An Historical View of the English Government

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John Millar. An Historical View of the English Government

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AN HISTORICAL VIEW

OF THE ENGLISH GOVERNMENT

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So far was the government from restraining the custom of duelling, that the efforts of the civil magistrate tended rather to encourage it. Those who had sustained an affront thought it dishonourable to apply for redress to a court of justice; but when a dispute had arisen in matters of property, and had become the subject of a law-suit, it frequently happened, that in the course of the debate the parties, by their proud and insolent behaviour, affronted each other; which made them withdraw their cause from the court, in order to determine it by the <113> sword; the judge was unable to prevent this determination, but he endeavoured to diminish the bad consequences that might arise from it. By regulating the forms of the encounter, and superintending the ceremonies with which it was conducted, he availed himself of the punctilios of honour, which fashion had established, and restrained the friends of either party from interfering in the quarrel. Hence the judicial combat,11 which has been erroneously considered by some as the origin of duelling, but which undoubtedly tended to support and extend the practice, by giving it the sanction of public authority. It has, accordingly, been observed, that as, in a judicial controversy, the most common provocation consisted in the parties contradicting each other in point of fact; so giving the lye has become that sort of offence, on account of which custom has rendered it most indispensably necessary to require satisfaction by fighting.

The institutions of chivalry, and the jousts and tournaments, were the natural appendages of the custom of duelling, or rather of that state of manners which gave rise to it.

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