Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Acknowledgements
- List of Abbreviations
- Map
- Introduction
- 1 Fathers, Sons and Kinsmen: The Morgans and the Egertons
- 2 A ‘Great Styrre & Adoe’: The Talacre Inheritance Dispute, 1606–8
- 3 Challenges Offered and Declined, 1608
- 4 The Duel in Elizabethan and Jacobean England and Wales
- 5 Honour, Gentility and Violence: Highgate, 21 April 1610
- 6 Corruption, Conspiracy and the Coroners
- 7 Shifting Perspectives: Murder and Manslaughter in the Highgate Duel
- 8 Jurors, Politics and Pardons: The Trial at King’s Bench, 1610–11
- 9 Epilogue(s)
- Conclusion
- Appendix 1 Timeline of the Morgan–Egerton Conflict
- Appendix 2 Jurors in King’s Bench for the Trial of Edward Morgan
- Bibliography
- Index
5 - Honour, Gentility and Violence: Highgate, 21 April 1610
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 April 2021
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Acknowledgements
- List of Abbreviations
- Map
- Introduction
- 1 Fathers, Sons and Kinsmen: The Morgans and the Egertons
- 2 A ‘Great Styrre & Adoe’: The Talacre Inheritance Dispute, 1606–8
- 3 Challenges Offered and Declined, 1608
- 4 The Duel in Elizabethan and Jacobean England and Wales
- 5 Honour, Gentility and Violence: Highgate, 21 April 1610
- 6 Corruption, Conspiracy and the Coroners
- 7 Shifting Perspectives: Murder and Manslaughter in the Highgate Duel
- 8 Jurors, Politics and Pardons: The Trial at King’s Bench, 1610–11
- 9 Epilogue(s)
- Conclusion
- Appendix 1 Timeline of the Morgan–Egerton Conflict
- Appendix 2 Jurors in King’s Bench for the Trial of Edward Morgan
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Edward Morgan's departure for Ireland in 1608 reduced the intensity and bitterness between the rival parties in the northern Welsh Marches but the core point of division remained. The legal struggle for Talacre continued, poisoning the atmosphere between the Morgan–Mostyn and Egerton groups with suits in Star Chamber, Chancery, the Council in the Marches of Wales and the Court of Wards all-consuming time, effort and money. Both sides seemed content for their battles to be fought in the courts rather than in Flintshire's fields, but this changed with Edward Morgan's return from Ireland in April 1610.
We do not know what prompted him to come home. It may have been that the threat of the writ of supplicavit had been removed; that his father felt a sufficient period had passed and he had demonstrated an adequate degree of maturity and level-headedness to return; or Morgan may simply have tired of the distractions Ireland had to offer. Whatever the case, he only stayed in north Wales for four or five days. Again it is speculation as to whether he was once more moved out of the county because he was a destabilising and disruptive influence in a delicately balanced atmosphere, or whether his restless spirit bored quickly of the homestead and hungered for fresh excitement. Whatever the reason, after a brief stay at Goldgreave Morgan took himself off to London. On Friday 20 April, he went to Prince Henry's Court at St James’s, ostensibly to call on a relation who was in the prince's service.
This is an intriguing place to find Edward Morgan and at an interesting time. Prince Henry was renowned for his enthusiasm for feats of arms, chivalric display and all things military. One scholar has recently observed that in 1610 ‘his [Prince Henry’s] court at St James's Palace was being touted as the centrepiece of English military culture – a place where both the theory and practice of modern warfare were championed’, and ‘a place where the chivalric ethos and a kind of military proto- professionalism co-existed’. The fencing master Jospeh Swetnam recalled in 1617 the ‘many great and kinde favours’ he received from Henry as his tutor ‘in the skill of weapons’.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Anatomy of a Duel in Jacobean EnglandGentry Honour, Violence and the Law, pp. 84 - 102Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2021