Anatomy of a Duel in Jacobean England: Gentry Honour, Violence and the Law by Lloyd Bowen is a microhistory which tells the story of an early seventeenth century duel between the English gentlemen John Egerton and Edward Morgan. It then expands the insights gained by studying this unique case to explore the world of gentry honor and the place of dueling within it during the Jacobethan era. Bowen is a Professor of History at Cardiff University and a prolific historian who specializes in early modern English and Welsh history. Bowen has published works on a wide variety of subjects, but has experience working on gentry, legal records, and the Welsh Marches region which all play an important role in Anatomy of a Duel. As a subject expert, Bowen deeply engages with relevant historiography to further refine understandings of dueling and honor culture.
In Anatomy of a Duel, Bowen argues that early modern English gentry honor was mutable in nature and that dueling was an important, if controversial, part of this complex social construct. Bowen makes a large number of claims or sub-arguments which fit within or adjoin this position, although how clearly Bowen articulates them and their hierarchy of importance leaves something to be desired. Of these, one which is central to his thesis is the formation of gentry honor. He takes a position which supports and expands on the arguments of Richard Cust and Courtney Thomas in which gentry honor is viewed “as a multi-faceted and flexible social construct which was both an interior and exterior quality through which individuals constructed their own public personalities and were, in turn, judged by their peers” (Bowen, 4-5). Throughout Anatomy of a Duel Bowen returns to this, examining how individuals’ sense of honor, slights against honor, and attempts to present oneself as an honorable gentleman drove decision making and action. For example, he points out that in the immediate exchanges the day before Egerton and Morgan’s duel, “Morgan was highly sensitive to any suggestion that he was anything less than a perfectly honourable gentleman” which likely influenced his decision to accept the proffered challenge (Bowen, 89). At times it was restraint which marked gentlemanly conduct, and in cases like this Bowen argues that for Morgan to stand his ground was critical to preserving his claim to honorable behavior. This articulation of honor as circumstantially malleable and, critically, as an outward presentation is central to Bowen’s monograph.
The other key aspect of Bowen’s thesis is a three-pronged historiographical intervention. The first of these is that his work “challenges and problematises the historiographical tendency to render the provincial gentry of this period as ‘tamed’” (Bowen, 9). Bowen situates himself in opposition to historians like Mervyn James and their ‘pacification of the elite’ narrative of gentry honor and violence. As part of this refutation of that concept’s lack of nuance, he also challenges the propensity of that argument “to analyse the feud and the duel as wholly separate categories of elite violence” (Bowen, 9). Bowen, using the Morgan-Egerton feud as a case study, demonstrates how the allegedly discarded and purely Medieval practice of familial feuds and extended conflict not only persisted and, in some circumstances, motivated duels of honor. Both of these prongs contest the whiggish pacification argument which portrays a less violent elite falling under the control of a centralized government.
Bowen’s third intervention does so as well. Anatomy of a Duel “also serves to question our tendency to distinguish law and violence by their relationship to a supposedly unbelligerent ‘modernity’” (Bowen, 9). Historians who align their arguments or even take unconscious inspiration from James often present violent resolutions like the duel as an alternative solution to the law. However, Bowen argues that they in fact coexisted and were often engaged in simultaneously in the search for a satisfactory resolution to feuds and similar conflicts. This further undercuts the pacification argument which traditionally presents the increasing use of law courts, especially centralized state or royal courts, as a replacement for violent recourse and a method for the crown to assert its central authority.
In addition to these interventions, Anatomy of a Duel also sits in concert with certain other corners of the historiography. One contemporary trend in particular is to draw extended links between the late Medieval world and early modern England, or within the latter period as well, rather than creating stark divisions between eras. For example, in A Murderous Midsummer: The Western Rising of 1549 Mark Stoyle reframes the Prayer Book Rebellion as an uprising rooted in an extended history of discontent rather than a spontaneous blip. Susan Doran’s From Tudor to Stuart: The Regime Change from Elizabeth I to James I breaks down the sharp divide historians create in 1603 between the two monarchs’ reigns to point out the extended continuity of the Jacobethan era. This trend is evident in Bowen’s push back against the idea that dueling was a purely spontaneous and Italian Renaissance import, instead connecting it to the tradition of dynastic feuds.
Bowen also aligns in certain respects with Markku Peltonen and his influential scholarship on early modern dueling. However, where they critically differ is that unlike Peltonen’s overview scale intellectual history, Bowen’s work is built on the zoomed in methodology of microhistory. This naturally provides a different perspective, and Bowen uses it to draw some of his larger conclusions about the period, both through what ways the duel between Morgan and Egerton is typical and in what ways it is exceptional. This approach is possible due to the significant number of primary sources which were created and survived on the specific duel and its surrounding legal case. They are legal records which concern the inheritance struggle preceding the incident and those which surround the later prosecutions against Morgan on charges of murder. These sources are a great boon for Bowen, but also offer a significant challenge as they “are slippery, ambiguous and often difficult to work with” and many were collected for the purposes of a private prosecution of Morgan by the Egerton family, which further complicates their reliability (Bowen, 13). As a result, Bowen is very measured in his arguments and narrative, always careful to outline what simply is unknown or uncertain in the record.
Structured as a narrative, Anatomy of a Duel begins by outlining the history of the families involved in the feud and the Talacre inheritance dispute which was at the root of their conflict. The core of the book then outlines the lead-up to the duel with challenges evaded and the eventual London encounter where Egerton and Morgan agreed to their deadly contest. In these early chapters in particular Bowen emphasizes the coexistence of attempts at legal and violent recourse. He then proceeds to the duel itself, being careful to articulate what little is certain about the event from the many contradictory accounts, and the contentious legal case which followed. It is here that many of Bowen’s sub-arguments and themes take shape including the complex public opinion on dueling on display in the debate between murder and manslaughter, the rarely visible but essential legal impact of coroner’s depositions, and the makeup of gentry honor. He then concludes the book by briefly outlining how the involved parties’ lives proceeded following Edward Morgan’s pardon.
The shining success of Bowen’s work is this microhistory, narrative format which delves deeply into a dramatic and gripping tale of feud and violence. Even despite his refusal to, and inability due to sources, provide a final, incontrovertible account of the duel, he succeeds in weaving a compelling narrative across this complexity and simultaneously draws many exciting historical conclusions. Where Bowen’s writing is at times lacking is, as previously alluded to, in cogently articulating these many claims. It is not always clear which arguments he situates as the most important or sound, nor are all immediately apparent. There are times where the reader is told that the source material allows unusual insight into a topic, but what that insight is must be carefully teased out of the center of the text rather than clearly stated by Bowen. This shortcoming may make the text less approachable, especially for those foreign to the subject material, but it does not detract from the quality of the author’s research. Anatomy of a Duel is still a robust and engaging microhistory of gentry honor and dueling in the early Jacobean period.