David Dirry-Moir’s Challenge to the Lords

David Dirry-Moir’s Challenge to the Lords is a public defense of Gwynplaine that escalates into a challenge to fight the young peers, before becoming a confrontation between David and the brother he has only just recognized. The episode makes David’s spoken defiance an action: he rebukes the lords for their treatment of Gwynplaine, calls for duels, and then turns from the group to Gwynplaine when their shared family history comes into view.

Causes and Setting

The challenge follows the lords’ response to Gwynplaine’s address in the House of Lords. David had been present at the sitting and had heard the speech that the young peers ridiculed. He does not claim that it was polished: he concedes that it was confused, poorly delivered, and at times in bad taste. His defense instead rests on the distinction between a speech’s defects and the truth of some of its claims. He singles out Gwynplaine’s account of the lepers at Burton Lazars as fact, and argues that a man who had only recently been a fairground clown could not be expected to speak like a celebrated scholar or bishop.

David’s appearance makes him conspicuous among the assembled men. Some of the lords are still wearing their robes, while others have changed into ordinary attire. David wears a green-plumed hat tipped with orange rather than the peers’ white plumes; his clothes are richly embroidered and laced, and anchors are worked into the fittings of the sword at his waist. He nervously fingers its hilt as he speaks. The detail links his formal status as an officer of the fleet to the armed challenge he is about to make, while his unusual colors set him apart from the group whose conduct he condemns.

Defense of Gwynplaine

David’s rebuke is pointedly double-edged. He acknowledges the flaws in Gwynplaine’s performance, but refuses to treat those flaws as grounds for dismissing everything he said. The young peer, in David’s account, has spoken badly and nevertheless spoken some truths. David contrasts that imperfect address with the lords’ failure to understand or answer its substance, accusing the older men of deafness and the younger ones of lacking intelligence. His defense therefore does more than take Gwynplaine’s side: it reverses the social judgment taking place in the chamber, making the established peers’ mockery evidence against their own discernment.

He also objects to the imbalance of a group ridiculing one man. David says that he had waited at the door because their conduct angered him, and presents his intervention as a matter of personal honor, even though he acknowledges that he has no right to speak in the House. He identifies himself as sufficiently connected to their order to tell them the truth, but grounds his standing more firmly in his claim to be a gentleman. His defense of Gwynplaine is thus both a protest against the peers’ treatment of an outsider and a direct test of the code of honor by which the peers understand themselves.

The Challenge and the Peers’ Response

David names a number of the men present, including Thomas Tufton, Earl of Thanet; Savage, Earl Rivers; Charles Spencer, Earl of Sunderland; and Laurence Hyde, Earl of Rochester. He calls on them, and on any others who choose to accept, to find seconds and umpires and meet him. He is willing to fight at different times and places, by day or night, and insists that the form of combat may be chosen by his opponents. His threat is not a single, privately arranged duel: it is directed at the assembled company and framed as a demand that each man answer for the collective ridicule.

The terms he offers underline the theatrical breadth of his defiance. He refers to swords and pistols, allows for a meeting on foot or horseback, and invokes public locations such as Piccadilly and Charing Cross. He even declares himself willing to fight with any weapon, from the sword associated with a prince to the fists associated with a common brawler. This range makes the challenge a deliberate answer to the lords’ status-conscious behavior: David refuses to let rank, venue, or choice of weapon decide whether the insult will be answered.

The young peers meet his furious speech with smiles and accept. Several immediately choose different forms of combat: Burlington chooses pistols, Escrick proposes the old contest of the lists with mace and dagger, Rockingham names the sword, and Duke Ralph prefers fighting with fists. Their calm acceptance contrasts with David’s anger, but also makes his threat concrete: the exchange has moved beyond denunciation toward arrangements for individual encounters. The scene does not record those duels taking place; its decisive next turn comes when Gwynplaine emerges from the shadow and approaches David.

From Public Defense to Family Conflict

Gwynplaine thanks David for defending him but insists that the matter is his own. David draws back and answers with a separate grievance. He refers to Gwynplaine’s remark about a woman who loved Lord Linnæus Clancharlie and later loved Charles II, and says that Gwynplaine has insulted his mother. Gwynplaine understands that the accusation may disclose the connection he has suspected, but David supplies the answer: they are brothers. He strikes Gwynplaine and declares that, as brothers, they can fight as equals; he says he will send seconds and proposes that they fight the following day.

That disclosure changes the meaning of David’s earlier defense without undoing it. He had stood against the peers because he considered their ridicule unjust and Gwynplaine’s cause worthy; now the same confrontation exposes a personal relation that makes the dispute intimate as well as public. David’s defense and challenge are therefore joined by two claims of equality: first, that Gwynplaine deserves respect despite his appearance and origins; then, that the newly recognized brothers can meet one another as equals. The episode closes on that unresolved prospect, shifting the conflict from the lords’ collective mockery to the brothers’ proposed duel.