Slender: "By these gloves, 'twas he."— Merry Wives of Winsor. Wager of battle or trial by combat is of the highest antiquity and survived up to a comparatively late period in the history of the two legal systems under which England was governed, yet we find few early refer ences to the forms and ceremonies incident to the demanding of this form of trial. The glove figured largely in the punctilious ceremonials of these primitive courts of force. It was not only the gage of battle, but was the sign and seal of a mutual agreement to meet in mortal combat at a certain specified time and place. Sir Walter Scott, than whom no more painstaking and accurate antiquarian ever wrote, has beautifully described the cere mony of defiance in the case of a murderer who demanded trial by battle and under sanction of the church was allowed this right: "High mass having been performed, fol lowed by a solemn invocation to the Deity, that He would be pleased to protect the in nocent and make known the guilty, the name of Bonthron sounded three times through the aisles of the church." "The murderer's brain was so much dis turbed, that it was not until he was asked for the last time if he would! submit to the ordeal, that he answered, 'I will not; I offer the combat to any man who says I harmed that dead body.' "And, according to the usual form, he threw his glove upon the floor of the church." —Chronicle of the Canongatc. Scott again used this custom in Ivanhoe, where he causes Rebecca to say, "I am a maiden unskilled to dispute for my religion; but I can die for it, if it be God's will. Let me pray your answer to my demand for a champion." "Give me her glove," said Beaumanoir. "This is indeed," he continued, "a slight and frail gage for a purpose so deadly! Seest thou, Rebecca, as this slight glove of thine is
to one of our heavy steel gauntlets, so is thy cause to that of the Temple, for it is our order which thou hast defied." This consuetude, according to Gerard de Nevers, also existed in Spain, and undoubt edly it extended throughout Christendom at that. time. The following curious record of defiance by the glove is related by Booth in his Nature and Practice of Real Actions: "In the writ of right for the manor of Copenhaw, in the county of Northumberland, battle was joined upon the meere right—and the cham pions appeared. And it was commanded by the court, that the champion of the tenant should put five pennies into his glove—in every finger-stall a penny—and deliver it into court; and so the demandant should do the same; and the judges received the gloves, &c. "The champions being on their knees, the counsel for the parties were asked by the Lord Chief Justice why they should not allow the champions, and why they should not wage battle; who answered, they knew no cause, &c., &c." As late as 1571, according to Spelman, a duel was appointed to be fought in Tothhill Fields, which was to be a trial by combat re specting an estate in Kent. The parties ap peared at the Court of the King's Bench and demanded "trial by battle." The court granted the plea under the ancient statute, whereupon the plaintiff threw down his glove and the defendant then took it up on the point of his sword and carried it off. The court fixed the time and place of the duel, but Queen Elizabeth interfered and it did not take place. The last defiance by glove in which a case at law was to be decided by wager of battle is given in the records of the Court of the King's Bench in 1818. "In the King's Bench, Michaelmas Term, in the 58th. year of the reign of George III.— Ashford versus Thornton.
