![[ENGLISH LEGAL HISTORY]. Abraham Thornton’s gauntlet, c.1817.](https://www.christies.com/img/LotImages/2019/CKS/2019_CKS_17200_0563_000(english_legal_history_abraham_thorntons_gauntlet_c1817123129).jpg?w=1)
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[ENGLISH LEGAL HISTORY]. Abraham Thornton’s gauntlet, c.1817.
250 x 170mm (at widest part), embroidered kidskin. [With:] a legal bundle, ‘Brief for the prisoner Abraham Thornton for murder, Warwick Summer Assizes 1817, drawn up by Mr Sadler’. Provenance: R. H. Sadler, Sutton Coldfield, Abraham Thornton’s solicitor – by descent.
The final challenge to trial by battle in English legal history: one of the gauntlets used by Abraham Thornton to exercise his medieval right to a ‘wager of battle’ after being accused of murder by William Ashford. Following Ashford v Thornton (1818), this Norman-era legal procedure was abolished, making Thornton’s gauntlets the final instrument by which a challenge to battle was made. Abraham Thornton was charged with the murder of Mary Ashford in 1817. The two had met at a dance and left together: the next day Ashford was discovered drowned in a pit. Thornton’s swift acquittal on the charges of rape and murder provoked public outrage, and Mary Ashford’s brother, William, launched a private appeal. Thornton was rearrested, but asserted his medieval right to trial by battle by throwing down his gauntlet onto the King's Bench: although no such ‘trial’ had occurred in England since 1446, Parliament had never repealed its legal usage and the Court of King’s Bench upheld his right to this challenge. William Ashford declined the offer of battle and Abraham Thornton was freed, later emigrating to America. Private appeals such as that made by Ashford were abolished by statute the following year, and with them the right to trial by battle.
250 x 170mm (at widest part), embroidered kidskin. [With:] a legal bundle, ‘Brief for the prisoner Abraham Thornton for murder, Warwick Summer Assizes 1817, drawn up by Mr Sadler’. Provenance: R. H. Sadler, Sutton Coldfield, Abraham Thornton’s solicitor – by descent.
The final challenge to trial by battle in English legal history: one of the gauntlets used by Abraham Thornton to exercise his medieval right to a ‘wager of battle’ after being accused of murder by William Ashford. Following Ashford v Thornton (1818), this Norman-era legal procedure was abolished, making Thornton’s gauntlets the final instrument by which a challenge to battle was made. Abraham Thornton was charged with the murder of Mary Ashford in 1817. The two had met at a dance and left together: the next day Ashford was discovered drowned in a pit. Thornton’s swift acquittal on the charges of rape and murder provoked public outrage, and Mary Ashford’s brother, William, launched a private appeal. Thornton was rearrested, but asserted his medieval right to trial by battle by throwing down his gauntlet onto the King's Bench: although no such ‘trial’ had occurred in England since 1446, Parliament had never repealed its legal usage and the Court of King’s Bench upheld his right to this challenge. William Ashford declined the offer of battle and Abraham Thornton was freed, later emigrating to America. Private appeals such as that made by Ashford were abolished by statute the following year, and with them the right to trial by battle.
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