The following incident shows one of the many little affairs of that sort with which James I. had to deal, while it also reveals the fact that, although we find no recorded duels in Hyde Park from the time of Bluff King Hal until 1693, that place was regarded as one of the habitual spots for such frays. “Mary Middlemore, the favourite maid of Queen Anne of Denmark, was either reading or sewing in the Queen’s apartments at Greenwich Palace, when one of the King’s Scotch Gentlemen of the Bedchamber surprised her, and carried off a top-knot from her hair, despite all her remonstrances, and henceforth wore it twisted in his hat-band. Lord Herbert, who was panting for an opportunity of showing his knight-errantry, hearing the bitter complaints of the aggrieved damsel, demanded the return of the top-knot from the Scotch lover, who contumaciously refused to surrender it, on which Lord Herbert seized him by the throat and almost strangled him. These antagonists were dragged asunder by their friends, lest they should incur the penalty of losing their hands by striking in the Royal Palace. They exchanged a _cartel_ to fight unto death in Hyde Park, but the King and the Council tamed their pugnacity with the wholesome infliction of a month’s confinement in the Tower.” During the Great Rebellion duelling became quite a rare occurrence, still existing sufficiently, however, for Cromwell to pass an Act forbidding it. But under Charles II. it again became prevalent, and in spite of legislation against the custom, in 1712 it remained the fashion all through the Georgian period. Naturally, when ladies were so often the cause of these encounters, duels formed one of the topics of interesting gossip in the correspondence of the day. We find in 1693 a duel which had taken place in Hyde Park, described in a letter to the Countess of Rutland (Rutland MSS.) in these words: “... A quarrel happening between two Yorkshire gentlemen, Sir William Reresby and Mr. Moyser, they have decided it in Hyde Park, being both wounded, but neither of them dangerously.” Among the Harley papers at Welbeck Abbey, too, Sir Edward Harley, writing to Lady Harley in the reign of Charles II., informs her that “upon a quarrel begun at a masquerade a duel was fought between Sir Winston Churchill’s son and Mr. Fenwick. Churchill is sore hurt.” No record exists whether this was fought in Hyde Park, but a space near the Ring was apparently a favourite spot, and Fielding in his novel _Amelia_ lays the duel scene there. The seclusion of the place, the early hour, the non-existence of our well regulated modern police, the very difficulty of locomotion, and the dangerous character of the neighbourhood in the dusk and early dawn, all tended to make it easy for the parties to keep their meeting a secret.