HistoryExtra Home of Britain’s bestselling history magazine and award-winning podcast 2025-02-12T13:12:02.000Z https://www.historyextra.com/people/duke-of-wellington/feed/atom Ellie Cawthorne <![CDATA[Life of the week: the Duke of Wellington]]> https://www.historyextra.com/membership/video-life-duke-wellington/ 2025-02-12T13:12:02.000Z 2024-05-27T05:59:10.000Z Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington has gone down in history as one of Britain's most formidable military commanders. But how did he earn such an impressive reputation? In this Life of the Week episode, Dr Zack White guides Ellie Cawthorne through Wellington's successes on the battlefield, as well as his controversial tenure as a politician and salacious personal life.

View Green Video on the source website]]> Ellie Cawthorne <![CDATA[The Duke of Wellington: “One of Britain’s greatest soldiers, and worst prime ministers”]]> https://www.historyextra.com/period/georgian/duke-wellington-who-life-career-death/ 2024-10-20T23:03:09.000Z 2024-03-27T10:18:06.000Z Arthur Wellesley, the first Duke of Wellington, was a leading military commander, politician and prime minister in 19th-century Britain. He is best remembered today for his actions during the Napoleonic Wars, most notably for victory at the 1815 battle of Waterloo.

“He was second only to Napoleon in his military skill at the time,” says historian Dr Zack White, who joined the HistoryExtra podcast to discuss the duke’s life and legacy.

“Wellington was a household name across Europe – an internationally revered figure both as a general and as a statesman, even described by some as the liberator of Europe.”

• On the podcast | Dr Zack White discusses the life and career of the Duke of Wellington

But Wellington was a controversial figure, especially when it came to his later political career. His tenure as prime minister is remembered for his opposition to the Great Reform Act, which aimed to tackle electoral corruption and extend suffrage beyond a small, privileged elite.

“Wellington was one of Britain’s greatest soldiers, and one of its worst prime ministers,” says White. “He was a devoted servant of the nation and the monarchy, and an exceptional general; a highly intelligent, skilled and often generous individual. But he could also be cutting and waspish, and he personified some of the worst elitist prejudices of the age in which he lived.

“Ultimately, he is one of the most important figures in the history of Britain and of Europe. His role in the liberation of Europe from French domination was important, but it was his input as a diplomat in the peace negotiations that was integral to establishing stability on the continent after years of turmoil and war,” says White. “He is, like many figures from this period of history, impressive in his achievements, yet problematic in some of his views.”

Who was the Duke of Wellington?

Arthur Wellesley was born in Dublin in 1769, to a family in the Irish aristocracy. As the third surviving son of the Earl of Mornington, he didn’t stand to inherit a title, and after some unremarkable school years at Eton, he joined the army shortly before he turned 18.

Wellesley’s early military career saw him involved in campaigns in the Low Countries and India, where his brother Richard served as a governor.

“India is where Wellesley really cut his teeth as a commander,” says White. “During the Second Anglo-Maratha War of 1803–05, it was Arthur who led the British and East India Company forces in a series of impressive victories over much larger Maratha armies. His successes helped to tip the balance of power in Britain's favour on the subcontinent, and he himself did very well out of the war. He left a rich man, and a knight of the bar.”

The Duke of Wellington in the Napoleonic Wars

Following his successes in India, Wellington’s skills on the battlefield were deployed during the Peninsular War. In 1808, he headed a small force sent to take on the French in Portugal.

“The speed with which Wellington began transforming the situation in Portugal made him a household name,” explains White.

“At the battles of Roliça and Vimeiro, he won two victories over the French in the space of a month, which basically forced the French to give up Portugal. That was electrifying, because the French had been the undisputed military might of Europe. It made everyone sit up and pay attention.”

• Read more | Did Wellington really call his troops the "scum of the earth"?

Further successes against the French followed at the battles of Salamanca and Vittoria in Spain, which ultimately helped turn the tide of the Peninsular War in favour of the British.

How important was the Duke of Wellington at the battle of Waterloo?

Wellington’s most famous victory of all came at the battle of Waterloo on 18 June 1815. This decisive clash saw a coalition of forces under Wellington and Prussian leader Marshal Blücher deliver a final blow to Napoleon’s dreams of European dominance.

“Wellington played a really key role at Waterloo,” says White. “By this point he was widely recognised as the best commander the Allies had to field against Napoleon, and when the announcement came through that Wellington was going to command the British forces in Belgium, it’s said that the troops cheered, because they believed in his ability to win.

“There was a famous saying that soldiers would rather see his long nose in a fight than a reinforcement of 10,000 men any day.”

• Video podcast | Zack White on discipline in Wellington's armies

However, Wellington did not defeat the French conqueror singlehandedly. By 1815, a huge Allied coalition had amassed against Napoleon, including the Russians, Austrians, Prussians and the British – around three quarters of a million men, by some accounts.

“The story that’s often spun is that it’s the British that win the battle of Waterloo, under the command of a British general, Wellington,” says White.

“That’s a lovely little narrative if you’re British, but completely ignores the significance of Dutch troops and General Blücher’s Prussian army. Waterloo was Napoleon’s last defeat, but that defeat was coming anyway.”

When did Arthur Wellesley become the Duke of Wellington?

As a third son, Wellesley didn’t inherit his father’s title. Instead, he was awarded the title Viscount of Wellington in 1809, following his success at the battle of Talavera in Spain, before being elevated to Earl and then Duke, on 3 May 1814.

In recognition of his military achievements, he was also given other international titles, including Prince of Waterloo, Duke of Ciudad Rodrigo and Marquess of Douro.

The Duke of Wellington’s personal life and affairs

Despite his dogged dedication to his military and political career, Wellington found the time to gain a persistent reputation as a womaniser.

This was despite having a wife. In 1806, he had reluctantly married Kitty Pakenham following a long engagement, and the partnership was not a happy one.

“He was an awful husband, truly awful,” explains White. “The problem was simple: he married Kitty out of duty, and she idolised him, which was precisely what he didn't want and didn't need.

“He wanted someone who was his intellectual and social equal; a sparring partner. He loved the company of highly intelligent women who could argue and debate with him, and sadly that wasn't Kitty.”

• Read more | The Duke of Wellington and his ‘Dearest Georgy’

Wellington’s affairs with a succession of mistresses were well-known by the public and mocked in the press. And one of these liaisons led to one of the most famous quotes attributed to the duke, when courtesan Harriette Wilson threatened to expose their relationship by publishing a tell-all memoir.

Wellington’s response was characteristically uncompromising: “Publish and be damned”.

The Duke of Wellington as prime minister

Wellington had long dabbled in politics. In between military campaigns, he was elected to the Irish Parliament in 1790, when he was just 21, and later became a British MP in 1806.

He was also frequently engaged in international diplomacy on behalf of the British government. Then on his return to Britain following Napoleon’s defeat, Wellington turned his attention to politics full time.

In 1818, he became Master General of Ordnance in the government of Lord Liverpool, and by the late 1820s, he was being considered as a candidate for the next Tory leader and prime minister.

“Wellington was initially favoured for leadership because of his international reputation,” says White. “He was the obvious choice in many respects, but it's questionable whether he actually had the right mindset to be prime minister. After his first cabinet meeting, he’s said to have remarked how odd it was that after he'd given orders, rather than just obeying, everyone seemed to want to discuss them.”

Regardless of his suitability for the role, Wellington served as prime minister from 1828–30. His title meant he had to sit in the House of Lords, and he developed a close working relationship with leader of the Commons, Robert Peel.

“Wellington and Peel had this symbiotic relationship that made them a dynamic, really powerful combination,” says White.

One of the greatest successes of the duke’s time as prime minister was the 1829 Catholic Emancipation Act, which removed restrictions on Catholics entering parliament and other important offices in the British establishment. Wellington even threatened to resign to convince the reluctant King George IV to sign the act into law.

The Duke of Wellington and the Great Reform Act

But perhaps the biggest failure of Wellington’s tenure as prime minister was his opposition to the growing campaign for electoral reform.

At this point, Britain’s electoral system was plagued by ‘rotten boroughs’, where some boroughs such as Old Sarum could elect MPs with just a handful of voters, while large new industrial centres were not represented at all. The system was wide open to corruption, and the ability to vote was limited to men with a certain amount of personal wealth.

Wellington fought against the expansion of the franchise and refused to reform the rotten boroughs system. This position eroded his popularity, ultimately leading to a vote of no-confidence and the collapse of his government.

“Even when he’d been shown the door, Wellington didn’t let this go,” says White. “I don’t think he was ever reconciled to this idea of the expansion of the franchise. It’s said, although possibly apocryphally, that when he saw the Commons sit for the first time after the Reform Bill was finally passed, he commented, ‘I never saw so many shocking bad hats in my life.’”

That didn’t signal the end of Wellington’s political career, however. In 1834, he briefly took on the role interim prime minister while Peel was on holiday overseas, and served as Foreign Secretary from 1834–35, commander-in-chief of the army from 1842, and leader of the House of Lords from 1841–46. In 1846, he retired from politics, but kept up his work in international diplomacy.

Why was Wellington known as the ‘Iron Duke’?

Despite what you might assume, Wellington’s nickname was not a nod to his intimidating military persona. It actually originated during his political career, when his opposition to the Reform Bill saw angry crowds gathering outside his London home, Apsley House.

The nickname was a sarcastic reference to the fact that, rather than dealing with the problems that had triggered the riots, Wellington simply installed iron shutters to keep the mob out.

What does the Duke of Wellington have to do with the Wellington boot?

The Duke of Wellington was well-known as a fashionable figure in British society and was even known to his officers as ‘the Beau’. He was said to be particularly proud of his calves, so he ordered his shoemaker to cut his boots shorter in order to show them off better.

The fashion caught on, and the name stuck.

“The type of boots he wore were very different from the modern welly, but if you’ve ever wondered where the name comes from, that’s your answer,” explains White.

When did the Duke of Wellington die?

The Duke of Wellington died at Walmer Castle on 14 September 1852, at the age of 83. “By the time of his death, Wellington was widely regarded as one of the great statesmen of his age,” says White. “Queen Victoria was absolutely bereft”.

The duke was given a state funeral and, against his wishes, buried in St Paul’s Cathedral – in a tomb opposite Admiral Horatio Nelson.

]]> Ellie Cawthorne <![CDATA[Life of the week: the Duke of Wellington]]> https://www.historyextra.com/membership/life-of-the-week-the-duke-of-wellington-podcast-zack-white/ 2024-10-28T13:42:31.000Z 2024-02-06T07:20:45.000Z Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington has gone down in history as one of Britain's most formidable military commanders. But how did he earn such an impressive reputation? In today's Life of the Week episode, Dr Zack White guides Ellie Cawthorne through Wellington's successes on the battlefield, as well as his controversial tenure as a politician and salacious personal life.

]]> HistoryExtra <![CDATA[Regency Britain: an age of war and revolution]]> https://www.historyextra.com/membership/regency-britain-an-age-of-war-and-revolution/ 2025-04-17T18:43:21.000Z 2024-01-19T18:13:55.000Z  The American Revolutionary War (1775–83)

Born eight months after the outbreak of the American Revolution, Jane Austen entered a world on the brink of seismic change. Although the conflict that ended with the independence of 13 North American colonies from British rule did not affect her directly, its geopolitical legacy shaped the world in which she came of age.

During the 1760s and 1770s, colonists in North America grew increasingly frustrated with taxation by Britain, and by its legislative supremacy over their lives. In 1773, the Tea Act effectively gave the East India Company a monopoly on importing tea to America – and levied taxes on that tea, payable to the British Government. In response, colonists disguised as Mohawk Native Americans boarded British ships and dumped an entire shipment of tea into Boston Harbour – a protest known as the Boston Tea Party. Westminster responded by passing the Intolerable Acts, ending local self- government and commerce in Boston.

Tensions boiled over in April 1775, when British troops in Massachusetts attempted to confiscate weapons in Lexington and Concord. When they met resisting local militia, the “shot heard ‘round the world” was fired – marking the start of the Revolutionary War. The following year, on 4 July 1776, delegates from 13 colonies assembled in Philadelphia declared their independence and established the United States of America.

Over the next five years, on battlefields from Bunker Hill to Yorktown, the colonists – led by figures including George Washington – fought for liberty and self-governance. And, with support from France and other European powers, the tide turned in their favour. Signing the Treaty of Paris in 1783, Britain formally recognised the US as an independent nation, ending the conflict. But the ideals championed in that war opened the era of the Atlantic Revolutions.

The Haitian Revolution (1791–1804)

On 22 August 1791, the French colony of Saint- Domingue, on the Caribbean island of Hispaniola, was shaken by an uprising. Inspired by the French Revolution, more than 100,000 enslaved Africans overthrew the oppressive regime, leaving many of its 8,000 plantations in ruins and more than 1,000 Europeans dead. The colony was the most lucrative in the Caribbean, producing around half of the world’s coffee and sugar, so in 1792 Paris dispatched a 6,000-strong force to pacify it.

Following the outbreak of the French Revolutionary Wars, in 1793 British and Spanish troops arrived on the island, exacerbating the turmoil as these European powers recruited people to their war aims. Amid this chaos, Toussaint L’Ouverture – who had been born into slavery
on Saint-Domingue – emerged as a figurehead. In 1796/97, he became deputy governor and then commander-in- chief of the French forces and, after expelling the British and Spanish, he established a new regime over much of Hispaniola, assuming dictatorial powers and launching efforts to revive its damaged economy.

In 1802, another French expedition ousted L’Ouverture and whisked him to France, where he died in captivity a year later. When Napoleon restored slavery in Saint-Domingue, the revolution erupted afresh and, led by the formerly enslaved Jean-Jacques Dessalines, revolutionary forces decisively expelled the French. On 1 January 1804, the Republic of Haiti – the first led by people of colour –was declared, galvanising the international anti-slavery movement. Just three years later, Britain’s Act for the Abolition of the Slave Trade was signed into law. Though Austen’s views on the Haitian Revolution aren’t known, many in her circle supported abolitionism. And both her brother Francis and the fictional Captain Wentworth in Persuasion were present at the Napoleonic battle of Santo Domingo (the Spanish colony on Hispaniola) in 1806, so Jane was clearly familiar with events on the island.

The French Revolutionary Wars (1792–1802)

Having provided support for the American independence cause, France's King Louis XVI grappled with a mounting economic crisis. In 1789, hunger and widespread discontent sparked revolution: on 14 July, a Parisian mob stormed the Bastille prison, reviled symbol of royal tyranny. But the movement's pursuit of liberty, equality and fraternity - and the revolutionary government's aspiration to spread these principles beyond France's borders - spooked Europe's monarchies.

Over time, factionalism and infighting split the revolutionaries. In an effort to rally national unity, the government targeted France's historic enemies, and in April 1792 declared war on Austria. Later, Louis and his Austrian-born queen, Marie Antoinette, were toppled and executed. A series of coalitions formed by European powers including Britain, Russia, Austria and Prussia aimed to contain and reverse the revolutionary changes in France in wars spanning much of the next decade.

These conflicts spread revolutionary and nationalist ideals, and pioneered strategies such as national conscription. But their most significant legacy would be the meteoric rise of a Corsican corporal, Napoleon Bonaparte. After a decade of turmoil, the 1802 Treaty of Amiens was signed by France and Britain, bringing to an end the Revolutionary Wars - though not auguring a lasting peace with France.

The Austen family wasn't untouched by these events. Of Jane's brothers, Henry joined the Oxfordshire Militia, while Francis and Charles enlisted in the Royal Navy. Jane was horrified by a description by her cousin (and, later, sister-in-law) Eliza de Feuillide of her first husband's guillotining in 1794, during the bloody period of the French Revolution known as the Terror.

Like her contemporaries, Jane eagerly followed events. She even sported an Egyptian-style 'Mamalouc' cap to a ball honouring Lord Nelson's victory over the French at the battle of the Nile.

Did you know?

Winston Churchill, musing on Jane Austen's novel Pride and Prejudice, once quipped: "What calm lives they had... No worries about the French Revolution, or the crushing struggles of the Napoleonic Wars"

The Napoleonic Wars (1803–15)

Jane Austen’s career as a writer reached its zenith during the series of wars involving Napoleonic France. Her most famous novels were penned as those conflicts raged and, though war itself is absent from her stories, the military characters she created, and the references to everyday hardship in her books, attest to her lived reality. Two of her brothers were fighting in the Royal Navy, and the threat of a French invasion of England remained credible until Nelson’s victory at Trafalgar in October 1805.

Napoleon Bonaparte was a skilled military leader who rose to prominence during the French Revolution. After seizing power in 1799, Napoleon – who later crowned himself Emperor of the French – aimed to establish an empire and exert his influence globally. Through military campaigns, he drove a rapid expansion of French territory, conquering numerous European nations and bringing them under his rule. His military victories – including in battles at Austerlitz in 1805 and Jena-Auerstedt in 1806 – demonstrated his tactical brilliance and reshaped the political landscape of the continent.

Britain, Russia, Prussia, Austria and other nations joined forces in coalitions pushing back against Napoleonic France. A series of battles and campaigns followed, notably the Peninsular War in Spain and Portugal, and the Russian campaign of 1812. Despite his military prowess, Napoleon’s invasion of Russia proved disastrous, and led to his first abdication in April 1814, followed by exile to the Mediterranean island of Elba.

The following year, while European statesmen were gathered in Vienna to establish a new continental order, Napoleon escaped from Elba and landed in southern France. Arriving in Paris in March 1815, he resumed hostilities – culminating in French defeat at the battle of Waterloo in June 1815 by a combined British and Prussian force led by the Duke of Wellington and Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher. Napoleon was subsequently exiled once more, to the island of St Helena in the South Atlantic, marking the end of the Napoleonic era and decades of warfare.

The War of 1812 (1812–15)

In a letter dated 2 September 1814, Jane Austen wrote: “I place my hope of better things on a claim to the protection of Heaven, as a Religious Nation, a Nation in spite of much Evil improving in Religion, which I cannot believe the Americans to possess.” Despite her reticence in discussing many of the global events that defined her era, the coincidence of this scathing verdict with a conflict then raging in North America is perhaps telling.

So-called ‘War Hawks’ in Congress asserted that Britain’s presence in Canada posed a threat to the US, and called for military action. Tensions had arisen as a direct result of two decades of near-constant warfare between Britain and France. Factors that frustrated the US included impressment (forced recruitment) into the Royal Navy of American sailors believed to be deserters; competing Anglo-French trade restrictions imposed on neutral powers such as the US; and British support for Native American resistance to US expansion westwards across North America. So, on 18 June 1812, the US declared war on Britain, launching a conflict that would last nearly three years.

Despite initial American naval victories, the British were able to maintain blockades of key US ports. On 24 August 1814, in retaliation for American attacks on York (modern-day Toronto), British soldiers burned public buildings in Washington DC – including the White House and the Capitol. War fatigue and economic stresses forced both sides to the negotiating table, and on 24 December 1814 the Treaty of Ghent was signed. Even so, the distances involved delayed ratification of the treaty by Congress until 16 February 1815 – after US victory at the battle of New Orleans on 8 January.

Explore more content from week three of our Regency course:

War and Conflict, with Dr Lizzie Rogers – watching time 11 mins Uncertainty and unrest: the madness of the Regency period – reading time 8 mins Peterloo: the story of a massacre – listening time 37 mins Reading between the lines: the real-life events that inspired Jane Austen – reading time 6 mins 1816: the year without summer – reading time 9 mins The Napoleonic Wars: everything you wanted to know – listening time 1 hour, 3 mins The Peterloo Massacre: what did it achieve? – reading time 6 mins

]]> HistoryExtra <![CDATA[7 things you (probably) didn’t know about the Napoleonic Wars]]> https://www.historyextra.com/period/georgian/napoleonic-wars-facts-napoleon-bonaparte-waterloo-what-happened-defeated-significance/ 2024-10-12T15:54:34.000Z 2023-10-16T09:50:13.000Z What were the Napoleonic Wars?

The Napoleonic Wars were a series of conflicts that occurred from 1803 to 1815, fought between France under Napoleon and a series of coalitions of European powers.

Though the Napoleonic Wars are often seen as a clash of European powers fighting for dominance over the European continent, in many ways they were also an example of a global conflict before the outbreak of the First World War in 1914.

The Napoleonic Wars are usually numbered by the coalitions that were raised against Napoleonic France between 1803 and 1815:

• The War of the Third Coalition, 1805–06
• The War of the Fourth Coalition, 1806–07
• The War of the Fifth Coalition, 1809
• The War of the Sixth Coalition, 1813–14
• The War of the Seventh Coalition, also known as the Hundred Days, 1815

What of the wars of the first and second coalitions? These precede the Napoleonic Wars, both being part of the French Revolutionary Wars of the 1790s.

• Read more | Napoleonic Wars timeline: the key dates you need to know

Why did the Napoleonic Wars happen?

There are many explanations, but you could consider the Napoleonic Wars to be a consequence of the French Revolutionary Wars, which concluded with the 1802 Peace of Amiens.

These wars had left France in a commanding strategic position in Western Europe, “something that no other European power could tolerate, because it appeared to threaten their own strategic security”, says Michael Rapport, reader in modern European history at the University of Glasgow, who spoke to us about the Napoleonic Wars on the HistoryExtra podcast.

“Any peace – which occurred in 1802 through the Treaty of Amiens – was going to be really a truce.”

That peace broke down in 1803. “The Peace of Amiens wasn't really honoured by either side,” he says. Neither side really trusted each other.”

Who was Napoleon?

The Napoleonic Wars are named after a single man – Napoleon Bonaparte. How did a young, inexperienced artillery officer from Corsica rise to such a position of military prominence, not to mention Emperor of France?

It took Napoleon just six years from being a relative unknown in 1793 to taking personal rule of France through a coup d’etat in 1799, something Rapport believes that it is no small part thanks to the French Revolution itself.

“What the revolution did was it unlocked careers in the army, in government and in law to talent, rather than to birth and status,” he says.

“Even though he was noble and he was never barred from the officer corps, the chances of him maybe advancing really high up were probably slimmer than they would have been if it hadn't been for the French Revolution.”

War itself provided opportunities. Staggering death rates among officers plus the loss of royalists created opportunities for advancement – if you were politically motivated that is (“Napoleon, initially at least – wore some Republican credentials fairly visibly,” notes Rapport.)

• Read more about the rise and fall of Napoleon

How did the Napoleonic Wars end?

In March 1814, the allied powers of the Sixth Coalition occupied Paris, prompting Napoleon’s abdication on 11 April. He was exiled to Elba, an island home to some 12,000 people just off Italy’s Tuscan coast, to live out his days as its sovereign. And that should have been the end of that.

Napoleon was held in high esteem even after his abdication, and so when he and 700 of his followers escaped from Elba back to France, he quickly gained support.

Among the most totemic was his former marshal turned royalist commander, Michel Ney. Sent to intercept Napoleon, Ney had promised to bring him back to Paris in an iron cage; instead he joined his army of 6,000 to Napoleon’s.

So began the Hundred Days, Napoleon’s final roll of the dice. Realising that he could not sit still in Paris, lest the powers of Europe join and assault him en masse, he went on the offensive – culminating in the battle of Waterloo.

Waterloo was Napoleon’s final defeat, at the hands of Britain and Prussia. He was forced to abdicate once more, and banished anew – this time he was exiled to St Helena, an East India Company possession deep in the Atlantic, where he remained until his death in 1821.

How many people died during the Napoleonic Wars?

Five million people died in the Napoleonic Wars between 1803 and 1815, notes Rapport. “It's an estimate, but it's the best estimate we have,” he says.

“In terms of the size of the European population at the time, that is the same number, proportionately, as in the First World War.”

Michael Rapport is reader in modern European history at the University of Glasgow and the author of The Napoleonic Wars: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2013). He was speaking to Jon Bauckham

• On the podcast | The Napoleonic Wars: Everything you wanted to know

Seven facts about the Napoleonic Wars…

The young Napoleon showed little promise

The Bonapartes (Buonapartes in Italian) originated in Italy, but Napoleon was born into a branch of the family that moved to Corsica [an island in the Mediterranean Sea belonging to France]. His parents were both of minor Corsican nobility and had married young. The couple had had another son called Napoleon four years before the more famous one, but the child died in infancy. Growing up in Corsica, Napoleon’s first language was Italian, not French. However, as his family was well off (by Corsican standards), he and his brother Joseph were sent to military academies in France.

• Read more | What killed Napoleon Bonaparte?

Napoleon did not fit in particularly well. While he did learn French, he spoke it with an accent that betrayed his roots, and he was teased for sounding like a peasant. Furthermore, the other boys came from well-connected and more affluent families, and while they were good at dancing, Napoleon’s skills lay in gardening. It was not a promising start for a boy who, at various times, dreamed of becoming an officer in the French navy or an artillery instructor in the Ottoman Empire. How different history would have been had he taken one of those routes.

Aged 15, Napoleon was admitted to the elite École Militaire in Paris. This was a huge honour, which turned into a disaster when his father died of stomach cancer while Napoleon was in his first year. The young cadet was now expected to be the family’s chief source of income, while at the same time attending one of the most expensive schools in France. The situation forced him to complete the two-year course in just one, and while he came only 42nd in a class of 58, graduation meant he could become a commissioned officer just after his 16th birthday.

By 1791, as war was about to break out across Europe, Napoleon, still a second lieutenant stationed in a sleepy garrison town, went on leave to see his family in Corsica. This was about as unexceptional a start to a military career as can be imagined. No one could have predicted that within 10 years Napoleon would be the most feared military commander in Europe, and later would become one of the greatest generals in history.

• Read more | Your guide to the Seven Years' War

The royal navy attacked a city

France was courting Denmark and Norway in 1801, and, if they could be persuaded to join the fight, it looked like Russia might also join them. The possibility that Denmark might attack the British mainland could not be contemplated – something had to be done.

Step forward Admiral Parker, who was sent to carry out some very British gunboat diplomacy (ie turn up with some warships and force a settlement). It wasn’t necessarily meant to be a shooting war. When the royal navy arrived, the Danish fleet was moored against the gun batteries and naval defences of the city, so a frontal assault would have been impossible.

However, Parker’s subordinate was Vice Admiral Nelson, who was just the right mix of brilliant, brave and mad. He attacked the weaker southern end of the Danish defences, which resulted in a brutal artillery duel between land and sea. Parker lacked Nelson’s grit and, on seeing the devastating effect of close-quarter cannon fire, signalled the retreat. Nelson replied with a signal that acknowledged the order, but did nothing. Instead, he lifted his telescope to his blind eye and said to his flag-captain, Thomas Foley: “You know, Foley, I only have one eye. I have the right to be blind sometimes.”

• Read more | 5 facts you (probably) didn’t know about Nelson’s navy

With that, he continued to press his attack. In the heat of the battle, Nelson was seen to be carefully preparing a letter for the terms of Copenhagen’s surrender – amid the roar of cannons, the screams of men and the sound of splintering wood. This forced at least one of his officers to conclude that Nelson had lost his mind, but Nelson calmly explained that if he was seen to have the time and the conditions to prepare a decent letter, it would make the Danes think they weren’t causing as much damage as they were. It was remarkable logic, and an example of the ultimate cool head under fire.

The ruse worked, and Copenhagen surrendered. Remarkably, no royal navy ships were sunk; however, around 1,000–1,200 British crew were either killed or wounded. The Danes suffered 50 per cent more casualties and lost three ships, including their flagship, the Dannebrog, when it exploded.

After this short but bloody encounter, the two nations agreed an armistice. Following this, Parker sailed the fleet to Sweden in an attempt to persuade it to break away from the armed neutrality league that had been set up in the Baltic, but the Swedes declined his offer.

As a result of Parker’s wavering at Copenhagen, followed by his rather lacklustre display in Sweden, he was relieved of duty, and Nelson was promoted to vice-admiral.

All sides understood the ‘propaganda war’

The Napoleonic Wars were not the first to use the medium of print for propaganda purposes – The Times, for example, started in 1785 as The Daily Universal Register, was not above bias. But this particular era of conflict excelled at printing scurrilous opinions and defamatory cartoons. The leaders of the age knew the power of the press. As Napoleon once said: “Four hostile newspapers are more to be feared than a thousand bayonets.”

However, it wasn’t just opinion pieces that influenced; imagery was often more powerful and lingered longer. Napoleon understood this, and became known for self-aggrandisement. The famous painting of him crossing the Alps (painted by the French artist Jacques-Louis David between 1801 and 1805), for example, shows a strongly idealised view of the real crossing that Napoleon and his army made across the Alps.

Napoleon also made sure his coronation as emperor was immortalised in oil paintings, and both he and his wife, Josephine, commissioned regal portraits of themselves in their splendid imperial robes. While Napoleon didn’t plan his own tomb, it continued the themes of power and supremacy – this time with Napoleon as an Adonis; a god among men. Brilliant general he assuredly was, but physically Napoleon was a little on the pudgy side, and had a crooked nose.

Napoleon had the twin advantages of being both a general and an absolute ruler; he was able to dictate and control the French press. Britain did not provide its monarchs and leaders with the same benefits; it had a freer press, and parliamentary democracy meant magazines could draw witheringly satirical cartoons of friend and foe alike.

For example, Napoleon’s nickname, ‘Boney’, was a British invention designed to conjure antipathy. At the time, it was thought that having some meat on your bones was a good thing; therefore, horrible old ‘Boney’ was a wraith to be feared or mocked. ‘Boney’ stood in stark contrast to the famous John Bull cartoon popularised first by British print makers. Bull was the national personification of England; a plump, down-to-earth patriot and beer lover.

Napoleon is often portrayed as compensating for his lack of stature with comically large hats and boots. But to set the record straight, Napoleon wasn’t short. This misunderstanding arose because French measurements were different to British ones, and we now know that Napoleon was a little taller than the average man of his time (although he would probably have looked diminutive standing next to someone like the Duke of Wellington).

The idea that Napoleon was short still exists to this day, all thanks to British propaganda from 200 years ago.

The best way to defeat Spain was to invade Argentina

By 1806, Britain had been at war almost constantly for well over a decade. Its continental allies were continually being humbled by French armies, and Britain’s own contributions to the war thus far had been mainly naval victories. However, William Pitt and Sir Home Riggs Popham (the British royal naval commander) had been mulling over for a year or so ideas to weaken France’s main ally, Spain.

Spain’s South American empire was largely undefended. Trying to resist a British invasion there would take Spanish troops away from the resources that Napoleon could use in Europe. So, in short, it was decided (by Popham, without authorisation) that the best way to win a war against France in Europe was to invade Argentina in South America.

These operations were referred to as the British invasions of the Río de la Plata. Britain achieved early success when it captured Buenos Aires – one of the key cities in the area – and held it for more than a month. When the invaders were ejected, it wasn’t thanks to the arrival of Spanish troops, but an uprising of the local population.

In 1807, the British responded by sending a larger invasion force – this time successfully storming Montevideo, where they stayed for a few months just to prove a point. Shortly afterwards, the British sent a third force back to Buenos Aires, but after heavy fighting with a combined force of Spanish soldiers standing side-by-side with the local militia, they were pushed back and suffered more than 50 per cent casualties.

The British lost this campaign. It was an ambitious plan that had assumed resistance could only be achieved by Spanish regular troops. In fact, it was the bravery of the locals that saved Río de la Plata from becoming part of the British empire.

The repercussions of this attempted invasion were unforeseen by everyone. The Spanish were, at first, overjoyed that their colonies had resisted so resolutely. However, those same colonies felt their actions had earned them the right to be considered the equal of their colonial masters in Spain.

The Spanish were, at this time, also having serious trouble with a French invasion of their own country, so could do little. By 1810, the South American colonies felt confident enough to carry out their own revolution (the May Revolution), which removed the Spanish Viceroy and set up a local government for the first time.

This led, in July 1816, to the declaration of independence for the United Provinces of South America, which later became known as Argentina. At the time, some of the ex-Spanish colonies were at war with each other but, overall, shrugging off the old colonial overlord was seen as beneficial.

The irony then was that while Britain lost the campaign, it achieved its goals of weakening Spain and distracting Spanish priorities and forces. Another irony is that today in Argentina, Britain’s actions of 1806–7 are seen as the trigger for independence, and are widely considered to have been a good thing.

Nobody expected the Spanish Inquisition to end

The story of the Spanish Inquisition [a tribunal established in 1478 by Catholic Monarchs Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile, intended to maintain Catholic orthodoxy in their kingdoms] is a long and complex one. However, the first area to come under its scrutiny was in 12th-century France. The more notorious version of these religious enquiries into potential heretics or apostates started in Spain in the late 15th century, and never really went away until the 19th century.

The French Revolution (which began in 1789) sparked real concerns in Spain. King Charles IV worried about how his people might regard the wealth and power not only of the monarchy, but also of the church. With this in mind, he took steps to clip the wings of the Spanish Inquisition. A number of the monolithic Catholic organisations were anathema to the enlightenment ideals of revolutionary France, and there were a number of times Napoleon (and others) dismantled century old ‘Holy Cows’ in the name of modernity.

• Read more | What triggered the French Revolution?

When the French invaded Malta they had ended the Hospitallers; a religious organisation founded in the Middle Ages. Napoleon also abolished another ancient organisation, the Holy Roman Empire, the argument being that it too was a remnant of a theocratic past incompatible with a new Europe. So it should therefore come as little surprise that once the French invaded Spain, it was Joseph Bonaparte who tried to abolish the Spanish Inquisition once and for all.

However, Bonaparte was king of Spain from 1808 to 1813, which wasn't long enough to overthrow all the old ways. Consequently, by 1814 the inquisition was back in business. The last person to be killed by the Spanish Inquisition was a teacher in 1826, for suggesting so-called heretical ideas. The inquisition was officially abolished in 1834.

The showdown at Waterloo was delayed due to rain

With the battles of Quatre Bras and Ligny fought on 16 June 1815, and all the main forces still in roughly the same area, it would have been safe to assume that the next clash would be on the 17th. However, there were surprises in store for everyone.

First of all, Marshall Ney, Napoleon’s right-hand man returned to Quatre Bras to fight the second round of this encounter… except that when he got there, he found that Wellington had largely moved on. The challenge then was to find the allied positions and engage. However, while a brief skirmish did take place between the British and French on the 17th, it quickly faded as the heavens opened and torrential rain lashed all the armies for hours.

A year earlier, Wellington had been in this very region, and had recognised that a ridge with a reverse slope would be the perfect defensive position for a battle, should one ever take place in the area. Now was the time, and he positioned his forces both along and behind the ridge, located near the small Belgian town of Waterloo.

• Read more | How the French won Waterloo (or think they did)

Wellington spent the night at a Waterloo inn, impatiently waiting for communication from the Prussian leader Blücher. It finally came at around 2am. After that, Wellington was wide awake and spent the rest of the night consulting with his officers and sending out orders.

Blücher’s message had been delayed while he argued with his subordinate, Gneisenau, about how their forces could effectively work with Wellington’s. Blücher knew that a concentration of troops was the best bet to beat Napoleon; however, Gneisenau distrusted the British.

Meanwhile, Napoleon was unusually indecisive. Grouchy had not advanced as fast as he’d hoped, and in the middle of the night Napoleon was seen going for a walk. He sent ambiguous orders to Grouchy who, instead of coming to his aid, continued to advance towards Wavre. Napoleon bedded down in a farmhouse and, in the morning, had fine breakfast with his officers. When they expressed concerns about Wellington – the only major allied general Napoleon had yet to face on the battlefield – Napoleon admonished them by saying: “Just because you have all been beaten by Wellington, you think he's a good general. I tell you Wellington is a bad general; the English are bad troops, and this affair is nothing more than eating breakfast.”

On the morning of 18 June, Napoleon delayed the start of battle as he waited for the ground to harden after the downpour of the previous day. This, he believed, would make it easier to reposition his artillery, and would allow better conditions for cavalry movements. He gave Ney operational command and could be seen sitting in an armchair, miles from the front line. It seems that Napoleon had been, once again, struck down with illness, and his haemorrhoids made it impossible for him to remain in the saddle for the whole day.

Waterloo was not the final battle against France

Conflicts are messy. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that there is no neat ending to this period of warfare. Waterloo was undeniably the most pivotal battle of this campaign, and it shattered Napoleon’s authority – less than a week after the battle, Napoleon abdicated. But the fighting had been in Belgium, and the race was now on to get to the French capital to ensure an allied army was present to oversee the dismantling of Napoleonic power and the return of Louis XVIII.

• Read more | What is the significance of Waterloo?

The French, however, didn’t see things in quite the same way. They had around 65,000 troops in the area [25,000 others had been killed or wounded at Waterloo, and 9,000 captured], and French General Vandamme led part of that army out to meet the approaching Prussians at a small town to the south of Paris. Wellington’s forces were also on their way, so quite what Vandamme was hoping to achieve is uncertain. He might not have been able to win in the long run, but in the short term he’d be damned if he’d allow Blücher to march to the capital without a fight.

The allies had come in a southerly direction because Paris’s main defences had been constructed north of the Seine. The battle was a Prussian/French affair because Vandamme chose to attack Blücher, rather than Wellington. Battle commenced on 2 July 1815 around the town of Issy and the commanding heights of Meudon. That night a council in Paris discussed whether it was time to surrender; however, it was Davout, one of Napoleon’s most loyal and talented marshals, who dug in his heels and insisted that Vandamme should try to oust the Prussians from their position.

The next day the French attacked the Prussians (who by now had barricaded themselves in) with artillery fire. Then the French infantry advanced. After fierce fighting, the French were driven back, only to regroup and try to break the Prussians once more. This attempt also failed, and for the rest of the day the French alternated between pounding the Prussians with cannon fire and then surging forwards with an infantry assault.

But the French never threw everything they had into any assault. Vandamme, for reasons unknown, never fully committed to the battle, and because of this the Prussians were able to hold their positions (despite high casualties). Ultimately, the French were forced to retreat back to Paris.

The Prussians pursued Vandamme’s retreating men, and some forward units even clashed with the French rear guard in the Parisian suburbs. This was quickly followed by a unilateral French ceasefire, and by now, Wellington had linked up with Blücher. Allied negotiators met French representatives at the Palace of St Cloud, chosen as a relatively neutral location. It was here that Paris formally surrendered in a hastily created document now rather formally known as ‘The Convention of St Cloud’. Ironically, the palace was destroyed by German troops the next time the Prussians attacked Paris, in 1870.

In summary, the Napoleonic Wars are like most of history – a swirling mass of facts, with areas that simply don’t fit into an easy narrative. But they shaped the political and cultural landscapes from Egypt to Russia and from Argentina to Belgium. Today, their legacy reverberates throughout Europe and beyond.

The above facts are abridged versions taken from Jem Duducu’s The Napoleonic Wars in 100 Facts (Amberley Publishing, 2015). Find out more, and you can also follow him on X (formerly Twitter) @JemDuducu

This article was first published by HistoryExtra in June 2015

]]> HistoryExtra <![CDATA[Battle of Waterloo quiz: how much do you know?]]> https://www.historyextra.com/membership/battle-waterloo-history-quiz-test-knowledge/ 2024-07-18T16:51:26.000Z 2021-04-21T10:25:34.000Z It was the battle that brought to an end the Napoleonic Wars, and one of history’s most dramatic military encounters. Test your knowledge below

View Riddle on the source website

How did you do? Share your result on social media to see how your knowledge compares with other HistoryExtra readers!

Want to improve your knowledge? Read more about the battle of Waterloo and the Napoleonic Wars, including:

• How the French won the battle of Waterloo (or think they did)
• What is the significance of Waterloo?
• 10 moments that decided the Waterloo campaign

Questions written by Mark Simner, author of An Illustrated Introduction To The Battle Of Waterloo (Amberley Publishing, 2015)

]]> HistoryExtra <![CDATA[The battle of Waterloo: 10 key questions answered]]> https://www.historyextra.com/period/georgian/the-battle-of-waterloo-peter-and-dan-snow-answer-10-key-questions/ 2022-08-30T14:35:54.000Z 2021-04-21T09:11:26.000Z The battle of Waterloo is one of history’s most dramatic military encounters. Here, the authors answer 10 key questions about the clash that brought an end to the Napoleonic Wars…

Why does Waterloo matter?

A: Waterloo was the battle that finally and decisively ended the ambition of the French Emperor Napoleon to dominate Europe and shaped the continent during a hundred years of relative peace until 1914. It brought to an end a terrible war that had raged on and off for more than 20 years.

France had decisively lost the struggle for global mastery, and a victorious Britain went on to build the largest empire the world has ever seen.

• 7 things you (probably) didn’t know about the Napoleonic Wars

What caused the battle?

A: In early 1815 Britain and her allies – Austria, Prussia and Russia – thought Napoleon was finished: he had been defeated and forced to abdicate a year earlier. But he bounced back from exile in February 1815 and astonished the allies by advancing fast toward Brussels, in Belgium.

Who were the protagonists on either side?

A: The overall commanders at Waterloo were two of the greatest generals of all time. Britain’s Duke of Wellington had never lost a battle in 12 years of war. Napoleon Bonaparte had in his time crushed every army in Europe except Britain’s.

Was the duke’s army all British?

A: Only a third of Wellington’s army was British. Most were from the German states with some units from the Netherlands.

Who were the men and how were they treated?

A: British soldiers got paid about £20 a year but only saw about half that. They were fed a pound of beef a day, and a pound-and-a-half of bread.

They got a daily ration of a pint of wine or a third of a pint of gin or rum. The average age that we can calculate was around 27 – the youngest soldiers were 17; the oldest were 44.

What sort of battle was it?

A: The battle was one of the last great contests fought at close quarters. The main weapon in both armies was still the musket. It had an effective range of little more than 50 yards.

• What is the significance of Waterloo?

How did Napoleon perform?

A: Napoleon was a shadow of his former self at Waterloo. He was not in good health, and his leadership was poor.

Was Napoleon short?

A: No. He was in fact 170cm or 5'7", which was the average height for a male at the time.

Should we regard Waterloo as a great British victory?

A: Waterloo was not just a British victory. The Duke of Wellington would have been hard pressed to win without the timely assault of Marshal Blucher’s Prussians on Napoleon’s right flank. Besides, two thirds of his own army was made up of allies from the rest of Europe.

• How the French won the battle of Waterloo (or think they did)

How many casualties were there?

A: It was a bloody battle. A veteran eyewitness said he had never seen “carcasses so heaped upon each other”. Some units lost two thirds of their men.

Overall, the British lost 17,000 who were reported killed, wounded or missing – around a quarter of the army. Napoleon may have lost as much as a third of his men.

Peter and Dan Snow’s The Battle of Waterloo Experience (Andre Deutsch) is available now

]]> HistoryExtra <![CDATA[Georgian Britain: sex in high places]]> https://www.historyextra.com/membership/georgian-britain-sex-in-high-places/ 2025-02-14T14:23:28.000Z 2021-01-05T09:50:42.000Z In a dingy alleyway off London’s Leicester Square, a tall, thin man with a badly pockmarked face accosted a young prostitute, asking her: “How do you do, my little wicked? Will you go and drink a glass of wine with me?” He was a regular visitor to backstreet brothels and often prowled the city looking for dirty street girls, preferably blondes, their ragged clothes crawling with vermin.

But this was no ordinary encounter with a penniless commoner seeking a cheap thrill. The prostitute’s client was actually the Rt Hon Richard, Lord Grosvenor, one of the wealthiest men in London, who owned most of Mayfair.

On that summer evening in 1770 he took the girl, Elizabeth Roberts, to a hotel in Leicester Fields where in an upstairs room they drank a five shilling bowl of arrack punch together. Then he told her to strip naked and, as Roberts recalled, “came to her and was ready for action; but his breeches hurting [her] thighs, he got off again, and pulled off his breeches and shoes, and then came to her again and rogered her; after which [the girl] sat quite naked upon his lordship’s lap, for near quarter of an hour … and then Lord Grosvenor rogered her again.”

All the sordid details of this sleazy encounter were thrust into the public spotlight when Grosvenor sued King George III’s brother HRH the Duke of Cumberland, for adultery with his wife, Henrietta. They had been involved in a passionate affair, snatching illicit trysts whenever they could, and were caught having a quickie while visiting Lady Camilla D’Onhoff, who told the court she, “saw Lady Grosvenor lying upon her back on a couch in the drawing-room, with her petticoats up, and the Duke of Cumberland’s breeches unbuttoned, and he was laying upon [her], and his body was in motion… in the very act of carnal copulation.”

There were many other furtive couplings until the guilty pair were entrapped at the White Hart Inn, St Albans, when the butler bored holes in their bedchamber door to spy on them.

The new mass media of the day pounced on the scandal, eager to expose the hidden moral corruption endemic in the establishment, and cash-in on the public appetite for sensation.

• Read more | Bridgerton: the real history and historical accuracy of the regency drama

Naturally readers loved every titillating anecdote. But they were also deeply shocked by the unsavoury private lives of the ruling nobility, revealed during the trial. The case spawned a deluge of print, including an exclusive on Lord Grosvenor’s sexual tastes that launched Town and Country Magazine’s celebrity gossip feature ‘Histories of the tête-à-tête’. This monthly series on the intimate secrets of notorious couples was an early form of tabloid journalism, digging up all the dirt it could find, and proved so popular it ran for over 20 years.

By the late 18th century a rapid expansion of the commercial press had made it a powerful force shaping public opinion, with a vast range of newspapers, magazines, pamphlets and books being printed for a growing readership. Juicy sex scandals in high places were guaranteed to boost sales, but the widespread publicity also reflected serious underlying concerns that an ‘epidemic’ of adultery threatened to destroy the whole structure of English society.

Strife in the public eye

When these aristocrats got caught with their pants down, the press had a field day

Lord Bully v Lady Di: A marriage made in hell ends in divorce

The marriage of Viscount Bolingbroke (pictured below) to Lady Diana Spencer was doomed from the start. Dubbed ‘Bully the Battersea Baron’ by the press, he was addicted to whoring and gaming. After infecting his wife with venereal disease, she had an affair with Topham Beauclerk, discovered when a footman spying on them found dirty marks on a rumpled parlour couch. In 1768, Bolingbroke became only the fifth peer ever to divorce.

Lady Percy’s disgrace: A cheating wife is found in flagrante

A reckless infatuation with a Cambridge University student made Anne (below) abandon her marriage to Hugh Percy, the wealthy Duke of Northumberland’s heir. The lovers were caught in bed together half-naked, by a maid. Lord Percy sued for adultery in 1779, and Town and Country Magazine alleged he was impotent due to excessive masturbation as a schoolboy and habitually visiting brothels.

Blenheim’s heir on trial: A sad tale of love-letters in parmesan cheese

The Marquis of Blandford (below) was heir to a dukedom and Blenheim Palace, but vowed to give up his inheritance if his married mistress agreed to elope. He had seduced Lady Mary Anne Sturt, the wife of an MP who took legal action. Mocked by the press for his anguished love-letters hidden in gifts of parmesan cheese, Blandford was ordered to pay damages of £100 because of his infidelity with Sturt’s wife. He later became 5th Duke of Marlborough.

A guinea a session

A year before the Grosvenor adultery trial hit the headlines, the prime minister, the 3rd Duke of Grafton, became a national scapegoat when in March 1769 he divorced his wife, Anne, who had recently given birth to her lover’s baby. Grafton had himself been carrying on a five-year liaison with a courtesan called Nancy Parsons, who reputedly charged a guinea a session and boasted she had once earned 100 guineas in a busy week. The press revelled in the story and Grafton was nicknamed ‘the Black Duke’, who was unfit for office and neglected his country for personal pleasures.

The couple appeared openly together at public events and hosted lavish dinners at his London home, apparently impervious to all the gossip. As one magazine reported, the prime minister was seen as little more than “a gamester, one who squandered the treasures of the nation upon horses and women, and who, left to guide the helm of state, would soon plunge it into inevitable destruction”.

Vitriolic attacks on Grafton by an anonymous writer, known only as Junius, were published regularly in the influential London paper the Public Advertiser for three years. The sarcastic malice of the letters echoed public feeling and made Junius into a popular political commentator. Long rants about Grafton’s sins, condemned him not only for enjoying “all the fashionable excesses of the age”, but shamelessly flaunting his vices: “There is… a certain outrage to decency which for the benefit of society, should never be forgiven. It is not that he kept a mistress at home, but that he constantly attended her abroad. It is not the private indulgence, but the public insult, of which I complain.”

• The delightfully dysfunctional Georgians

While the divorce was being finalised, Grafton split up with Nancy, who had now moved on to become the Duke of Dorset’s mistress. Several publications including the Public Advertiser and Gentleman’s Magazine printed Grafton’s farewell letter to Nancy, in which he praised her “personal and mental qualifications [and] assiduity to please”, but reiterated his qualms about their affair: “As I often told you… such a course of life was unseemly both in my moral and political character… all our former ties are from this day at an end.” He promised a generous pay-off, as long as she left the country forever.

The Grafton scandal provoked the first of four Parliamentary bills trying to proscribe adultery and combat the rising number of divorces, as a series of aristocratic lawsuits for ‘criminal conversation’ (when a husband sought compensation for his wife’s infidelity) caused a public outcry. Such appalling immoral behaviour began to undermine traditional respect for peers, and raise serious questions about the whole basis of legitimate hereditary power. Two anti-adultery bills in the 1770s were defeated, but after the chaos of the French Revolution had sent shivers of apprehension throughout England, the mood of panic escalated. Many feared that the insidious moral decay would soon have dire consequences. Two more attempts were made to curb adultery in 1800 and 1809 by proposing it was made a criminal offence, but both failed.

Lurid tales of infidelity among the nobility continued to draw extensive coverage in print. In 1814, the politician the 4th Earl of Rosebery won the equivalent today of nearly £1m damages, in a lawsuit against his wife’s lover. Lady Rosebery’s affair with her dead sister’s husband, Sir Henry Mildmay, was described as a crime of “extraordinary atrocity”. The case was so sensational it was reported in papers nationwide and made page two of The Times.

The public was riveted by the dramatic saga and all the intimate details of the ardent love-letters read out in court, in which Sir Henry begged Harriet to leave her husband, recalling “every burning kiss” they had shared. He was so besotted, he wore her yellow garters as a keepsake because they had been “twined round, and encircled [my] dear Harriet’s limbs – bliss unspeakable!” The secret was exposed one night after dinner at the family seat of Barnbougle Castle in Scotland. Sir Henry had disguised himself as a common sailor and climbed in through the bedchamber window for a secret assignation, but the lovers were interrupted by Lord Rosebery’s brother trying to break down the locked door. The next day they eloped to the continent.

A decade later, an even bigger scandal erupted when an ageing courtesan blackmailed dozens of powerful men, threatening to reveal all in her ‘kiss-and-tell’ memoirs. Harriette Wilson had once been the most desirable woman in London, but by 1825 her charms had faded and, desperate for money, she published her Memoirs. To raise as much cash as possible they were released in 12 instalments. Before each part was printed, she wrote to her best-known former clients demanding payment to keep them out of the book.

It was an instant bestseller and the spicy revelations shook the establishment, as so many distinguished figures had bedded her in the past, including the foreign secretary George Canning, the ambassador to Paris, several dukes and even the king. Many of them paid to buy her silence, while others sued the publisher. The furore was hotly debated in the national press, and when one of Harriette’s victims passed her blackmail letter to The Times it was reproduced in full, with an editorial comment condemning the “detestable publication”.

• A survivor's guide to Georgian marriage

Spiteful relish

The Duke of Wellington had been a regular client in his younger days, but now he was a prominent member of the Tory cabinet and refused to be intimidated by his ex-mistress. When he received the blackmail letter, his reply was just an angry scrawl on the envelope, “write and be damned”. With spiteful relish Harriette took her revenge in the next volume, telling the world that the military hero was a pathetic lover. She described how he “sighed over me and groaned over me by the hour”, but had no merit “for home service, or ladies’ uses… [and] when he wore his broad red ribbon, he looked very much like a rat catcher”.

Another high-profile case created outrage in April 1830 when a cabinet minister, the 1st Earl of Ellenborough, was granted a private parliamentary divorce and the case was splashed across the front page of The Times. Anger centred on the blatant collusion at his adultery trial, and the fact that divorce was allowed without the normal legal requirements. An arrogant man, whose insensitive personality had made him many enemies, ‘Elephant Ellenborough’ embodied exactly the sort of elite privilege that was now under attack by political reformers.

When his beautiful young wife, Jane, had a torrid romance with the Austrian diplomat Prince Felix Schwarzenberg and fell pregnant, there was little sympathy at this very public humiliation. Dozens of column inches in the press described Jane’s clandestine afternoon sessions with the prince, and criticised Ellenborough for neglecting her. The Satirist reported how just a week after their marriage, he was seen with a prostitute. The Observer commented that the divorce was more proof that “all virtue and all affectation of decency will ere long be confined to the middle classes”.

The flood of print exposing all these sexual intrigues confirmed suspicions that the ruling class was no longer fit to rule. When the House of Lords rejected voting reform, riots broke out across the country, and soon afterwards the passing of the 1832 Great Reform Act marked the first steps in the gradual decline of aristocratic power. Many people felt that peers only had themselves to blame.

Dr Susan Law is a journalist, historian and author of Through the Keyhole: Sex, Scandal and the Secret Life of the Georgian Country House.

This article was first published in the March 2015 issue of BBC History Magazine

]]> Felicity Day <![CDATA[Before Waterloo: what happened at the Duchess of Richmond's ball?]]> https://www.historyextra.com/membership/before-waterloo-what-happened-at-duchess-richmond-ball-belgravia-duke-wellington/ 2025-02-14T14:39:50.000Z 2020-03-16T06:05:00.000Z If it wasn’t for the chaos caused by an uninvited and most unwelcome guest, the Duchess of Richmond’s ball on 15 June 1815 would have been just another high society party in history. But since it was held in Brussels on the very day that Napoleon’s troops stormed into what is present-day Belgium, it became the stuff of legend, forever remembered as the glamorous prologue to the horrors of the battlefield at Waterloo.

There’s no doubt that the highly romanticised fictional accounts of writers like Lord Byron and William Thackeray played their part in that. But just how much did they embellish the events of that fateful evening?

Well for a start, the duchess – Charlotte Lennox – never intended her ball as a farewell for departing soldiers; it was just one of many parties and picnics entertaining genteel British expatriates and army officers alike that summer. Lady Conyngham had held a similar gathering the previous evening, and the Duke of Wellington had one planned for the 21st. It was by accident rather than design that the duchess’s party found its way into the history books.

The story really begins more than a year earlier in March 1814, when Napoleon’s troops in Paris surrendered to Britain’s allies. The self-proclaimed emperor was forced to abdicate, and was swiftly exiled to Elba. With that, more than 20 years of recurrent war in Europe were over, and the long-awaited peace brought swathes of the British fashionable elite to the continent.

Brussels was a particular tourist hotspot. It was partly because British regiments remained in the city. Families and friends of army officers came over to join them, jumping at the chance to holiday abroad again. But Brussels also owed its popularity to affordability. It was the perfect retreat for aristocrats feeling the pinch – not too far from home, cheaper than war-weary Britain and, being a garrison town, it had a lively social scene, with its own pleasure park, horse-racing, hunting and cricket. Like many of their friends, the Richmonds came over "on an Economical Plan".

Warning tremors

When Napoleon made his unexpected escape from Elba in February 1815, the shockwaves rippled through their merry community. Very quickly Brussels was at the centre of military operations again: by early April, the Duke of Wellington had arrived to take command of a combined Anglo-Dutch force, and joining him were ever-increasing numbers of officers and troops. Yet, surprisingly, few civilians chose to leave. One military wife commented (with just a touch of disapproval) that they seemed to consider the army’s arrival as the commencement of a series of entertainments.

And certainly, as spring turned to summer, there seemed to be no immediate threat to their safety. Expectations were all for an Allied invasion of France, sometime towards the beginning of July. So by day, the assembled officers drilled and inspected the troops, keeping a close eye on Bonaparte’s movements. And by night, the social round continued – all with the encouragement of their leader.

“Tho’ I have given some pretty good reasons for supposing that hostilities will soon commence, yet no one wd suppose it judging by the Duke of Wn,” wrote Spencer Madan, tutor to the Richmonds’ younger sons, on 13 June. “He ... gives a ball every week, attends every party and partakes of every amusement.” There was certainly a determination to Wellington’s nonchalance; it suited him to let Napoleon’s spies report that the Allies were relaxed about the battles to come.

But as the city began to buzz with rumours that Napoleon’s forces were close to the border, the Duchess of Richmond grew uneasy about the ball she had planned. The Iron Duke reassured her unequivocally. “Duchess,” he said, “you may give your ball with the greatest safety without fear of interruption.”

Privately, however, he had concerns. The call to battle was not as unexpected as the fictional accounts might have us believe – for either Wellington or his forces. By 5pm on the 15 June, some five hours before the Richmonds’ first guests arrived, the Duke knew that Napoleon had invaded. His troops were put on standby for a rapid move. His officers, however, were permitted to attend the ball. It was too late to stop it without causing widespread panic.

Yet as they changed into their dress uniforms, the unmistakable sound of cannon fire could be heard in the distance; the officers knew an engagement was imminent. And as they went off to sip champagne and waltz with the ladies, more news was coming in. Their Prussian allies had been engaged in intense fighting with the French. In fact, the town of Charleroi, to the south of Brussels, had been in French hands since noon. Wellington ordered his troops to assemble, ready to march out in the early hours. He came to the ballroom sometime around midnight, not to socialise, but as a last act of reassurance for his civilian friends.

The sight that greeted him was not quite as glamorous as paintings of the event suggest, with their gilded interiors and sea of scarlet uniforms. Being one of the last families to arrive in Brussels, the Richmonds had been forced to rent a house on the Rue de la Blanchisserie, an unfashionable street so-named because it was home to a laundry business. Built by a coachbuilder, their property came complete with two cavernous wings that had once served as showrooms for his various carriages. One of these, papered with a simple rose trellis pattern, was their makeshift ballroom – not the grand Hôtel de Ville, as Byron and other battlefield tourists were led to believe.

Hidden truths

Fewer than half of their guests were military men. The Duchess invited 238 people in all, but only 103 of them were uniformed officers. They were easily outnumbered by a combination of British, and Dutch aristocrats, diplomats and relations of the Richmonds. And a number of military invitees actually stayed away, either by choice – favouring preparation over partying – or because the rapidly developing operational situation detained them. Newlywed Colonel Sir William de Lancey was one. Wrenched from his honeymoon to act as Wellington’s deputy quartermaster-general, he was entirely occupied by logistical preparations that night.

What’s no exaggeration, however, is the speed with which the party soon broke up. The arrival of a mud-splattered messenger, just as supper was ending, put an abrupt end to the drinking and dancing: he brought news that the French were advancing towards Brussels.

A mass exodus of officers followed: in all conscience, they could delay joining their regiments no longer. “I became aware of a great preponderance of ladies in the room,” recalled Lady Jane Lennox, the Duchess’s daughter. “The gallant uniforms had sensibly diminished.” As the shocked civilians processed the news, the strains of the waltz gave way to the sounds of an army on the move: artillery wagons rolling, drums and bugles sounding, and cavalry horses clattering over the cobbles. Lady Jane’s dance partners went flying through the night on horseback. Some really would go dancing into battle, having had no time to change out of their finery.

Belgravia: an invitation to the ball

The most recent Waterloo-era programme to hit TV screens is ITV's six-part drama Belgravia. The brainchild of Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes, the period drama – due to start in early Spring – is set amongst the upper echelons of 19th-century London society. The story begins on 15 June 1815, as British society – including the Trenchard family – attend the Duchess of Richmond's ball on the eve of the battle of Quatre Bras, an event that presaged a dramatic chain of events...

The Duchess of Richmond was apparently rendered hysterical – blocking the exit and pleading with her guests to “wait one little hour more”. But there are few reports of the kind of heartbreaking lovers’ partings the Victorians imagined; when another of the Duchess’s daughters, Lady Georgiana Lennox, bid farewell to her friend, the young Lord Hay, she was provoked by his obvious excitement. Probably the most sorrowful of all the goodbyes actually took place away from the ballroom. Colonel de Lancey and his new bride Magdalene watched the troops marching out of the city together as the Sun came up, before he charged her to retreat to Antwerp.

Wellington slipped away from the ball without a farewell – though not before making a request of the Duke of Richmond. He wanted a map. It was while the two men pored over it together that Wellington is said to have confessed: “Napoleon has humbugged me, by God, he has gained 24 hours march on me.” Asked how he intended to react, Wellington replied that he had ordered the army to concentrate at Quatre Bras, a crossroads 25 miles outside Brussels.

“We shall not stop him there, and, if so, I must fight him here” – pointing, as he spoke, to the village of Waterloo. And in that moment, the conversation of the two Dukes bridged the gulf between the brilliant ballroom of the past few hours and the bloody battlefield yet to come.

What happened at the battle of Quatre Bras?

The fighting at Quatre Bras the following day was intense but inconclusive. So close was the battlefield to Brussels that some officers rode back after the initial skirmish to eat and sleep. Covered in dirt, they had little good news for the anxious civilians, who were left unsure whether to make a hasty retreat. But 17 June did not bring a French attack as many feared. Pouring into the streets instead were the dead and injured Allied soldiers. After months of frivolous partying, Brussels’ British community was put to work tending the wounded as the city became an open-air hospital. As Wellington had predicted, Quatre Bras was the precursor to the fierce battle that followed at Waterloo on the 18th. Despite suffering 23,000 casualties (killed or wounded), the Allies emerged victorious. Napoleon abdicated again on the 22nd and was exiled once more, this time to St Helena. Within a matter of weeks, the Duchess’s ball began to be shrouded in myth. One correspondent described it as “a sort of farewell ball”, another lamented “all the young men who appeared there shot dead a few days after”. In fact, only 11 of the Duchess’s nearly 100 military guests died on the battlefield. The excitable Lord Hay was one of them. One more died later of his wounds, and another 35 were injured. Colonel de Lancey was also mortally wounded after being struck by a ricocheting cannon ball, his wife made a widow just three months after their marriage.

LISTEN: Melvyn Bragg discusses Napoleon and the Duke of Wellington in an episode of In Our Time.

Felicity Day is a freelance writer specialising in the history of the Georgian era.

This article is taken from the March 2020 edition of History Revealed

]]> HistoryExtra <![CDATA[Behind the scenes on Belgravia]]> https://www.historyextra.com/membership/behind-scenes-real-history-belgravia-where-filmed-julian-fellowes-interview-gareth-neame/ 2025-02-14T14:39:51.000Z 2020-03-12T15:17:22.000Z It’s one of the most keenly anticipated new television dramas of the year. Based on Julian Fellowes’s own 2016 novel, Belgravia, named for the well-to-do area of London where so much of its action is set, tells a 19th-century story of class, money, aspiration and the invention of afternoon tea – and of how family secrets can surface long after those involved tried to bury the truth.

• Before Waterloo: what happened at the real Duchess of Richmond’s ball?

Gareth Neame, managing director of production company Carnival Films, tells us how his team went about recreating the past, in part a case of getting telling details right in order to build trust with viewers, and why he so often looks for historical subjects as the basis for TV series…

Jonathan Wright: How did the show initially come about?

Gareth Neame: It was a very different approach to Downton Abbey where I had gone to Julian Fellowes and commissioned him, said, “This is the idea of the show and will you devise a group of characters?” Belgravia was very different because I was reacting to a completed novel. I knew he was writing it, but I waited until it was published and then I read the whole thing and said, “Yes, we should do this”.

It’s not going to become a Downton with multiple seasons and lots of storylines. What it does have in common with Downton is that extraordinary social observation, the comedy of manners, that Fellowes writes – hierarchies, people’s views of themselves and of others, and where they sit in society, and people who are ambitious or want to fall in love or make something of their lives. It has all of those themes, but it doesn’t have that soapy, multiple-character, separate-storyline thing that Downton has. It works more in the style of a Victorian novel.

JW: The story has a time-shift element, bringing to life two quite distinct periods, the Regency era and the early Victorian era of the 1840s. The 19th century covers a vast swathe of social development and changes.

GN: Yes, it’s two very distinct periods. Downton Abbey started with an iconic event, which was the sinking of the Titanic. This one similarly starts with an iconic event, the Duchess of Richmond’s ball the night before the Waterloo campaign [held in Brussels and attended by the Duke of Wellington]. But we fairly quickly then jump into the Victorian period. I thought that would be very intriguing as drama.

JW: It’s in part a story about class. There’s a bit more of a challenge to the society in the writing than in Downton.

GN: I think that’s well put. Downton was elegiac, about the dying of the light, the end of the power and dominance of the aristocracy – they were running out of money, they now had to pay tax, they couldn’t afford the servants, they had to sell off land, the primacy of the British empire and the aristocracy were coming to an end.

In 1840, it’s completely different. We’re at the beginnings of the industrial revolution and we’re seeing middle-class men like James Trenchard [played by Philip Glenister], because he’s a brilliant businessman, able to amass a fortune, establish a business. He can’t quite get into polite society on his own terms, because he’s a middle-class professional man, but by the next generation his son will become a gentleman. We can see that the industrial revolution allows this huge social mobility that probably wasn’t seen again until the 20th century. This is incredibly dynamic, optimistic in a lot of ways, – anything is possible – and that is the world in which these characters are all living.

JW: The relationship between two women – Tamsin Greig as Anne Trenchard, wife of James, and Harriet Walker as aristocratic Lady Brockenhurst – is also central to the story.

GN: They’re very different people but they’re united in one thing: they’re both women who have lost a child and the loss of that child informs every single aspect of the rest of their lives – as it does for any parent. I think that’s something that we can completely understand to this day. A mother’s love for a child is at the heart of Belgravia, and that is what they have in common.

JW: The story picks two moments where classes can meet: the military during the Napoleonic War and the building of Belgravia, where you need the expertise of a man like Trenchard because you’re building a community from scratch.

GN: Mostly, officers in the British Army [under Wellington] at that time would have been quite aristocratic I think and James Trenchard in the story is the supply man [to the British forces], a trading man. And then years later he’s completely changed the business he’s in. He’s had another brilliant idea, he gets into business with the Cubitt brothers, [real figures] great architects, builders who developed a lot of London at that time.

Belgravia is a fascinating place because it was the first new area for rich people that had existed in London for hundreds of years. It wasn’t part of old London. That land to the west of Mayfair had been fields so it was an expansion of the city, specifically with this new architecture, which itself is an iconic architectural style [grand terraces of white stucco houses]. The neighbourhood itself has got an important presence in the whole show. It’s named after the neighbourhood, it’s what’s going on behind the doors of those houses.

JW: For you as filmmakers, how much research goes into getting these periods right?

One would always say this: first and foremost, it’s a drama, it’s a story. But Julian and I, quite independently of each other, are drawn towards historic subjects. I’m an amateur historian, I love historical stories. Julian writes with a lot of confidence about these different eras. The things he’s not intimately acquainted with, I’m sure he researches very clearly. Then, when we come to bring a project to the screen, our art department, our wardrobe department, all of these creative experts who work on these shows, work fastidiously to make sure that every detail is correct.

We have historical protocol advisors, making sure that the actors know how to behave, that the tables are set properly, that people hold their knives and forks properly, that people stand up when somebody comes into the room, know how to doff their hats, get in and out of a carriage, all these sorts of things that are alien to us now. You want to get those details right. You want to get them right I think because it gives the audience confidence that they really are being transported into a historical world.

I felt this very strongly – and this was before I knew Fellowes – but when I watched Gosford Park [Robert Altman’s 2001 country house ensemble drama, scripted by Fellowes] I was struck by specific historical details, which gave me confidence I was watching a film made by people who knew what they were talking about. I didn’t feel like they were wasting my time. I thought this is an accurate portrayal. This has been based on very detailed research and I think it helps audiences on their journey. You can become completely lost in this world because it’s been presented to you in a very believable and authentic way. It all starts with taking the facts seriously…

JW: You need to be sure as an audience member that the filmmakers have forgotten more than you know.

GN: Yes, there’s room for only a few bits of historical detail, but just by seeing those you think, “Who would have thought that the Duchess of Bedford [1783–1857] invented the institution of afternoon tea in the 1840s?” That’s why she’s there [in episode one of Belgravia]. The idea of saying, “Let’s have the first tea party, and where it came from, and how it was invented,” really captures my imagination. Very few things have always existed, they had to be created by somebody.

We make The Last Kingdom for Netflix and what appealed to me about that was that these books were about the formation of England. I thought that’s very interesting and a good setting for a piece of drama: England before it became England, or England just on the political cusp of that event happening. I thought that was fascinating in the same way that going to what’s effectively the first ever tea party [is fascinating] – I think that’s a cheeky and rather delicious idea.

• Read more about the real history behind your favourite historical TV and film

JW: How did you go about choosing locations?

GN: We built a lot of sets. We also went to a lot of country houses and used those interiors as London townhouses – Basildon Park near Reading, Manderston House, which is on the Borders. But the real challenge was it’s quite impossible to shoot in Belgravia. It’s the heart of London, it’s filled with embassies; there’s no way you can shut down these parts of London and have horses and carriages going around for four days. It would never happen, so what we did was to go to the New Town of Edinburgh. We shot all of the exteriors for Eaton Square and Belgrave Square, we shot around there, and then in post-production we added all of the stucco and the porticos.

JW: Is there anything you couldn’t do?

GN: In the book, Julian writes about a meeting in a hotel in Trafalgar Square and he comments on the construction of Nelson’s Column. And it’s so good, and I said to Julian, “Put it in the script and we’ll see if we can do that”. We probably could have shown it, but it didn’t seem like a really important way of spending a lot of money. So what we did as a way of incorporating that is it’s in the title sequence [the column’s construction shown in illustrations]. It’s half-built. I’d love to have included that actually as a scene in the show.

Belgravia, a six-part series, will begin on Sunday 15 March 2020 at 9pm on ITV, and will air weekly.

Jonathan Wright writes the TV and radio previews for BBC History Magazine and BBC History Revealed.

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