People in public life today make many unpopular statements but if they are offensive they can apologise to the person concerned. In past times, however, they were likely to be challenged to a duel, a confrontation with chosen weapons based on a code of honour.

Duels were fought not so much to kill the opponent as to gain satisfaction, that is to restore one's honour by demonstrating a willingness to risk one's life for it. The tradition of duelling was therefore reserved for the male members of the nobility although in later times it also extended to those of the upper classes, often with a sword as the chosen weapon and later pistols.

Although duelling in most countries was illegal from the early 17th century, the authorities frequently turned a blind eye although it was not until 1852 that the last fatal duel took place in England. Many famous people from history fought duels including two prime ministers, William Pitt the Younger (1798) and the Duke of Wellington (1829), and in 1831, Charles Tennyson, uncle of the poet, Alfred Lord Tennyson, found himself in such a situation.

Tennyson, a landowner and politician, had just been elected M P for Stamford, a constituency that included Bourne, after defeating Lord Thomas Cecil, son of the second Marquess of Exeter, of Burghley House, Stamford, in a particularly acrimonious contest, and during a grand victory banquet he made a speech that was widely reported in the newspapers, in which he called Lord Thomas "a tyrant", a reference to his family's influence over the people of Stamford for many generations in what was construed to be disparaging terms.

Lord Thomas took offence claiming that Tennyson had accused his family of “invading the rights of the people” and he refuted these allegations during a speech at a public dinner in Stamford on June 14th that year but Tennyson refused to withdraw them, resulting first in an exchange of letters and ultimately a duel with pistols.

The confrontation was subsequently held at Wormwood Scrubs at six o’clock on the afternoon of Saturday 17th June where the two men gathered with their seconds, Lord Thomas Cecil being attended by Lord James Fitzroy and Tennyson by Sir William Ingilby, M P for the Lindsey division of Lincolnshire.

Reporting the events that followed, the Grantham Journal said: “After exchanging shots, Sir William expressed himself satisfied on the part of Mr Tennyson and Lord James Fitzroy said that Lord Thomas Cecil was satisfied; and the affair being thus terminated to the honour of all parties, a conversation ensued in which Mr Tennyson having expressed his regret that any expressions of his should have been painful to Lord Thomas Cecil’s feelings, and expressed his hope that they would have no further cause of difference, he and Lord Thomas Cecil shook hands and the parties left the ground with the full understanding that all points of dispute were finally disposed of.”

Because of the illegality of the confrontation, the two duellists and their seconds were arrested by the police immediately after leaving the shooting ground and taken into custody, first to Paddington police station and then before a magistrate at Marylebone. Here, the court was told that the duel had already taken place and that the two parties were now reconciled and instead of being bound over to keep the peace, which would have been the usual procedure, the case was dismissed.

Tennyson, who had already been M P for Great Grimsby and Bletchingly, continued as M P for Stamford for another year and in 1832 he was elected as member for Lambeth where he remained until 1852. He was also a Fellow of the Royal Society (1829) and a published poet (1850).

In 1832, he was made a Privy Councillor and gloried in the title of the Right Honourable for the rest of his life. As a result, he was often the subject of a good deal of banter on account of his pomposity and even his wife, Frances, referred to him as the Right Hon while his eldest and favourite daughter, Julia, once addressed him as Dear Right Honourable Daddy.

On the death of his father in 1835, Tennyson added the name d'Eyncourt to commemorate the descent he claimed from Norman barons and in anticipation of the peerage he expected to be granted at Queen Victoria's Coronation in 1838, he built the castellated 60-roomed Bayons Manor at Tealby. He died in 1861, aged 77.

Newspaper engraving of a duel from the 19th century.

See also The duel that failed