Anatomy of a Duel in Jacobean England: Gentry Honour, Violence and the Law was written in 2021 by Lloyd Bowen, a professor of early modern history at Cardiff University. His research has focused on political and religious history centered on early modern Wales. Anatomy of a Duel is his third book.
The book is a microhistory that focuses on the events and context leading up to a duel between John Egerton and Edward Morgan in 1610 in the north Welsh marches. Bowen argues that the historiography around dueling is that the practice of dueling in England represented an early-modern shift away from medieval forms of personal violence such as feuds and trials of combat. Historians such as Mervyn James have argued that as English nobles became “demilitarized,” the state grew to have a monopoly on violence, and noble disputes were increasingly resolved with lawsuits rather than violence. Within this model, dueling was an exceptional response to the process of modernization that otherwise reduced elite violence. (2)
Bowen argues that this characterization is incorrect for two reasons. First, he challenges the idea that violence actually decreased within the English gentry during the early modern period. (8) Second, he argues that the barrier placed by historians between medieval feuds and early modern duels is artificial; elite feuds continued after the Middle Ages, and duels could result from them. (9) Bowen presents the Egerton/Morgan duel as a culminating example of a feud between gentry families as well as an example of how lawsuits did not always replace elite violence; not only could legal and physical battles coexist together, they could also feed and intensify each other.
To make this argument, Bowen makes heavy use of legal sources. He uses the court records of the various complaints and suits the two families brought against each other, but also uses reports from the coronial investigation into the central duel. Bowen notes that coronial investigations are less commonly used by historians because details from them were generally discarded after cases were tried. However, in the case of the Egerton/Morgan duel, records of the investigation survived, and Bowen argues that they offer both a more personal record of the duel, but also an insight into how coronial investigations functioned generally. (10) This fits into Bowen’s additional goal with his book. He wants to investigate the details of what happened between the Egertons and Morgans, but as records are fickle, the book is also focused on the legal processes themselves that both families used in their struggle. Nevertheless, despite the ambiguities inherent in legal records, his creative analysis of the records yields a plausible and rich picture of the events that culminated in a fight to the death.
One of the strengths of Bowen’s investigation is that he starts his story generations before the duel begins. He examines the genealogies of the families involved. The feud is really as much between the Egertons and the Mostyns as it is with the Morgans, but he shows how all three families were connected by blood. When combined with legal records showcasing the expanding lands and fortunes of the families as well as their perceived relationships. Bowen creates a rich chronology of the three families. While it is impossible to know for sure the motives behind the feud, Bowen uses this chronology to suggest the possible goals, connections, and frustrations of the three families. For example, Bowen sketches out the relationship between Sir John Egerton and Piers Mostyn through records showing that Piers was guardian over Sir John as a youth (34), descriptions that Piers had “‘inward especiall love and affection’” towards his nephew (35), critiques by Sir John’s enemies that Sir John had been using his residence in a different county to skirt the law in Piers’s favor (37), and Piers’s statement that “‘the devell should have his lands before William Moston his brother.’” (37) Taken together, Bowen tells a story of a nephew who had close personal and business ties with his uncle. Bowen uses these details to argue to show why Piers might have given his inheritance to Sir John, his sister’s son instead of following more regular inheritance patterns and willing it to his brother’s son (this is relevant as this disputed inheritance is the core of the feud between the three families). This level of detail and creative analysis is typical throughout the book.
Through showcasing the history of the feud between the Egertons, Morgans, and Mostyns, Bowens succeeds at supporting his thesis that duels could be deeply intertwined with feuds rather than replacing them. He also succeeds at showing his similar argument that litigation could go hand in hand with violence in such feuds. Outside the duel itself, Bowen highlights the violence, destruction, and intimidation wrought by the family’s armed men. The story of a group of armed Mostyn men waiting inside a church during a service to ambush Sir John doesn’t fit with a world that had abandoned private violence in favor of litigation. (41) While Bowen convincingly supports his thesis, he is careful to not exaggerate his claims. He argues that the story of the Morgan/Egerton duel did not necessarily represent a norm in England but rather a specific lived experience in a specific region. (16) Nevertheless every story is part of a greater whole, and Bowen’s book adds context and color to the history of violence and honor in early modern England and Wales.