The story of Leicester is worth the telling. In the time of Henry I. Earl Robert of Mellant ruled the town. It chanced that two burghers, Nicholas and Jeffrey, waged battle on a plea of land. For nine long hours they mauled each other with varying fortune, when one of them took to flight, and staggered, all unwitting, on the edge of a pit. The other saw his danger, and remembered that they twain were kinsmen. "'Ware o' the pit," he shouted; "turn back, lest thou fall therein." The spectators so lustily roared their approval, that the Earl heard it in his castle, and he, after due enquiry, granted that in time coming twenty-four jurors of Leicester should determine all civic disputes. One strange product of Trial by Combat was the Approver: a rascal who turned king's evidence, and fought with his late companions. Sometimes he accused other malefactors, and if he came off victor in five combats he was released, and banished the country. This system fell into gross abuse, for the Approver, greedy of freedom or hush-money, appealed honest men right and left. In the chronicle of William Gregory the Skinner (1456) we have an account of a duel fought by one Thomas Whitehorne, a criminal, caught in the New Forest, and lodged in prison at Winchester, where he remained for about three years, fighting ever and anon. "And that fals and untrewe peler (= Appelar) hadde of the Kynge every day 1d. ob." At last a proposed victim retorted the lie in his throat, and said that "he wold prove hyt with hys handys and spende hys lyfe and blode a-pone hys fals body." Then the judge "fulle curtesly informed this sympylle man" that "he and the peler moste be clothyed all in whyte schepys leter." Also each must have a stave of green ash, three feet long, the point thereof "a horne of yryn i-made lyke unto a rammy's horne;" and if these ash-plants broke, then they "moste fight with hyr handys, fystys, naylys, tethe, fete, and leggys." Moreover, they must strive fasting on the "moste sory and wrechyd greene about the town;" but "Huyt ys to schamfulle to reherse alle the condycyons of thys foule conflycte." And we must follow Gregory's precept rather than his example.