In 1770, the Sheridan family of Ireland moved to Bath where they became close friends with Thomas Linley, one of the leading musicians and concert-promoters of the day. Also living in Bath was a Thomas Mathews and his wife who were also friends of the Linley family. Mathews began pursuing the young Elizabeth Linley who was a much sought after beauty. When Mathews had no luck in his advances he threatened to take Miss Linley by force and, if all else failed, to ruin her reputation if she continued to refuse him.

To escape this awkward situation, the seventeen year old Elizabeth decided to flee to France and join a convent until she came of age. She confided her scheme to her close friend Richard Sheridan who assisted her with her escape in March of 1772. Upon arrival in France, Richard convinced her to marry him before she went to a convent.

In the meantime, a letter Sheridan had left for Mr. Linley explaining the situation with Captain Mathews so infuriated Mathews that he published violent attacks in the Bath Chronicle maligning Sheridan as "a liar and a treacherous scoundrel." Thinking Sheridan would not return to England, Mathews vowed to take his life.

After being reconciled with her father, Elizabeth and Richard returned to England. Upon arrival in London, Sheridan discovered that Mathews was in town and he called on him in the middle of the night. Mathews was somehow able to convince Sheridan that his hostility was misplaced. Sheridan, who had only heard reports of the publications maligning his character went to Bath and discovered how deceitful Mathews had been.

The First Duel

On May 3rd, Charles Sheridan carried his brother's challenge to Mathews. A duel was set and swords were chosen as the weapons.

On Monday, May 4 at 6:00 p.m. Sheridan and Simon Ewart, the son of a brandy merchant in London, met Mathews and his uncle Captain Knight at the Hyde Park gate.

After trying to get Mathews to recant his slanders, Sheridan chose his ground for the encounter in the Hyde Park Ring and drew his sword. Mathews objected to the unevenness of the ground and appealed to his second, Captain Knight. The four proceeded to a plateau at the back of a building. Sheridan again took his stand and drew his sword when his second, Ewart, noticed an observer. The combatants withdrew to another location, but Mathews continued to raise objections about onlookers.

The older Mathews must have realized that whatever the outcome of the encounter, he would be seen in an unfavorable light. If he had the better of the twenty year old Sheridan he would look like a bully. If Sheridan should beat him, the former army officer would look like a fool.

Mathews suggested they retire to Hercules Pillars at Hyde Park Corner until the coast was clear. After awhile the four returned to Hyde Park and Sheridan again took his ground and drew his sword. Mathews complained of an officer who was watching them. Even after Ewart assured Mathews that nobody would interfere, Mathews remained obstinate and actually proposed deferring the duel until the following morning. Sheridan was so angered and so frustrated by the repeated delays he went over himself and talked to the officer, who politely left the scene.

Meanwhile, Mathews and Captain Knight headed for the gate where their chaise was waiting. Sheridan and Ewart called to Knight and the three of them went to the Bedford Coffee House, a celebrated hang out in Covent Garden frequented by scholars and wits. Finally an upper room was engaged at another tavern in Covent Garden known as the Castle Tavern where Mathews had gone. The combatants fought their first duel by candlelight.

After several passes, Sheridan struck Mathews' point so far out of line that Sheridan was able to step in and take control of Mathews' sword while keeping the point of his own sword at Mathews' breast. Knight ran in and caught hold of Sheridan's arm crying "Don't kill him" Sheridan struggled to disengage Knight from his arm and claimed to have Mathews' sword in his power. Mathews begged repeatedly or his life and the combatants were parted

. Knight commented, "There, he has begged his life, and now there's an end of it." The duel was over.Mathews then pointed out that he never quitted his sword and began to hint that Sheridan won only because Knight had intervened. Sheridan challenged Mathews to either give up his sword or to go on his guard again and renew the contest.

Mathews refused, but Sheridan persisted and so provoked Mathews that he flung his sword on the table. Sheridan broke it and threw the hilt to the other end of the room. Mathews protested the indignity of having his sword broken. Sheridan naively agreed that he had been wrong in this unprecedented insult. Sheridan took a mourning sword from Ewart and presented his own sword to Mathews, giving his word of honor that what had passed would never be mentioned by him.

Sheridan asked Mathews to retract the falsehood he had published. Mathews refused but Sheridan insisted and would not leave the room until he had received satisfaction. After much arguing Mathews gave an apology which Sheridan had published in the Bath Chronicle on May 7, 1772:

" Being convinced that the expressions I made use of to Mr. Sheridan's disadvantage were the effects of passion and misrepresentation, I retract what I have said to that gentleman's disadvantage, and particularly beg his pardon."

Thomas Mathews

Mathews retired to his estate in Wales and was universally shunned. His neighbor, a Mr. Barnett, convinced him of the necessity of a second meeting with Sheridan in order to remove the stigma of the first. Barnett agreed to be his second.

Barnett carried the challenge to Sheridan in the form of an invitation to dinner. On June 30 Sheridan was presented with Mathews' account of the first duel, which was insulting. Sheridan rebutted Mathews' report in a letter to Captain Knight. This rejection compelled the second duel which was scheduled for the morning of Wednesday, July 1.

Sheridan, accompanied by Captain Paumier, a young and inexperienced officer, met Mathews and Barnett at the White Hart Inn in Bath. In discussing the preliminaries, Barnett tried to manipulate the inexperienced Paumier into using pistols even though swords had already been agreed on. Mathews was apparently afraid of another "ungentlemanly scuffle" like the first encounter.

The second duel

They drove four miles from Bath in post chaises to Kingsdown Hill. Upon reaching the location, Sheridan immediately drew his sword and in a "vaunting manner" invited Mathews to draw his, which he did. After three passes with alternate advances and retreats, they closed.

Barnett claimed that Sheridan suddenly ran in upon Mathews, trying to seize Mathews' sword as he had done at their first encounter. Mathews took him on his point and then, while disengaging his sword from Sheridan's body, lunged at him and broke his sword. It would seem nearly impossible for Mathews to have disengaged in such close quarters and to have lunged with such force as to break his weapon.

In any event, Mathews sword was somehow broken in the closing, shivering in the middle, leaving a jagged point tapering up the blade. Then either Mathews grabbed hold of Sheridan's sword arm and tripped him (as Barnett reports) or Sheridan threw Mathews to the ground (as Sheridan claims).

As they rolled on the sloping ground, Mathews wound up on top. He hit Sheridan in the face with the sword hilt and hacked at his neck with the six or seven inches of his broken blade, giving Sheridan a number of skin wounds in the neck. Mathews blade eventually stuck in the ground.

In the mean time Sheridan had slid his hand up the small part of his sword and began bending his sword trying to wound Mathews in the belly. His sword broke, snapping off four inches from the hilt when it hit the hidden armor Mathews wore. Sheridan called out that he had nothing to defend himself with and raised his right hand as a token of his plight. The seconds did nothing.

Then Mathews picked up the point of the broken weapon off the ground and held it over Sheridan ordering him to beg his life. Sheridan indignantly refused. Mathews began to stab him with the point but Sheridan was able to grab part of the blade so that Mathews was unable to disengage it.

Then Mathews drew his jagged weapon that had been stuck in the ground and began to stab Sheridan ferociously some twenty or thirty times screaming oaths and curses. Sheridan was able to ward off most of the thrusts with his hand, so they only penetrated his coat and gave a few superficial flesh wounds as they hit bone. Both Barnett and Paumier asked Sheridan to beg for his life, and Sheridan replied, "No, by God, I won't." At this point both Barnett and Paumier interceded. Mathews, assuming that Sheridan was mortally wounded, made his way to London, then France.

Sheridan was helped into one the chaises and driven to the White Hart Inn where his three or four wounds were tended to by two eminent surgeons. The following day Sheridan was transported to his home in Bath. Months later Henry Angelo noticed that Sheridan's neck wound "still looked very sore."

Barnett gave a written report of the incident to Captain William Wade, Master of Ceremonies at Bath, which was verified by Paumier.

Later Sheridan officially married Miss Linley with the sanction of both their parents. Richard Brinsley Sheridan went on to write the witty comedies of manners, The Rivals, The School for Scandal, and The Critic, as well as being a member of Parliament from 1781 to1812.

Mathews eventually returned to Bath where he died some fifty years later in 1821, surviving Sheridan by five years. Mathews was considered a gentleman of the "military" type who played a phenomenal game of whist.

Linda Carlyle McCollum is a longtime SAFD member and serves as on-site coordinator for the annual SAFD National Stage Combat Workshops.

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

Angelo, Domenico
The School of Fencing, London, 1787.

Green, Emanuel
Sheridan and Mathews at Bath: A Criticism of the Story as Told in the Several Sheridan Biographies.
London: Harrison and Sons, 1912.

Mikhail, E. H. ed.
Sheridan, Interviews and Recollections
New York: St. Martin's Press, 1989.

Moore, Thomas
Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan
Vol. I & ll. New York: Greenwood Press, 1968.

Sherwin, Oscar
Uncorking Old Sherry
New York: Twayne Publishers, Inc., 1960.

Reprinted with permission from the Fight Master.