First-cousin Marriage in Tudor and Stuart England: 1540-1688

Abstract

The early history of cousin marriage in England is a story of royal passion and religious zeal. Beginning with the complex marital career of Henry VIII and focusing on the fierce Protestant–Catholic debate over the “prohibited degrees” of marriage, this article tells the story of how cousin marriage became not just a legal fact in England, but a crucial aspect of the country’s early Protestant identity. The article closes by assessing popular attitudes toward cousin marriage in the late Tudor and Stuart periods. It concludes that while cousin marriage was accepted quickly by theologians, particularly those of a strong Reforming or Puritan bent, popular opinion was still firmly against it by the end of the seventeenth century.