But his evil days were drawing to their end; and appropriately he died in a welter of innocent blood.  When the Duke of Hamilton was appointed Ambassador to the French Court, the Whigs were so alarmed by his known partiality for the Pretender that the more unscrupulous of them decided that, at any cost, he must be got rid of.  What simpler plan could there be than by provoking him to a duel; what fitter tool than the fire-eating, bloodthirsty Mohun, the most skilled swordsman of his day?

Mohun jumped at the vile suggestion, and lost no time in seeking the Duke and insulting him in public.  His Grace, however, who knew the man’s reputation only too well, treated the insult with the silence and contempt it deserved; whereupon Mohun, roused to fury by this studied slight, changed his role to that of challenger.  Thrice he sent his second, one Major-General Macartney, almost as big a scoundrel as himself, to the Duke’s house in St James’s Square; the fourth time a meeting was arranged for the following morning at the Ring, in Hyde Park, a favourite duelling-ground of the time.  The intervening night hours Mohun and his satellite spent in debauchery in a low house of pleasure.

In the cold, grey dawn of the following morning—­the morning of 15th November 1712—­the principals and seconds appeared almost simultaneously at the Ring—­in the daytime the haunt of beauty and fashion, in the early morning hours a desolate part of the Park—­and the preliminaries were quickly arranged.  Turning to Macartney, the Duke said:  “I am well assured, sir, that all this is by your contrivance, and therefore you shall have your share in the dance; my friend here, Colonel Hamilton, will entertain you.”  “I wish for no better partner,” Macartney replied; “the Colonel may command me.”

A few moments later the double fight began with infinite fury.  Swords flashed and clattered; lunge and parry, parry and lunge followed in lightning succession; the laboured breaths went up in gusts of steam on the morning air.  There was murder in two pairs of eyes, a resolve as grim as death itself in the stern set faces of their opponents.  Soon the blood began to spurt and ooze from a dozen wounds; the Duke was wounded in both legs; his adversary in the groin and arm.  Faces, swords, the very ground, became crimson.  Colonel Hamilton had at last disarmed his opponent, but the others fought on—­gasping, reeling, lunging, feinting, the strength ebbing with each thrust.

At last each made a desperate lunge at the other; the Duke’s sword passed clean through his adversary up to the very hilt; Mohun, reeling forward, with a last effort shortened his sword and plunged it deep into the Duke’s breast.  Colonel Hamilton rushed to his friend and raised him in his arms, when Macartney, snatching up his fallen sword, drove it into the dying man’s heart, then took to his heels and made his way as fast as horse and boat could carry him to Holland.