Whether, in the settlement of feuds, pecuniary compensation was deemed more satisfactory than the adversary’s blood, it is not an easy matter to decide; but certain it is, that duels do not appear, until the period alluded to, to have been as frequent in England as upon the Continent. Good cheer, and good horses, seem to have been considered as equivalent to cash: we find in our history a woman giving two hundred fat hens to the sovereign for permission to spend one night in prison with her husband, and bringing the monarch one hundreds fowls on account; while another unlucky wight gave five of his best palfreys to his sovereign lord the King to induce him to be silent regarding a _faux pas_ of his wife. But, once established, it appears that trials by battle prevailed in England for a longer period than in any other country. In 1096, William Count d’Eu, having been accused of a conspiracy against William Rufus by Godefroi Baynard, engaged him in single combat at Salisbury, in presence of the King and the whole court: the unfortunate count, having been worsted, was forthwith ordered to be emasculated, after both his eyes had been put out; his esquire at the same time whipped, and then hanged. _Jussuque ideò Regis et concilii, ejiciuntur illi oculi testiculique abscinduntur; dapifero suo Willielmo de Aldori, filio amitæ ejus, sæviter flagellato et suspenso._ On Henry II.’s invasion of Wales, Henry de Essex, the hereditary standard-bearer, having been accused of felony by Robert de Montfort, his own relation, for dropping the standard on the field of battle and taking to flight, exclaiming that the King was killed, the parties met in single combat near Reading Abbey, where Essex was left for dead upon the field. However, upon his body being borne to the abbey, the monks perceived some traces of life; and, instead of his being hanged according to custom, the brethren of the monastery recovered him; but, as he was considered _morally_ dead, he spent the remainder of his days in their holy cloisters. From the time of William of Normandy, until that of Henry II, trial by single combat was the only honourable mode of decision of battle of right, until the alternative of the grand assizes, or the trial by jury, was instituted by the latter sovereign.