During the reign of James I. duels appear to have been more frequent, and were resorted to, not only by the upper classes, but amongst the lower orders. This appears from a speech of Bacon, when attorney-general, in the case of a challenge brought before the Star Chamber Court. Bacon therein attributes the frequency of the practice to the rooted prejudice of the times, and hopes that the great would think it time to leave off the custom, when they find it adopted by barber-surgeons and butchers; and in one of his letters on the subject to Lord Villiers, he expresses his determination not to make any distinction between a coronet and a hatband in his efforts to repress the practice. “I will prosecute,” he says, “if any man appoint the field, though no fight takes place; if any man send a challenge in writing or verbally; if any man accept a challenge, or consent to be a second; if any man depart the realm in order to fight; if any man revive a quarrel after the late proclamation.” It does not appear, however, that this great man’s exertions were productive of much beneficial result, as the monarch, in one of his proclamations, called these combats “the bewitching duel.”[2] The duel fought, and the challenge sent, by Lord Herbert of Cherbury, and which we have elsewhere recorded, are striking illustrations of the chivalric notion of the times; and the Quixotic language in which that challenge was couched, was somewhat similar to that of the one sent by Sir Henry Urton, our ambassador to the court of France, to the Duc de Guise. “Forasmuch as lately in the lodgings of the Lord Dumogre, and in public elsewhere, impudently, indiscreetly, and overboldly, you spoke badly of my sovereign, whose sacred person here in this country I represent, to maintain, both by word and weapon, her honour (which was never called into question among persons of honesty and virtue). I say you have wickedly and maliciously lied, in speaking so basely of my sovereign, and you shall do _nothing else but lie_ whenever you dare to tax her honour. Moreover, that her sacred person (being one of the most complete and virtuous princesses that lives in this world) ought not to be evil spoken of by the vile tongue of such a perfidious traitor to her land and country as you are, and therefore I do _defy you_, and challenge your person to mine, with such manner of arms as you shall like or choose, be it either on horseback or on foot; nor would I have you to think any inequality of person between us, I being issued of as great a race and noble a house as yourself, in assigning me an indifferent place, I will there maintain my words, and the lie which I gave and give you. If you consent not to meet me hereupon, I will hold you, and cause you to be generally held, for the arrantest coward, and the most slanderous slave, in all France. I expect your immediate answer.” It appears that De Guise did not think it expedient to accept the challenge.