nst the Duke, and his apology for
having made such a charge. The retraction and the apology were published
in the newspapers, and there, to use a form of words which was very
common at the time after such an incident, the affair ended with equal
honor to both parties.

[Sidenote: 1829--Comments upon Wellington's duel]

It seems hard now to understand how any man, in the position and with the
responsibilities of the Duke of Wellington, could bring himself to think
that he was called upon to risk his life for the mere sake of resenting
an imputation which no rational man in his senses could possibly have
regarded as of any consequence to the Duke's public or private character.
The whole incident seems to us now one more properly belonging to comic
opera than to serious political life. We can hardly conceive the
possibility of the Marquis of Salisbury insisting on fighting a duel with
some hot-headed member of the House of Lords who had chosen to describe
him as a conspirator against the Constitution and the Church of England.
The Duke of Wellington, however, must be judged according to the ways of
his own time, and the code of political and personal honor in which he
had been nurtured. There has not been in modern political history a more
conscientious and high-minded statesman than Robert Peel, and yet not
very long before the Winchilsea business Robert Peel had only been
prevented by the interference of the law from going out to fight a duel
with Daniel O'Connell, and O'Connell himself had killed his man in
another affair of honor, as it was called. We who live in these islands
at the present time may be excused if we indulge in a certain feeling of
self-complacency when we contemplate the advance towards a better code of
personal honor and a better recognition of the teachings of Christianity
which has been made here since the days when the Duke of Wellington
thought that for him, as a gentleman, there was no other course to take
than to risk his life because an insignificant person had made a
ridiculous charge against him.

Still, it is something to know that there were cool observers even at the
time who thought the Duke of Wellington had done wrong. Charles
Greville, in commenting on {83} the duel, says that "everybody, of
course, sees the matter in a different light; all blame Lord Winchilsea,
but they are divided as to whether the Duke ought to have fought or not."
"Lord Winchilsea is such a maniac, and has