer of Maudlin, whom we never see.

Shakespeare has of course already prepared us for Bertram's discomfiture when in the preceding act he has Diana propose an exchange of rings as her price for entertaining Bertram:

When you have conquer'd my yet maiden bed,
Remain there but an hour, nor speak to me.
My reasons are most strong and you shall know them
When back again this ring shall be deliver'd;
And on your finger in the night I'll put
Another ring, that what in time proceeds
May token to the future our past deeds.
Adieu, till then; then, fail not. You have won
A wife of me, though there my hope be done.

(IV.ii.57-65)

This careful doubling of the rings is original with Shakespeare, and G. K. Hunter appends the following perceptive comment:

The exchange of rings was part of the ceremony of betrothal … ; since Diana claims Bertram as her husband in v.iii perhaps the exchange is thought of as having a similar force here. …”²⁹

Diana also uses the word “wife” in referring to herself and in IV.ii.71-72 notes that Claudio

          had sworn to marry me
When his wife's dead. …

In her statements Diana seems to describe a conditional and secret espousal with an exchange of rings. The fulfillment of the condition (i.e., the death of Helena) would therefore leave Bertram contracted to Diana, although in secret. Consummation of such a relationship would of course ratify the contract, constituting a putative marriage recognizable under law. Admittedly the espousals are clandestine, being sworn in secret and lacking the religious ceremony in facie ecclesiae, but this kind of secret marriage could be, and in fact was on occasion, upheld in court, although ecclesiastical penalties and sometimes temporal punishment could be imposed because of the irregularity of the contracting.³⁰

At this point in the play Diana almost seems to be the instigator of much of the succeeding action, a fact which contributes to the character of Helena, who does not therefore appear to be a relentless plotter. After all, as Harold Wilson says, “the controlling idea of the play that emerges is the conception of Helena's love as far stronger than Bertram's arrogance, a love which works unobtrusively and with humility toward an end that heaven favors.”³¹ The complication of the play has now reached its climax, and the great confrontation scene now takes place. Shakespeare does not make it clear which of the two ladies, Helena or Diana, is responsible for the planning of this scene, but it serves a highly useful purpose in motivating the repentance of Bertram and showing that by the end of the play he has gained sufficient self-knowledge and maturity to comprehend the true nobility of Helena. Only then can he be remotely worthy of her.³²

On Diana's appearance Bertram is backed into a corner; his accomplice in what he would seem to have considered a mere soldier's flirtation has now come to claim him. And by Elizabethan law and practice Bertram would have been bound to her because of the promise, the exchange of rings, and the consummation of the relationship. Most unchivalrously he attacks Diana's reputation, at which point the girl produces Bertram's ancestral ring as evidence both of the contract and of his perfidy. This blow is the culminating one in a long series of shocks to the young man's pride, beginning with the marriage to Helena, continuing with the unmasking of Parolles, and culminating in this scene. By now Bertram's pride is completely crushed. All he can do is gibber wildly in an undignified attempt to cover up for himself, while Diana relentlessly uncovers each lie. Bertram must finally confess that he received the ring from “Diana” and stand by while the foul-mouthed braggart Parolles tells all. The behavior of Diana at this point seems rather strange, and critics since Johnson have objected to this part of the scene. It is important, nevertheless, because her stalling and her pert answers to the king forfeit any sympathy she might gain from the court or the audience. Further, it is dramatically necessary that Bertram be given a very real scare. His shortcomings in preferring Diana to his lost wife, who loved him for himself, must be revealed. Bertram, now knowing himself for what he is, can then react positively when Helena comes to announce the fulfillment of the conditions he had set her.

With the appearance of Helena, the now humbled young man rejoices. Some of his joy may also be dictated by the fact that she is undoubtedly saving him from the undesirable match in which he had believed himself trapped. The existing contract with Helena, though consummated by a trick, has now become binding, indissoluble matrimony; and it certainly outweighs any later contract into which Bertram might have entered. He has now been “doubly won” and his lines

If she, my liege, can make me know this clearly,
I'll love her dearly, ever, ever dearly

(V.iii.316-317)

may bear the added meaning of gratitude towards his lady. Bertram can now compare the love and forgiveness of Helena with the almost shrewish insistence of Diana. He is still understandably confused, however, since he has only riddling words as a guide. This time he goes with relief into what he had formerly considered “loathsome bondage” with Helena, now apparently giving “free and unforced consent.”³³

Thus the play ends happily with a reconciliation scene, accomplishing that transition from sorrow to joy characteristic of Shakespearean comedy. Bertram, the immature young man of Act II, has discovered through his own experience the nature of love and marriage and has as a result become worthy of the resourceful, faithful, and forgiving Helena. Shakespeare is not, of course, merely using this play to illustrate and criticize aspects of Elizabethan wardship and matrimonial practice;³⁴ he is employing matrimonial material that was probably familiar to his audience to point up the motivations and explain the actions of some of the principal characters. And certainly a knowledge of this sixteenth- and seventeenth-century material helps to rehabilitate the character of Bertram. In like manner the problems surrounding the function of Diana and the plot of the bed trick partially disappear. One may therefore say with justice that a study of the nature of Elizabethan matrimonial contracting helps to explain many of the apparent inconsistencies in All's Well That Ends Well and leads to the discovery of added meaning in this so-called problem comedy.

Notes

1. William Witherle Lawrence, Shakespeare's Problem Comedies (New York, 1931), p. 38.

2. Madeleine Doran, Endeavors of Art: A Study of Form in Elizabethan Drama (Madison, 1954), p. 251.

3. John F. Adams, “All's Well That Ends Well: The Paradox of Procreation,” Shakespeare Quarterly, XII (1961), p. 262.

4. There were of course completely secret de praesenti espousals which could be upheld in the courts as valid matrimony; cf. The Duchess of Malfi. The Church vigorously opposed this practice and insisted upon the religious ceremony.

5. Diriment impediments were quite indispensable and could, when they were discovered, dissolve an existing union, even if it had been consummated. They included, among other things, impotence and relationship within the prohibited degrees.

6. Henry Swinburne, A Treatise of Spousals, or Matrimonial Contracts (London, 1686), pp. 236-239. This book was actually written ca. 1600.

7. 2 & 3 Edward VI, c. 23. In Statutes of the Realm, ed. Alexander Luders et al., IV, Pt. 1 (London, 1819), 68-69.

8. Swinburne, pp. 12-15; see also Alexander W. Renton and George G. Phillimore, The Comparative Law of Marriage and Divorce (London, 1910), p. 18.

9. George Hayward Joyce, S. J., Christian Marriage: An Historical and Doctrinal Study, Heythrop Series, I (London, 1948), 58. This distinction was raised in the matter of the marriage, and later the divorce, of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon. Had the marriage between Catherine and Arthur, Prince of Wales, been matrimonium ratum, an indissoluble diriment impediment would have existed on grounds of affinity.

10. Swinburne, pp. 114-121.

11. Ibid., p. 122.

12. Ibid., p. 121.

13. Ibid., pp. 150-151.

14. Chilton Latham Powell, English Domestic Relations, 1487-1653 (New York, 1917), p. 17. Canonical opinion seems to have been divided over the question of whether a mere exchange of rings without accompanying words constituted an espousal. See Swinburne, p. 209.

15. William Harrington, In This Boke Are Conteyned the Commendacions of Matrymony (London, 1528), sig. A3r.

16. Joyce, p. 80.

17. See Swinburne, pp. 216-217.

18. “Wardship in English Drama (1600-1650),” Studies in Philology, LIII (1956), 478.

19. All quotations and citations from Shakespeare are from The Complete Plays and Poems of William Shakespeare, New Cambridge edition, ed. William Allan Neilson and Charles Jarvis Hill (Boston, 1942).

20. Cf. The Taming of the Shrew, III.ii.19-20:

              Lo, there is mad Petruchio's wife,
    If it would please him come and marry her!

21. Swinburne, p. 206.

22. See Davis P. Harding, “Elizabethan Betrothals and Measure for Measure,” JEGP, XLIX (1950), 139-158.

23. Harrington, sig. A[4^v].

24. Cf. Much Ado about Nothing, IV.i.49-51:

                                            If I have known her
    You will say she did embrace me as a husband,
    And so extenuate the 'forehand sin.

25. Blayney, “Wardship,” 477.

26. Joyce, pp. 75-82; Swinburne, pp. 236-239.

27. Swinburne, p. 237.

28. William Witherle Lawrence, “The Meaning of All's Well That Ends Well,” PMLA, XXXVII (1922), 427-436.

29. All's Well That Ends Well, new Arden edition (London, 1959), pp. 103-104n. Swinburne, A Treatise (p. 209) believes that the exchange of rings confirms whatever contract the words then spoken import. Should there be any doubt whether the contract be considered matrimony or espousal “it is to be judged matrimony” in law.

30. Joyce, pp. 106-107. Under English civil law certain property rights, in particular the widow's right to dower, could not be granted unless assigned formally at the church door.

31. Harold S. Wilson, “Dramatic Emphasis in All's Well That Ends Well,” HLQ, XIII (May 1950), 239.

32. Kenneth Muir, Shakespeare's Sources, I (London, 1957), 100-101.

33. Blayney, “Wardship,” 478, maintains that “The reconciliation of Bertram and Helena is not the triumph of romantic love, but obedience to a royal command at the time of their marriage.”

34. Glenn H. Blayney, “Enforcement of Marriage in English Drama (1600-1650),” Philological Quarterly, XXXVIII (1959), 463-464 remarks that “… Shakespeare in All's Well That Ends Well fused realism and romance by adapting two romantic plots to disguise and yet illustrate the social problem of wardship and resulting enforced marriage.”