‘That Saucy Paradox’

Chapter 4 looks at the duel as envisioned when it first appeared in late sixteenth-century England. Seen as an inherently private, unauthorized quest for revenge fought by elite men, the duel prompted responses from King James VI and I that some common law advocates in time came to see as problematic. The chapter surveys the history of duelling in practice and as an idea. It argues that the abstraction of the duel as a special kind of fight by men of special status helped in the creation of stronger statements of the supremacy of the king’s peace and public justice over private interests, in part by doing so in ways that many elite men found useful or at least not unduly threatening.