Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 4.djvu/250

by her husband's will guardian to her daughter, whose fortune amounted to about 60,000; and while the duke courted her, he offered to content himself with that dowry, and bound himself in a bond of 10,000 to give her mother a relief of her guardianship two days after the marriage. This engagement, however, he not only declined to perform, but sought relief of his bond in chancery, which was so highly resented by lady Gerrard that she left all she had to her brother, and bequeathed to her child a legacy of five shillings, and a diamond necklace in case the duke should consent to give the release in question. This his grace persisted in withholding, and the earl of Macclesfield settled his estate, to the prejudice of the duchess of Hamilton, on another neice who had married the lord Mohun. The lawsuit to compel that nobleman, as executor of lady Gerrard, to give an account of his guardianship, was continued; and the feelings of the two parties were mutually much embittered in the course of the proceedings. Mohun was a man of violent temper, and in his youth accustomed himself to the most depraved society. When he was about twenty years of age, one of his companions murdered Mountford, a comedian in Drury Lane ; and, the principal having absconded, Mohun was tried by the house of peers. Fourteen voices pronounced him guilty, but sixty-nine cleared him. So far, however, was the shameful situation in which he had been placed from reclaiming him, that he plunged again into the same courses, and seven years after was arraigned at the same bar on a similar accusation. This time, indeed, it was proved that his lordship had no participation in the crime, but had used some endeavours to prevent it. Thereafter he abstained, indeed, from dissolute and lawless brawls, but he carried into the pursuits of politics no small share of the heat which marked his early career. "It is true," says a contemporary writer, who seems to have been willing to excuse his faults, " he still loved a glass of wine with his friends ; but he was exemplarily temperate when he had any business of moment to attend." His quarrelsome disposition was notorious, and the duke's friends had been long apprehensive that a collision would take place, and repeatedly warned his grace to be on his guard. On the 11th of November, the two noblemen had a meeting at the chambers of Mr Orlebar, a master in chancery, in relation to the lawsuit, when every thing passed off quietly. Two days after, on the examination of a person of the name of Whitworth, who had been a steward to lady Gerrard, the duke was so provoked by the substance of his deposition, as openly to declare, " He had neither truth nor justice in him." To this lord Mohun rejoined, "He had as much truth as his grace." No further recrimination passed; another meeting was arranged for the Saturday following, and the duke, on retiring, made a low bow to Mohun, who returned it. There were eleven persons present, and none of them suspected any ill consequence from what had just taken place. His lordship, however, immediately sent a challenge to the duke, which was accepted. On the 15th of November, 1713, the day that had been fixed for a resumption of their amicable conference, they repaired to the Ring in Hyde Park, and, being both greatly exasperated, they fought with peculiar determination and ferocity. This is attested by the number and deadliness of the wounds on both sides. Lord Mohun fell and died on the spot. He had one wound mortal, but not immediately so, entering by the right side, penetrating through the belly, and going out by the iliac bone on the left side. Another dreadful gash, in which the surgeon's hands met from opposite sides, ran from the groin on the left side down through the great vessels of the thigh. This was the cause of immediate death. There were some slighter incisions, and two or three fingers of the left hand were cut off. The duke's body suffered an equal havoc, partly inflicted, it was alleged, by foul play. A cut in the elbow of the sword-arm severed the small tendons, and occasioned so much