True to the faith of her fathers, and charitable, out of the goodness of her heart, Rebecca ministers to the wants of the peasant and then, because she turns a deaf ear to the importunities of the faithless Templar, she is arraigned and tried for sorcery and the practice of witchcraft, and would have been left without a champion, but for the chivalrous conduct of Wilfred of Ivanhoe, who, though sick and maimed, placed his implicit faith in the righteousness of his cause and the assistance of Divine aid, and the wicked de Bois-Guilbert is stricken by a power from on high, because he fought upon the side of an unrighteous cause. From the time that Rebecca offers the gage of battle, until the close of this interesting trial, by her tardy champion, who hazarded his life in her defense, against such fearful odds, in the tilt-yard of Temple stowe, we can but see that the author of this humanly interesting story had accurately studied the details of these trials by battle, as given in the older books. After the evidence of the witnesses to her sorcery, had been taken, the accused demanded her right of trial by battle, through the service of a champion, in “respect of lawful essoine of her body.” The author uses the exact words, given by Glanville, whereby she invokes the preliminary delay to prepare for trial. The herald opened the court and made announcement of the pending issues, in the usual manner; the court was regularly adjourned to a day certain for the trial. On the appointed day, the details of the trial are presented, just as such trials obtained in the courts of chivalry and honour of the period depicted. The accused, in the presence of the court, was interrogated, from her black chair, placed near the funeral pile, as to her readiness for the combat. She begged the indulgence, which the law granted to her, of a short delay, after invoking the aid of Divine wisdom, for her deliverance. Her champion appears in true knightly fashion at the last moment and after gaining the recognition of the court, and permission to do battle for his fair principal, he throws the customary words of defiance into the very teeth of the false Bois-Guilbert and the battle proceeds, until the death of Bois-Guilbert, pronounced by the Court, in accordance with the superstition of the times, as a consummation devoutly to be wished, because it was, in fact, “the judgment of God.” In “The Fair Maid of Perth,” Scott also describes the trial by battle as used to decide the destinies of the Clan Quhele and the Clan Chattan, assisted by the volunteer Henry Wynd, upon the field of North Inch, whereat the whole tribe of the Clan Quhele was annihilated in the combat with the race of the “Cat-a-Mountain.”[72]