History of the Colonial Virginia (3 Volumes Edition). Thomas J. Wertenbaker

this was considered not only proper, but the highest compliment that could be paid the lady's charms. Angry joustings were frequent in places of amusement or even upon the streets. In London the ring in Hyde Park, the back of Montague House, and the Barns Elms were the favorite places for these combats.80

That the custom was not continued in Virginia adds convincing testimony to the evidence that the best class of immigrants to the colony were not members of the English aristocracy. Had many country gentlemen or noblemen settled in the Old Dominion, duelling would have been as common on the banks of the James as it was in London. The most careful investigation has been able to bring to light evidence of but five or six duels in Virginia during the entire colonial period.81 In 1619 Capt. Edward Stallings was slain in a duel with Mr. William Epes at Dancing Point. Five years later Mr. George Harrison fought a duel with Mr. Richard Stephens. "There was some words of discontent between him and Mr. Stephens, with some blows. Eight or ten days after Mr. Harrison sent a challenge to Stephens to meet him in a place, which was made mention of, they meeting together it so fell out that Mr. Harrison received a cut in the leg which did somewhat grieve him, and fourteen days after he departed this life."82

After this fatal affair the custom of duelling died out almost entirely in the colony. Had there been many of these encounters frequent mention beyond doubt would have been made of them. Any deaths resulting from them could hardly have escaped mention in the records, and the general interest that always attaches itself to such affairs would have caused them to find a place in the writings of the day. Beverley, Hugh Jones, John Clayton and other authors who described the customs of colonial Virginia made no mention of duelling. Only a few scattered instances of challenges and encounters have been collected, gleaned largely from the county records, and these serve to show that duelling met with but little favor. Most of the challenges were not accepted and provoked usually summary and harsh punishment at the hands of the law. In 1643 a commissioner was disabled from holding office for having challenged a councillor.83 Some years later Capt. Thomas Hackett sent a challenge by his son-in-law, Richard Denham, to Mr. Daniel Fox, while the latter was sitting in the Lancaster County court. The message was most insulting in its wording and ended by declaring that if Fox "had anything of a gentleman or manhood" in him he would render satisfaction in a personal encounter with rapiers. One of the justices, Major Carter, was horrified at these proceedings. He addressed Denham in words of harsh reproval, "saying that he knew not how his father would acquit himself of an action of that nature, which he said he would not be ye owner of for a world." Denham answered in a slighting way "that his father would answer it well enough … whereupon ye court conceivinge ye said Denham to be a partye with his father-in-law … adjudged ye said Denham to receive six stripes on his bare shoulder with a whip." The course pursued by Fox in this affair is of great interest. Had duelling been in vogue he would have been compelled to accept the challenge or run the risk of receiving popular contempt as a coward. He could not have ignored the message on grounds of social superiority, for Hackett ranked as a gentleman. Yet he requested the court to arrest Hackett, "him to detain in safe custody without baile or mainprize," in order to save himself from the risk of a personal attack.84 A similar case occurred in 1730, when Mr. Solomon White entered complaint in the Princess Anne County court against Rodolphus Melborne for challenging him "with sword and pistoll." The court ordered the sheriff to arrest Melborne and to keep him in custody until he entered bond in the sum of 50 pounds as security for good behavior for twelve months.85

      But though the Virginia gentleman, in the days when he still retained the prosaic nature of the merchant, frowned upon duelling, it was inevitable that in time he must become one of its greatest advocates. The same conditions that instilled into him a taste for war, could not fail in the end to make him fond of duelling. We are not surprised then to find that, at the period of the Revolutionary War, duelling began to grow in popularity in Virginia and that from that time until the Civil War appeals to the code were both frequent and deadly. Writers have sought to find a reason for this change in the military customs introduced by a long war, or in the influence of the French. There can be no doubt, however, that the rapid increase of duelling at this time was due to the fact that conditions were ripe for its reception. A spirit had been fostered by the life upon the plantation which made it distasteful to gentlemen to turn to law for redress for personal insults. The sense of dignity, of self reliance there engendered, made them feel that the only proper retaliation against an equal was to be found in a personal encounter.

      Perhaps the most beautiful, the most elevating feature of the chivalry of the Middle Ages was the homage paid to women. The knight always held before him the image of his lady as an ideal of what was pure and good, and this ideal served to make him less a savage and more a good and true man. Although he was rendered no less brave and warlike by this influence, it inclined him to tenderness and mercy, acting as a curb to the ferocity that in his fathers had been almost entirely unrestrained. It made him recognize the sacredness of womanhood. The true value of the wife and the mother had never before been known. In none of the ancient communities did women attain the position of importance that they occupied in the age of chivalry, for neither the Roman matron nor the Greek mother could equal the feudal lady in dignity and influence.

And this was the direct outcome of the feudal system. The ancient baron led a life of singular isolation, for he was separated in his fortress home from frequent intercourse with other men of equal rank, and around him were only his serfs and retainers, none of whom he could make his companions. The only equals with whom he came in contact day after day were his wife and children. Naturally he turned to them for comradeship, sharing with them his joys and confiding to them his sorrows. If he spent much of his time in hunting, or in fishing, or in fighting he always returned to the softening influence of his home, and it was inevitable, under these conditions, that the importance of the female sex should increase.86

      As we have seen, the Virginia plantation bore a striking analogy to the feudal estate. The planter, like the baron, lived a life of isolation, coming into daily contact not even with his nearest neighbors. His time was spent with his servants and slaves. He too could turn only to his family for companionship, and inevitably, as homage and respect for women had grown up among the feudal barons, so it developed in Virginia.

      There is no proof that the colonists of the 17th century regarded womanhood in any other than a commonplace light. They assigned to their wives and daughters the same domestic lives that the women of the middle classes of England led at that time. Predominated by the instinct of commerce and trade, they had little conception of the chivalric view of the superiority of the gentle sex, for in this as in other things they were prosaic and practical.

The early Virginians did not hesitate to subject gossiping women to the harsh punishment of the ducking stool. In 1662 the Assembly passed an Act requiring wives that brought judgments on their husbands for slander to be punished by ducking.87 In 1705 and again in 1748 the county courts were authorized to construct ducking stools if they thought fit.88 That the practice was early in vogue is shown by the records of the county courts. We read in the Northampton records for 1634 the following, "Upon due examination it is thought fitt by the board that said Joane Butler shall be drawen over the Rings Creeke at the starn of a boat or canoux."

How inconsistent with all the ideals of chivalry was that action of Bacon in his war with Governor Berkeley which won for his men the contemptuous appellation of "White Aprons!" Bacon had made a quick march on Jamestown and had surprised his enemies there. His force, however, was so small that he set to work immediately constructing earthworks around his camp. While his men were digging, "by several small partyes of horse (2 or 3 in a party, for more he could not spare) he fetcheth into his little league, all