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Donald McBane: swordsman, soldier, Scotsman, gambler, pimp & author of The Expert Swordman’s Companion: Or the True Art of Self-Defence, With an Account of the Author’s Life, and his Transactions during the Wars with France.

At 23 he left his apprenticeship as a tobacco spinner for the army and adventure. After a few years another soldier started appropriating McBane’s pay whereupon McBane challenged him for redress. After an initial rout where his broadsword wielding opponent knocked McBane’s sword from his hand, beat him and pawned his sword, McBane took additional lessons on the smallsword versus the broadsword. Next time McBane skewered him through and kept studying until he was his master’s top student.

More battles, injuries, and duels over trifles continued. McBane continied studying the swordin Dublin under a French master. Laster in Belgium he was forced to fight and win 24 bouts with the locale’s establishd master’s to teach in peace.

Soon enough McBane discovered some of his fellow swordsmen were sidelining in prositution and gambling and he

resolved to have a share of that Gain, or at least to have a fair Tryall for it. I Fought all the four, one by one: the last of them was Left-handed; he and I went to the Rampart where we searched one another for Fire Arms. Finding none, we drew and had two or three clean Turns: at last he put up his Hand and took a Pistol from the Cock of his Hat; he cocked it against his shoulder and presented it to me, upon which I asked Quarters, but he refused, calling me an “English Bouger,” and Fired at me and run for it. One of the balls Went through my Cravat. I thinking I was shot did not Run as I was wont to do, but run as I could after him, crying for the Guard … at last I overtook him…and gave him a thrust in the buttocks …. [I] call’d for his Commerads that same Night, who agreed to give me a Brace of Whoors, and Two Petty Couns a Week. With this and my School I lived very well for that Winter.

Next he participated in the War of Spanish Succession, the first real pan-Euro war. More misadventures and brawls following. At the Battlen of Blenheim on August 13, 1704 McBane was show 4 times, received 5 bayonet wounds and was left for dead on the fiel. At night plundering Dutch (allied) troops clubbed him for his clothes and left him “expecting Death every minute, not only by reason of Wounds, but by reason of the old and the great Thirst that I had, I drank several handfuls of the Dead Mens Blood I lay beside, the more I Drank the worse I was.”

He recovered.

In 1707, he fought a man over a woman and

He challenged me immediately to Answer him, so we went out to the back of an old Trench where he shewed me Five Graves which
he had filled, and told me I should be the Sixth, (we had a great many Spectators both Dutch and English) if I would not yield him the Lady, for shame I could not but Fight him, he drew his Sword, and with it drew a Line,saying, that should be my Grave; I told him it was too short for me, likewise I did not love to ly wet at Night,
but said it would fit him better; we fell to it, he advanced upon me so I was obliged to give Way a little, I bound his Sword and made a half Thrust at his Breast, he Timed” me and wounded me in the Mouth; we took another turn, I took a little better care, and gave him a Thrust in the body, which made him very angry; he came upon me very boldly, some of the Spectators cryed stand your Ground, I wished them in my Place, then I gave him a Thrust in the Belly, he then darted [threw] his Sword at me, I Parried it, he went and lay down on his Coat and spake none…. His Commerads were glad he was off the Stage, for he was very troublesome.

Later when a quartermaster took 10 crowns and some earrings off of one of McBane’s girls, McBane challenged from to battle, but could not avail, as he recounted

Then we took a Turn … but I could make nothing of him, so we took Breath a little, and fell to it again and Closed one another, and secured one another’s Swords, but none of us
could get Advantage of another; we had Five such Turns, but could make nothing of it, we were Four or Five Times through [each] others Shirts, but could not draw Blood.

The quartermaster was an Irish fencing master who then returned the earrings and “As for the Money we agreed to Drink it and let the Whore work for more.”

At the siege of a citadel near Tournai, McBane was put in charge of 6 cannon and 16 men. When the French fired their own cannon and

With one Shot they Killed Forty-eight Men, I Escaped the Shot, but one of the Heads of the Men that was Shot, knocked me down, and all his Brains came round my Head, I being half Senseless put up my Hand to my Head, and finding the Brains, cryed to my Neighbour that all my Brains were knock’d out; he said were your Brains out you could not speak.

At the end of his career in the military, he returned to England, took up a new wife and ran a school and alehouse in London. Debuting at 50, he fought 37 times at the Bear Garden with the backsword.

The last notable battle was in 1726 in Edinburgh when an Irish swordsman, Andrew O’Byran arrived in town and challenging all comers. The Duke of Hamilton and Duke of Argyle sent for McBane and asked him to take it up if he thought himself able. McBane responded by taking up a claymore and swinging it whistling through the air.

The bout was staged in St. Anne’s Yards at the back of the palace with McBane as the victor, who “gave him Seven Wounds, and broke his Arm with the Falchion, this I did at the Request of several Noblemen and Gentlemen. But not being Sixty-three Years of Age, resolves never to Fight any more, but to Repent for my Wickedness.”

From McBane’s book:

“‘Tis less Dangerous to Retire, than to Advance upon your Adversary, and not at all Scandalous, for you may Time him every time he advances, and so get the better, by Disabling his Sword Arm, Hand or Wrist.”

“Command your Temper and you will do much better, than if you give way to your Passion; and if you do Command it, and are Engaged with a Person who can not, you will have very much the Advantage of him, for his Passion will make him Play wild and wide, and consequently exposes himself to be Hit very often, wheras your thoughts not being in Hurry and Confusion, you may Defend your self with ease and judgement, and take an Advantage readily when ever you have a mind, you are the more capable of doing this, because your Strength, Mind and Spirit are not Spent or Exhausted.”

Info from Kircher’s very good The Deadliest Men.