Page:A Book of the West (vol. 2).djvu/262

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198
FOWEY


His great-grandson was Charles, the fifth and last Lord Mohun. This man, possessed of a passionate and vindictive temper, lost his father early; his mother married again, and his education was neglected. When he had scarcely attained the age of twenty he was mixed up in the murder of Mountford, the actor. He was tried before his peers in 1692, and was acquitted; but there can be no doubt that he was associated in the murder. Seven years afterwards, in 1699, he was again tried for his life, along with the Earl of Warwick, for the murder of Captain Coote. He was again acquitted. This second escape sobered him for a while. For long he and the Duke of Hamilton entertained ill-feeling towards each other, occasioned by some money disagreement. This came to a head in 1712, when it ended in a challenge. Which it was, however, who challenged the other was never certainly decided. Colonel Macartney was Lord Mohun's second, and Colonel Hamilton exercised the same office for the duke. They met in Hyde Park on Saturday morning, the 15th November, and swords were the weapons employed. A furious encounter ensued, the combatants fighting to the death with the savagery of demons, so that when the keepers of the park, hearing the clash of swords, hurried to the spot, they found both the Duke of Hamilton and Lord Mohun weltering in their blood and dying, and the two seconds also engaged in mortal combat. The keepers separated the latter. Then Colonel Hamilton and one keeper lifted the duke; Macartney and the other endeavoured to do the same by Lord Mohun, who, however, expired, and his body was sent home in the coach that had