He already fought with distinction on three battles. In 1864, George Mackenzie (1837-1891), a former Captain in the Union army, was arrested for desertion from the Union army. In April 1862, chess player Armand Edward Blackmar (1826-1888), of the Blackmar Gambit and Blackmar-Diemer fame, was arrested, fined, and jailed by Union General Ben Butler (1818-1893) and imprisoned by Union soldiers in New Orleans for publishing “seditious” (Confederate) music, such as the Bonnie Blue Flag (Band of Brothers) and the Dixie War Song. (source: British Chess Magazine, vol 36, 1916) He was released after writing to the king that he was too old, too infirmed, and innocent. A third source says that the lady was the wife of the Marquis de Merin, who was recently condemned to death by guillotineĪlexandre Deschapelles (1780-1847) was arrested for being involved in the French insurrection of June 1832. Another source says the lady was Jacqueline Armand, the fiancée of a duke who was about to be guillotined. (source: Ripley’s Believe It or Not, 1944). Thomas Paine then was released from prison. She again won and asked that her husband’s life be spared. Robespierre challenged her again and promised to grant any wish if she won again. She frequented the Café de la Regence, disguised as a man, where Maximilien de Robespierre (1758-1794) frequented, and she defeated him in a game of chess. Paine was scheduled to be guillotined, but his fiancée/wife intervened in a strange way. In 1793, Thomas Paine (1737-1809), author of The Rights of Man and Common Sense, was supposedly arrested in Paris for favoring the exile of King Louis XVI rather than his execution. After Middleton’s arrest, the play was censored and was not allowed to be shown again. Its nine performances, from August 5-14, 1624, was the greatest box-office hit and the most talked about dramatic work of early modern London. The play was performed in the Globe Theater in London. On August 30, 1624, playwright Thomas Middleton (1580-1627) was arrested in London after producing a play, A Game of Chess, that satirized the proposed marriage of Prince Charles with a Spanish princess. In 1622, Gioacchino Greco (1600-1634) was robbed of all his money (5,000 crowns) that he won in Paris from playing chess while on his way to London.