{"title":"The Duel of the Hat","description":"\u003cp\u003eOne Thursday night in France, sometime around 1597, a young man climbed out of his mother’s château window to go fight a duel. He was already an accomplished swordsman, and he was wearing a very fine hat, but he did not survive.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGabriel-Aldonce de la Garde-Valon had never met Gilles Robert de Lignerac, Sieur de Bazanez. Their quarrel began with a satirical verse, a mutual appetite for violence, and a grey beaver hat sent as a challenge. It ended with two men dead, and another horribly wounded riding away wearing the hat that had started it all.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe story was too good to disappear. It was retold for centuries, and, in the process, transformed. Men who had died survived. Wounds changed. Words were invented. Details migrated from one account to another until separating history from embellishment became a detective story in its own right.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn \u003cem\u003eThe Duel of the Hat\u003c\/em\u003e, swordsman and researcher Guy Windsor follows that trail back to its seventeenth-century source, reconstructing the lives, landscape, weapons and extraordinary sequence of events that led four young men to meet with swords and daggers in the countryside of Quercy.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePart narrative history, part historical investigation, and part reconstruction of a real sword fight, this is the story of a duel fought over honour, reputation, a poem… and a very fine hat.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"the-duel-of-the-hat-pdf","title":"The Duel of the Hat (PDF)","description":"\u003ch2\u003eHow a great story became bad history\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOne Thursday night in France, sometime around 1597, a young man climbed out of his mother’s château window to go fight a duel. He was already an accomplished swordsman, and he was wearing a very fine hat, but he did not survive.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGabriel-Aldonce de la Garde-Valon had never met Gilles Robert de Lignerac, Sieur de Bazanez. Their quarrel began with a satirical verse, a mutual appetite for violence, and a grey beaver hat sent as a challenge. It ended with two men dead, and another horribly wounded riding away wearing the hat that had started it all.\u003cbr\u003eThe story was too good to disappear. It was retold for centuries, and, in the process, transformed. Men who had died survived. Wounds changed. Words were invented. Details migrated from one account to another until separating history from embellishment became a detective story in its own right.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn \u003cem\u003eThe Duel of the Hat\u003c\/em\u003e, swordsman and researcher Guy Windsor follows that trail back to its seventeenth-century source, reconstructing the lives, landscape, weapons and extraordinary sequence of events that led four young men to meet with swords and daggers in the countryside of Quercy.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePart narrative history, part historical investigation, and part reconstruction of a real sword fight, this is the story of a duel fought over honour, reputation, a poem… and a very fine hat.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eThis is the early access PDF-version of the book.\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eNOTE TO THE EARLY ACCESS READER\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI hope you enjoy this early-access version of \u003cem\u003eThe Duel of the Hat\u003c\/em\u003e. I'm still making improvements before the final publication, and I'd love to hear what you think. If you have any feedback at all, please email me by November 19th. Whether you send in feedback or not, you'll receive the finished ebook when it's published, and a discount code covering the cost of this pdf for the print edition.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Spada Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":59071190630781,"sku":null,"price":10.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0651\/5635\/0173\/files\/TheDueloftheHatebookmockup.png?v=1794214624"}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0651\/5635\/0173\/collections\/The-Duel-of-the-Hat-Generic-2026-11-06.jpg?v=1794215317","url":"https:\/\/swordschool.shop\/collections\/the-duel-of-the-hat.oembed","provider":"swordschool","version":"1.0","type":"link"}