Bacon, Sir Francis -- William Hope.

Bacon, Francis. The Charge of Sir Francis Bacon Knight, His Maiesties Attourney generall, touching Duells, vpon an information in the Star-chamber against Priest and Wright. With the Decree of the Star-chamber in the same cause. London: [George Eld] for Robert Wilson, 1614, 4to, woodcut head-piece on title-page, lacking first and final blanks, early inscription (shaved) at head of title, Birmingham Law Society stamp on p.57, some slight dampstaining, disbound, [Gibson 102; STC 1125]

Hope, Sir William. A New, Short, and Easy Method of Fencing; or, The art of the broad and small-sword rectified and compendized. The third edition, corrected. London: for George Strahan, 1744, 4to, canvas-backed folding plate showing 16 "figures" of men fencing (not called for in ESTC, possibly from 1707 Edinburgh edition), one folding table inserted after p.232, errata leaf, later half calf, bookplate and library stamps of Egerton Castle, bookplate of Mark Dineley, table and errata leaf torn (no loss of text), binding worn [ESTC T187228]

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After Bacon was appointed Attorney General in 1613 one of his first tasks was to abolish duelling, described by him in the Charge as "an euill which seems unbridled ... [and] a mischeefe that groweth every day." While duelling was a largely aristocratic activity, the case brought before the Star Chamber concerned two men of a lower rank. Bacon argued that his point might still be made: "it appeareth not amisse some-times in gouernment, that the greater sort be admonished by an example made in the meaner, and the dogge to be beaten before the lyon."

William Hope was a swordsman, a staunch defender of duelling and, in his 1724 Vindication of the True Art of Self-Defence, an advocate of the establishment of a "court of honour" to settle disputes, an idea Bacon had rejected over a century earlier.