THE EARL OF WARWICK (continued 2)

The Earl of Bridgewater suggested that the difficulty might be met by sending the guard to clear the passages about the court, which was accordingly done, apparently with success.

The Solicitor-General then continued his summing up the evidence; his only original comment on the case being that as there was no evidence as to whose hand it was by which Coote was wounded, 'until that can be known, every person that was there must remain under the imputation of the same guilt, as having a hand, and contributing to his death.'

Then the lords went back to their own house in the same order they came into the court in Westminster Hall, and debated the matter among themselves, what judgment to give upon the evidence that had been heard; and in about two hours' time they returned again into the court, erected upon a scaffold in Westminster-hall; and after they were seated in their places, the Lord High Steward being seated in his chair before the throne, spoke to the Lords thus:

Lord High Steward—Will your lordships proceed to give your judgment?

Lords—Ay, Ay.

Then the Lord High Steward asked this question of every one of the lords there present, beginning with the puisne baron, which was the lord Bernard.

Lord High Steward—My lord Bernard, is Edward Earl of Warwick guilty of the felony and murder whereof he stands indicted, or not guilty?

The lord Bernard stood up in his place uncovered, and laying his right hand upon his breast pronounced his judgment thus:

Lord Bernard—Not Guilty of murder, but Guilty of manslaughter, upon my honour.

The same question was asked severally of all the lords, who in the same form delivered the same opinion.

Then the Lord High Steward reckoned up the number of peers present, and the opinions that were given, and announced that there were 93 present, and that they had all acquitted lord Warwick of murder, but had found him guilty of manslaughter. Lord Warwick was then called in, the judgment was announced to him, and he was asked what he had to say why judgment of death should not be pronounced against him according to law. And he claimed the benefit of his peerage, under the statute of Edward the 6th.

Lord High Steward—My lord, your lordship has demanded the benefit of your peerage upon the statute of Edward the 6th, and you must have it by law; but I am directed by their lordships to acquaint you that you cannot have the benefit of that statute twice; therefore, I am likewise directed by their lordships to say that they hope you will take a more than ordinary care of your behaviour for the future, that so you may never hereafter fall into such unfortunate circumstances as you have been now under; my lords hope this will be so sensible a warning, that nothing of this kind will ever happen to you again; your lordship is now to be discharged.

Lord High Steward—Is it your lordships' pleasure to adjourn to the House of Lords?

Lords—Ay, Ay.

Lord High Steward—This House is adjourned to the House of Lords.

Then the lords went in procession, in the same order that they came into the court.

The next day Lord Mohun was tried on a similar indictment before the same court. And most of the same witnesses having given the same evidence again, he was acquitted and discharged. He then expressed himself thus:

Lord Mohun—My lords, I do not know which way to express my great thankfulness and acknowledgment of your lordships' great honour and justice to me; but I crave leave to assure your lordships, that I will endeavour to make it the business of the future part of my life, so to behave myself in my conversation in the world, as to avoid all things that may bring me under any such circumstances, as may expose me to the giving your lordships any trouble of this nature for the future.

Then proclamation was made dissolving the Commission, and the Court adjourned.

As is well known, the duel described in this trial is the original of that described in Esmond between Lord Castlewood and Lord Mohun; it may therefore be of interest to transcribe a few passages out of the latter work, premising only that there seems to be some faint relationship between Captain Macartney, Lord Mohun's second in his duel with Lord Castlewood, and the Lord Macartney who afterwards assisted him in the same capacity in his final meeting with the Duke of Hamilton. Lord Castlewood, as will be remembered, had come up to London to fight Lord Mohun, really on account of his relations with Lady Castlewood, nominally as the result of a quarrel at cards, which it was arranged should have all the appearance of taking place. Lord Castlewood, Jack Westbury, and Harry Esmond all meet together at the 'Trumpet,' in the Cockpit, Whitehall.

When we had drunk a couple of bottles of sack, a coach was called, and the three gentlemen went to the Duke's Playhouse, as agreed. The play was one of Mr. Wycherley's—Love in a Wood. Harry Esmond has thought of that play ever since with a kind of terror, and of Mrs. Bracegirdle, the actress who performed the girl's part in the comedy. She was disguised as a page, and came and stood before the gentlemen as they sat on the stage, and looked over her shoulder with a pair of arch black eyes, and laughed at my lord, and asked what ailed the gentleman from the country, and had he had bad news from Bullock fair?

Between the acts of the play the gentlemen crossed over and conversed freely. There were two of Lord Mohun's party, Captain Macartney, in a military habit, and a gentleman in a suit of blue velvet and silver, in a fair periwig with a rich fall of point of Venice lace—my Lord the Earl of Warwick and Holland. My lord had a paper of oranges, which he ate, and offered to the actresses, joking with them. And Mrs. Bracegirdle, when my lord Mohun said something rude, turned on him, and asked him what he did there, and whether he and his friends had come to stab anybody else, as they did poor Will Mountford? My lord's dark face grew darker at this taunt, and wore a mischievous, fatal look. They that saw it remembered it, and said so afterward.

When the play was ended the two parties joined company; and my Lord Castlewood then proposed that they should go to a tavern and sup. Lockit's, the 'Greyhound,' in Charing Cross was the house selected. All three marched together that way, the three lords going a-head.'

At the 'Greyhound' they play cards, and Esmond tries in vain to quarrel with Mohun himself.

My Lord Mohun presently snuffed a candle. It was when the drawers brought in fresh bottles and glasses and were in the room—on which my Lord Viscount said, 'The Deuce take you, Mohun, how damned awkward you are. Light the candle, you drawer.'

'Damned awkward is a damned awkward expression, my lord,' says the other. 'Town gentlemen don't use such words—or ask pardon if they do.'

'I'm a country gentleman,' says my Lord Viscount.

'I see it by your manner,' says my Lord Mohun. 'No man shall say damned awkward to me.'

'I fling the words in your face, my lord,' says the other; 'shall I send the cards too?'

'Gentlemen, gentlemen! before the servants?' cry out Colonel Westbury and my Lord Warwick in a breath. The drawers go out of the room hastily. They tell the people below of the quarrel upstairs.

'Enough has been said,' says Colonel Westbury. 'Will your lordships meet to-morrow morning?'

'Will my Lord Castlewood withdraw his words?' asks the Earl of Warwick.

'My lord Castlewood will be —— first,' says Colonel Westbury.

'Then we have nothing for it. Take notice, gentlemen, there have been outrageous words—reparation asked and refused.'

'And refused,' says my Lord Castlewood, putting on his hat. 'Where shall the meeting be? and when?'

'Since my lord refuses me satisfaction, which I deeply regret, there is no time so good as now,' says my Lord Mohun. 'Let us have chairs, and go to Leicester Field.'

'Are your lordship and I to have the honour of exchanging a pass or two?' says Colonel Westbury, with a low bow to my Lord of Warwick and Holland.

'It is an honour for me,' says my lord, with a profound congée, 'to be matched with a gentleman who has been at Mons and Namur.'

'Will your Reverence permit me to give you a lesson?' says the captain.

'Nay, nay, gentlemen, two on a side are plenty,' says Harry's patron. 'Spare the boy, Captain Macartney,' and he shook Harry's hand for the last time, save one, in his life.

At the bar of the tavern all the gentlemen stopped, and my Lord Viscount said, laughing, to the bar-woman, that those cards set people sadly a-quarrelling; but that the dispute was over now, and the parties were all going away to my Lord Mohun's house, in Bow Street, to drink a bottle more before going to bed.

A half-dozen of chairs were now called, and the six gentlemen stepping into them, the word was privately given to the chairmen to go to Leicester Field, where the gentlemen were set down opposite the 'Standard Tavern.' It was midnight, and the town was a-bed by this time, and only a few lights in the windows of the houses; but the night was bright enough for the unhappy purpose which the disputants came about; and so all six entered into that fatal square, the chairmen standing without the railing and keeping the gate, lest any persons should disturb the meeting.

All that happened there hath been matter of public notoriety, and is recorded, for warning to lawless men, in the annals of our country. After being engaged for not more than a couple of minutes, as Harry Esmond thought (though being occupied at the time with his own adversary's point, which was active, he may not have taken a good note of time) a cry from the chairmen without, who were smoking their pipes, and leaning over the railings of the field as they watched the dim combat within, announced that some catastrophe had happened, which caused Esmond to drop his sword and look round, at which moment his enemy wounded him in the right hand. But the young man did not heed this hurt much, and ran up to the place where he saw his dear master was down.

My Lord Mohun was standing over him.

'Are you much hurt, Frank?' he asked in a hollow voice.

'I believe I'm a dead man,' my lord said from the ground.

'No, no, not so,' says the other; 'and I call God to witness, Frank Esmond, that I would have asked your pardon, had you but given me a chance. In—in the first cause of our falling out, I swear that no one was to blame but me, and—and that my lady——'

'Hush!' says my poor Lord Viscount, lifting himself on his elbow and speaking faintly. 'Twas a dispute about the cards—the cursed cards. Harry, my boy, are you wounded too? God help thee! I loved thee, Harry, and thou must watch over my little Frank—and—and carry this little heart to my wife.'

And here my dear lord felt in his breast for a locket he wore there, and, in the act, fell back fainting.

We were all at this terrified, thinking him dead; but Esmond and Colonel Westbury bade the chairmen come into the field; and so my lord was carried to one Mr. Aimes, a surgeon, in Long Acre, who kept a bath, and there the house was wakened up, and the victim of this quarrel carried in.

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