In 1789 occurred the encounter between Colonel Lennox, later Duke of Richmond, and the Duke of York, second son of George III., that caused much excitement at the time, for it was unusual for a commoner to challenge a prince of the blood, though the latter was in this case undoubtedly in the wrong, a fact of which he proved his sense by refusing to fire at his antagonist, who had to be content with discharging one bullet only that passed harmlessly through his adversary's hair. In 1807 a duel was fought in Coombe Wood, in which both parties were slightly wounded, between Sir Francis Burdett, the famous Conservative statesman, and Mr. Paull, who had been one of his agents {205} in his successful candidature for Westminster; and in 1809 a certain Mr. Payne was mortally wounded in a duel on the common with a Mr. Clarke, who had made dishonourable proposals to his sister. More celebrated than either of these meetings, however, was that of 1839, when the Marquis of Londonderry met Henry Grattan, son of the famous Irish patriot of that name, and, after allowing his opponent to fire at him, discharged his own pistol in the air, a quiet way of proving his contempt for the duel as a mode of settling quarrels. A year later the future Emperor Napoleon III. challenged his fellow-countryman, Comte Léon, to a combat on Wimbledon Common, but a dispute having arisen between them when on the ground as to the weapons to be used, so much delay was caused that the police appeared on the scene and arrested the whole party, who were brought before the magistrate at Bow Street and bound over to keep the peace. Far more serious than this fiasco was the encounter, in the same year, between the Earl of Cardigan, later leader of the famous charge of the Light Brigade at Balaclava, and Captain Harvey Tuckett, one of his officers, whom he had treated with unwarrantable harshness. The latter was seriously wounded, and public indignation against the earl was very great, but though he was tried by his peers in 1841 he escaped punishment through a legal quibble, his counsel having pretended that it was impossible to prove the identity of the sufferer with the Captain Tuckett named in the indictment. By the middle of the nineteenth century duelling {206} had quite gone out of fashion in England; and although a few hostile meetings have since taken place on Wimbledon Common, they have been mere farces unworthy of serious consideration. The beautiful open space has since then become associated with memories of a far more ennobling kind, for it has been the scene of many a great gathering of volunteers, which have made the name of Wimbledon known throughout the civilised world, and have done more, perhaps, than anything else to make military service popular in England.