Hamilton: Duel to the Death (Part 3)

**Tom Holland** (0:01)
This episode is brought to you by the Lloyds 5K house deposit. And this is something that was last seen in 1996

**Dominic Sandbrook** (0:11)
Yeah, so the 1990s looks now like a lost golden age of prosperity and positivity, doesn't it? Think of the sort of the advent of the Blair administration in 1997, all the enthusiasm and excitement that surrounded that, the economic growth of the time, the technological developments, the sort of sense of an endless golden summer where everybody's listening to Blair in a crisis and looking forward to buying their first houses. And that, of course, takes us to mortgages. Now the good news is that in a nod to the 1990s, Lloyds are offering 5K deposit mortgages to first-time buyers. So search 5K first-time buyer.

**Tom Holland** (0:49)
1996 average first-time buyer deposits are based on ONS data subject to status your home may be repossessed if you don't keep up repayments. And conditions apply.

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**SPEAKER_4** (1:29)
And we're live from the living room as Doug eyes up the matchday spread. He's reaching for the Buffalo wing. Perfect. Hang on, what's this? Oh, he's gone for a can of Pepsi too. Incredible.
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**Tom Holland** (2:10)
This letter, my very dear Eliza, will not be delivered to you, unless I shall first have terminated my earthly career, to begin, as I humbly hope from redeeming grace and divine mercy, a happy immortality.
If it had been possible for me to have avoided the interview, my love for you and my precious children would have been alone a decisive motive. But it was not possible, without sacrifices, which would have rendered me unworthy of your esteem. I need not tell you of the pangs I feel, from the idea of quitting you and exposing you to the anguish which I know you would feel. Fly to the bosom of your God and be comforted.
With my last idea, I shall cherish the sweet hope of meeting you in a better world.
Adieu, best of wives and best of women. Embrace all my darling children for me. Ever yours, Alexander Hamilton. So that was the farewell letter written by Alexander Hamilton to his wife, Eliza. And he wrote it exactly a week before his fatal duel with Aaron Burr on the 11th of July 1804 And I think that for anyone today who may be inspired to challenge someone to a duel, it's an excellent model. And I think that should one day I similarly find myself writing to my own beloved wife, Sadie, announcing my intention to fight a duel, I shall sign myself off, Thomas Holland, capital letters, which is what Alexander Hamilton did there. Dominic, we haven't really done many duels on The Rest Is History. In fact, I don't think we've done any, have we? And this is an absolute banger with which to kick off the history duels on The Rest Is History. Undoubtedly, the most celebrated duel in American history, perhaps in all of history. And Henry Adams called it the most dramatic moment in the early politics of the Union. And it's, I guess, kind of reached a new audience over the past few years, because it's featured very prominently in a celebrated musical, hasn't it?

**Dominic Sandbrook** (4:29)
It has Lin-Manuel Miranda's hip-hop musical. So that opened off-Broadway in 2015
And Lin-Manuel Miranda, he's had a lot of praise, so we should introduce a tiny note of criticism so he doesn't get too big-headed. The one mistake he made was not to emulate your tremendous accent work there, with the portrayal of Hamilton. Because, of course, Hamilton would have spoken with a slightly comical, semi-Scottish, semi-Caribbean, but ultimately West Country voice, wouldn't he? Like all Americans.

**Tom Holland** (4:58)
Yes, which is what I was evoking there. I think it's fair to say that an emphasis on strict realism isn't a key note of the musical, is it?

**Dominic Sandbrook** (5:06)
No, it's true. In some ways it was an unexpected triumph, because Alexander Hamilton is not the most celebrated of the Founding Fathers. But of course the duel is a really great moment, and the duel is a good story. The duel is a brilliant window into the factionalism of the 1790s, the factionalism that follows American independence in 1776 So you've got the rivalry between Hamilton's Federalists and top villain Thomas Jefferson's Democratic Republicans.