CHAPTER VII. A DUEL IN LEICESTER FIELDS. B EEN ETWEEN the Restoration and the Revolution, Castle Street, Newport Street, Cranborn Alley, and Bear Lane had been built; the square had been surrounded by houses, and had assumed its present dimensions. The buildings on the south side were finished in 1671, the north and east having been built before, and including the best houses. The ground in the centre of the square was railed round before the end of the century, and served for duels, like other open spaces in those days of swords and sudden quarrels. There is a record of one such encounter there preserved in the "State Trials;" two of the parties implicated having been peers-the Earl of Warwick 1 Vol. xiii. p. 939, Howell's ed. 1812. (who died two years after, leaving a widow, whom Addison married in 1716), and Charles, Lord Mohun, who had stood at the bar of the House of Lords on a charge of murder seven years before, when William Mountford, the handsomest actor of his time, was run through the body in a night scuffle, by a Captain Hill, a boon companion of Mohun's, who had attempted to carry off, with Mohun's assistance, Mrs. Ann Bracegirdle, the most popular actress of the day. Mohun, Baron Okehampton, the fifth and last Lord of his line, was a thorough scamp, ruffler, and rake-hell, whose name has survived in connection with his affairs of the sword, the murder of Mountford in 1693,' this duel of 1699, and the duel with the Duke of Hamilton in 1712, in which both combatants fell.2 Among the famous taverns, between the Restoration and the reign of Queen Anne, 1 For his share in which he was acquitted by sixty-nine peers to fourteen, one of the majority observing, "After all the fellow was but a player, and players are rogues." 2 My readers need hardly be reminded of the prominent figure played by Lord Mohun in Thackeray's "Esmond," and the way this duel is woven into the story. Locket's, at Charing Cross,' was one of the most frequented by men of quality and pleasure. Here, late on Saturday, the 29th of October, 1699, were met over their bottle Lords Warwick and Mohun, and Captains French, Dockwra, James, and Coote, a cadet of the Irish family of Mountrath. Lord Warwick and Coote were boon companions: when they had been late on the rounds the captain was always welcome to a bed at my Lord's lodgings; when the captain was arrested by his tailor, Lord Warwick found the money to pay the bill; when the captain's father stopped the supplies, and the captain wanted 100 guineas to make up the price of a step, Lord Warwick was ready with an order on his steward. Locket's was one of the daily haunts of Lord Warwick, Captain Coote and their set; and on this Saturday night Lord Mohun came in before midnight, when all was good temper. But Coote, whose humour it was sometimes to be quarrelsome, sneering at Captain French, the latter in heat called for his reckoning. Lord 1 It stood near the site of George III.'s statue. Warwick, seeing a storm brewing, proposed to send three bottles of wine to his lodging, and carry Coote thither to finish the night. It was now about one. Reckonings were called and paid, and the party broke up, but stopped in the bar while coaches or chairs were being fetched. All of a sudden Coote was called to account by French for smiling. "I'll smile when I like, and frown when I like, G-d d-m me," was the hot rejoinder. In a moment all swords were out; but Lord Mohun, who seems to have played the peacemaker all through, declared he would have no fighting, that he and Lord Warwick would send for the musketeers sooner; he even got his hand cut in interposing between the swords. Lord Warwick swore he would take Captain Coote home with him, and three chairs just then coming up, Captain Coote, still chafing and quarrelsome, got into the first, Lord Warwick into the second; but before they could give their directions to the chairmen, Lord Mohun called them back into the tavern, for a last attempt at accommodation. But the attempt at reconciliation only made matters worse. Coote got into his chair again, and gave the word "to Leicester Fields." The two Lords hurried their chairs after his, calling out again and again whither he was going? "To Leicester Fields!" was the answer. "Pray do not," said Lord Warwick; "but come along with us, and let it alone till to-morrow." By this time they had turned up St. Martin's Lane, and were got as far as the Cross Keys Tavern. "Stop!" called my Lord Mohun; so the three chairs were set down abreast, while both remonstrated with the heated captain, begging him to go home to their lodgings; he, flushed and furious, swearing he would make an end of it that night. At this moment came up the three other chairs on the other side of the way. "Whereupon," says Thomas Browne, forechairman (in his excellent evidence at the trial), "Mr. Coote bid us take up and make all haste we could before those other three into Leicester Fields; so taking up the chair again, Mr. Coote bid us make haste, and if we could go no faster, he swore, 'd-n him,' he would run his sword in one of our bodies. There were two chairs before me, and my Lord Mohun and my Lord Warwick followed in two chairs after me, and when we |