ccused the duke of Norfolk of having spoken to him,
in private, many slanderous words of the king, and of having imputed
to that prince an intention of subverting and destroying many of his
principal nobility.[**] Norfolk.. denied the charge, gave Hereford the
lie, and offered to prove his own innocence by duel. The challenge was
accepted: the time and place of combat were appointed: and as the event
of this important trial by arms might require the interposition of
legislative authority, the parliament thought it more suitable to
delegate their power to a committee, than to prolong the session beyond
the usual time which custom and general convenience had prescribed to
it.[***]

The duke of Hereford was certainly very little delicate in the point of
honor, when he revealed a private conversation to the ruin of the person
who had intrusted him; and we may thence be more inclined to believe the
duke of Norfolk's denial, than the other's asseveration. But Norfolk had
in these transactions betrayed an equal neglect of honor, which brings
him entirely on a level with his antagonist. Though he had publicly
joined with the duke of Glocester and his party in all the former acts
of violence against the king.

** Cotton, p. 372. Parl. Hist. vol. i. p. 490.

*** In the first year of Henry VI., when the authority of
parliament was great, and when that assembly could least be
suspected of lying under violence, a like concession was
made to the privy council from like motives of convenience.
See Cotton, p. 564. his name stands among the appellants who
accused the duke of Ireland and the other ministers, yet was
he not ashamed publicly to impeach his former associates for
the very crimes which he had concurred with them in
committing; and his name increases the list of those
appellants who brought them to a trial. Such were the
principles and practices of those ancient knights and
barons, during the prevalence of the aristocratical
government, and the reign of chivalry.

The lists for this decision of truth and right were appointed at
Coventry before the king: all the nobility of England banded into
parties, and adhered either to the one duke or the other: the whole
nation was held in suspense with regard to the event; but when the
two champions appeared in the field accoutred for the combat, the king
interposed, to prevent both the present effusion of such no