"The appellee
being brought into Court and placed at the bar" (I am quoting the
original dry technical record of the transaction), "and the appellant
being also in court, the count [charge] was again read over to him, and
he [Thornton] was called upon to plead. He pleaded as follows;--'Not
Guilty; and I am ready to defend the same by my body.' And thereupon,
taking his glove off, he threw it on the floor of the Court." That is to
say, Ashford having "appealed" Thornton of the murder, Thornton claimed
the right to maintain his own innocence by "Trial of Battel;" and so his
answer to the charge was a "Wager of Battel." And now the din of fight
seemed near, with the Court of King's Bench at Westminster for the
arena, and the grave Judges of that Court for the umpires. But the case
was destined to add but another illustration to what Cicero tells us of
how, oftentimes, arms yield to argument, and the swordsman's looked-for
laurel vanishes before the pleader's tongue. William Ashford, of course,
acting under the advice of those who really promoted the appeal,
declined to accept Thornton's wager of battel. Instead of accepting it,
his counsel disputed the right of Thornton to wage his battel in this
case; alleging, in a very long plea, that there were presumptions of
guilt so strong as to deprive him of that right.
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