Not only were women admitted as gladiators, but dwarfs also were matched against each other. If we have seen nobles and knights of more modern times making destruction a pastime, they too could adduce the example of the ancients. Although gladiators were usually slaves or captives, yet freemen and men of rank soon put in their claims to be allowed publicly to destroy each other. Grave senators, to court the favour of their imperial masters, descended into the arena. Augustus was obliged to command that none of the senatorian order should turn gladiators, and soon after laid the same restraint upon knights. These prohibitions were little regarded, since we find Nero exhibiting in one show four hundred senators and six hundred of the equestrian rank. It was chiefly during his reign, and that of Domitian, that the ladies partook of the diversion.
Still, in the midst of this savage practice, we find no traces of duelling, either as an amusement or a satisfaction; and the ladies, instead of procuring champions to fight their quarrels, very independently maintained their own rights.
In more modern times we read in chronicles of various national conflicts of a similar nature. Such was the battle called that of the Thirty, when that number of Englishmen and Frenchmen contended for superiority. Richard Bembrough, an English chief commanding the garrison of Ploërmel, anxious to avenge the death of his comrade Thomas Dagarne, killed before Auray, had ravaged the surrounding country, carrying desolation into every quarter, and murdering indiscriminately traders, artisans, and labourers. The Sire de Beaumanoir, a gentleman of Britanny, asked for a conference; which being granted, he remonstrated with Bembrough on his conduct, reproaching him with waging a cruel and foul warfare, by attacking unarmed and helpless individuals. The British captain, who considered himself insulted by these reproaches, proudly answered, that it little became him and his followers to compare themselves with Englishmen. Beaumanoir immediately challenged him to a trial of arms, which was as readily accepted by Bembrough. The place appointed for the meeting was at a certain ancient oak-tree, between Ploërmel and Josselin; and, on the appointed day, thirty combatants appeared on each side, while all the nobility of the district crowded to the spot to witness the conflict.
Before giving the signal of the onset, Bembrough, it appears, had some scruples; as he considered that the battle would be irregular unless he had received the permission of his prince: he therefore wished to postpone the battle until such leave was obtained. To this proposal the sturdy Breton would not agree, but insisted upon immediately deciding which of the two was the better man, and was loved by the fairest lady; the Countess de Blois being the lady of Beaumanoir’s affection.
The conflict was desperate; and the French chronicler states that nearly all the English bit the dust, the wounded being despatched by the conquerors. Bembrough was killed by a certain Alain de Kaërenrech, when on the point of assailing Beaumanoir. The latter, being grievously wounded, asked for drink, when one of his companions, the Sire de Teuteniac, charitably told him to drink his own blood, and that would quench his untimely thirst.2
In 1404 another combat of the same description took place, between seven French and seven English knights, before the castle of Montendre, in Saintonge; Charles VII. having selected Arnault Guillem de Barbazas to lead on the French against their antagonists, commanded by the Lord Scales. The combat took place in presence of both armies; Jean de Harpedene and the Earl of Rutland having been appointed arbiters by their respective monarchs. Here again, according to Moreri, the French arms were triumphant; and Barbazas was honoured with the title of the Chevalier sans reproche, and allowed to bear the fleur de lis without a bar on his escutcheon, Charles VII. moreover ordained that he should receive sepulchral honours in the church of St. Denis, and be buried by his own side.
At various periods we see sovereigns challenging each other, but reserving to themselves the option of accepting or declining the combat. Thus, Francis I, when a prisoner of Charles V, conceived himself insulted when the latter monarch very justly reproached him with having broken his royal word, by violating every promise which he had made to him; for, in order to obtain his liberty, the French prince made many solemn promises, amongst others the cession of Burgundy, which he broke so soon as he was free, on the plea of having acted under moral violence. A similar plea was adduced, during the late war, by the many French prisoners who so repeatedly broke their parole. The challenge of the French King is so curious and bombastic, and so unbefitting a man who had just violated every law of honour, that it is worth translating.
“We, Francis, by the grace of God, &c. to you, Charles, by the same grace, King of Spain, do maintain that if you accuse me of having done any act unbecoming a gentleman jealous of his honour, we tell you that you have lied in your throat so often as you may have made, or shall make, such an assertion. And, as we are determined to defend our honour to the end of our life, we protest that, after this declaration, in whatever place you either speak or write any matter against our honour, any delay in the combat shall, to your shame, be attributed to you, as your attending this challenge will put an end to all further correspondence.”
Charles V. did accept the challenge, and sent to the French King a herald, bearing what was called la sureté du camp, to appoint time and place. The French monarch, however, received the messenger in the hall of the Louvre in presence of all his court and the foreign ambassadors; when, strange to say, in the exercise of his kingly power, he would not permit the herald to open his lips; thus pusillanimously avoiding a meeting he had so impudently provoked.
What made this gasconading worse than ridiculous was, the circumstance of Francis applying to Pope Clement VII. for absolution for having ceded Flanders and Artois; thus requiring absolution for the maintenance of an oath that he could not violate, without asking for a similar exoneration for the breach of the solemn promise he had made to give up Burgundy. Voltaire has truly said of this rodomontade, “Tant d’appareil n’aboutit qu’au ridicule, dont le trône même ne garantit pas les hommes.”
Not unfrequently was this recourse to arms declined both in ancient and modern times. Metellus in Spain refused the challenge of Sertorius; Antigonus was defied by Pyrrhus; and Marius sent word to a Teutonic chief, who urged him to a personal trial of prowess, that, if he was tired of life, he had better hang himself.
Our Edward III. provoked Philippe de Valois to a similar trial, either in single combat, or by an action of a hundred against a hundred men; when the latter declined the meeting, alleging that a vassal could not encounter his sovereign, Edward having done homage to him for the duchy of Guienne: but subsequently, when the arms of Edward were triumphant, Philip expressed a desire to accept the former challenge; the victorious monarch, however, in his turn very wisely declined a meeting which would have staked the glory he had obtained on the hazard of a doubtful rencontre. To the first challenge of Edward, Philip had replied, that he offered to hazard his own person only, against both the kingdom of France and the person of its King; but that if the latter would increase the stake, and put also the kingdom of England on the issue of the meeting, he would very willingly accept the challenge. Hume very justly observes, that “it was easy to see that these mutual bravadoes were intended only to dazzle the populace, and that the two kings were much too wise to think of executing their pretended purpose.”
Christian IV. of Denmark answered a defiance of Charles IX. of Sweden by strongly advising him to take a dose of hellebore; and Charles Gustavus, when similarly