Duels figure briefly in Mill’s autobiography, pejoratively, as an archaism symbolic of the world Mill felt himself working away from. This sentiment of the outdated nature of trial by battle was not unique to Mill: in 1819, a bill passed through both Houses of Parliament outlawing the settlement of legal cases by physical combat, known as “Wager of Battle.” It was at the time still legal under the laws of the country that a defendant could request that the claim against him be settled by trial by battle. The right had been brought to public attention that very year, when a man accused of rape and murder invoked his right, though the fight itself never took place. Thus the hypothetical of what the legal result would have been, had the fight ensued, formed a large part of the House of Commons proceeding on the matter, as members argued whether, had the combat resulted in a miscarriage of justice, that would have been the final decision on the case. Ultimately, the bill repealed the right in the name of “propriety,” as an obsolete and ancient practice, along the lines of “trial by ordeal, by fire and water, and by receiving the sacrament, and other cases where the judicia Dei were resorted to in the absence of other means of proof” (Burdett, Commons Sitting).
Sources
Trial by Battle Abolition Bill. Commons Sitting. 19 March 1819, Vol. 39. https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1819/mar/19/trial-by-battle-abolition-bill.
Wager of Battle Abolition Bill. Lords Sitting. 18 June 1919, Vol. 40. https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/lords/1819/jun/18/wager-of-battle-abolition-bill.