By the early nineteenth century British sea power was legendary and the exploits of admirals such as Nelson and victories like the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805 merely served to consolidate Britain’s naval supremacy. During the Napoleonic Wars the number of sailors employed by the navy reached 114,000 (in 1812) of which a large number had been ‘pressed’ including young Ben Breane’s older brother in The Toll-Gate. In time of war the need for sailors above the number readily available was met by the press-gang which roamed the coastal districts looking for likely men, kidnapped them and delivered them to the nearest naval vessel. For those men or boys who elected to join the navy it could be an exciting, though arduous and dangerous, life.
THE PENINSULAR WAR
The Peninsular War lasted from 1808 until 1814 and was instigated by Napoleon Bonaparte’s desire to bring Britain to her knees by crippling her economically. Having failed to defeat Britain’s navy at Trafalgar in 1805, and abandoning his plans for an invasion, in 1806 the French Emperor imposed a blockade on all British ports (known as the ‘Continental System’), effectively banning all trade between Britain and the Continent. Portugal’s refusal to comply with the edict spurred Napoleon to march on Lisbon by way of Spain. With 100,000 troops in Spain to support the invasion he took the opportunity to seize the Spanish throne and install his brother Joseph as the country’s new king. The Spaniards rebelled and, at the instigation of Sir Arthur Wellesley (who later became the Duke of Wellington), the British sent an expeditionary force to Lisbon to aid both the Portuguese and the Spanish in their fight to push Napoleon’s forces out of the Iberian peninsula.
Wellesley returned to England in October 1808 after the debacle of the Convention of Cintra but in April 1809 returned to the peninsula to take command of the British–Portuguese forces. Napoleon had returned to Paris, leaving his army in the command of his marshals, including Soult, Ney and Kellerman. Over the next three years the combined British, Portuguese and Spanish armies fought the French back and forth across the peninsula, but all the while steadily pushing east through Portugal and into Spain as Wellesley’s army won important victories at Talavera, Cuidad Rodrigo, Badajoz and Salamanca. In August 1812 the British entered Madrid and towards the end of the year the news of Napoleon’s disastrous retreat from Moscow helped to turn the tide. By mid-1813 Wellesley had taken the offensive and in June his army won a major victory at the Battle of Vittoria. The French counterattacked with some success but their offensive could not be sustained and on 7 October Wellesley crossed into France. Fighting continued for some months as, at his command, Napoleon’s army resisted the Allies’ advance towards the capital but on 30 March the Allies entered Paris and on 11 April, six years after his invasion of Portugal, Napoleon abdicated and the Peninsular War ended.
THE PEACE
Napoleon’s empire was in disarray after the catastrophe of the retreat from Moscow in 1812 and his disastrous losses at the Battle of Leipzig in October 1813. He was finally deposed in April 1814 after the Allies (Britain, Russia, Austria and Prussia) signed the Treaty of Chaumont and marched on Paris. On 11 April 1814 Napoleon abdicated and went into exile on the Island of Elba in the Mediterranean. In England the Peace was officially declared in June and was followed by two months of festivities, including the visit of the Allied Sovereigns, the procession to Guildhall and the official celebrations in Hyde Park.
THE HUNDRED DAYS
On 26 February 1815 Napoleon escaped from the island of Elba. The former emperor sailed for France landing at Antibes on 1 March and marched to Paris, gathering an army as he went. The period known as ‘the Hundred Days’ began with his arrival in the capital on 20 March where he received a tumultuous welcome and the news that the king, Louis XVIII, had fled. When the Allied forces of Britain, Prussia, Austria and Russia heard of Napoleon’s return to power they prepared for war and on 5 April the Duke of Wellington took command of the Allied armies in Belgium. The army was not the force it had been during the Peninsular Campaign but instead was comprised of so many inexperienced British and foreign troops that Wellington described it as ‘an infamous army, very weak and ill equipped’. As Napoleon marched his army north into Belgium Wellington did what he could to prepare for battle—demanding more troops and staff officers and undertaking regular reconnaissance expeditions to familiarise himself with the possible battlegrounds.
By 6 June news came that Napoleon was on the march but the Duke remained calm and even gave his blessing to the Duchess of Richmond’s plans for a ball at her home in Brussels on 15 June. The ball went ahead, with Wellington and his staff in attendance, but during the evening word came that Napoleon had attacked and battle was joined. The Battles of Ligny and Quatre Bras took place on 16 June and led to a retreat by the British and Prussian troops the next day. The Prussian Field Marshal Blücher lost 16,000 men at Ligny and, although Wellington’s men had held their ground at Quatre Bras, he had lost nearly 5,000 soldiers—a fact which, coupled with the news of Blücher’s losses, impelled the Duke to withdraw and regroup. Although Blücher’s army had not yet rejoined Wellington’s forces, by the morning of 18 June in pouring rain the British and Dutch forces had established themselves on a ridge in front of Waterloo and prepared to meet Napoleon’s army. With the British and Prussian armies still separated, Napoleon was confident of an easy victory and, according to Wellington, ‘did not manoeuvre at all’. The battle lasted all day, with major attacks by the French on the farmhouses of Hougoumont and La Haye Sainte, and many times it looked as though the French had won. Wellington was everywhere throughout the battle, however, urging his men on, giving orders and at all times remaining unshakeably calm. At 6.30 p.m. the French had taken La Haye Sainte and it seemed a British defeat was inevitable, but for some reason Napoleon did not press home his advantage and, instead of a full force, sent only his Imperial Guard against the squares of British infantry. The British and Dutch rallied again and again, resisting every French attack. With the Prussian army beginning to come up at last, by evening the tide had turned and the French attack had turned into a rout. On the night of 18 June 1815, despite appalling losses, the Hundred Days ended in victory for the Allies. That same evening Wellington wrote a report of the battle with the heading ‘Waterloo’.
MILITARY MEN
Marshall Beresford, William Carr Beresford, 1st Viscount Beresford (1768–1854): Beresford joined the army in 1785 and rose through the ranks before being given command of the Portuguese army during the Peninsular War of 1808–14. In 1811 he defeated the French marshal, Soult, at the Battle of Albuera and in 1812 took part in the capture of Badajoz but was badly wounded in the battle of Salamanca.
Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher, Fürst von Wahlstadt (1742–1819): A Prussian field marshal, throughout his long career Blücher saw active service in numerous battles and fought against the French several times. In 1813 he took command of the Prussian army and defeated Napoleon at Leipzig. Two years later on 16 June 1815 he suffered a crushing defeat at the hands of the French at Ligny just two days before the battle of Waterloo. Blücher regrouped and won great renown among the English for his arrival on the field of Waterloo just in time to enable the Allies to vanquish Napoleon’s army.
The Emperor Napoleon.
Rowland Hill, 1st Viscount Hill (1772–1842): Hill was a career soldier and one of five brothers to join the army. He served in Portugal during the Peninsular Campaign and was knighted in 1812. He was one of Wellington’s staff during the 1813–14 push into France and with him again at Waterloo and was awarded a barony in 1814. Hill was made a viscount in the last years of his life.
Napoleon I, Emperor of France (1769–1821): Napoleon Bonaparte was born in Corsica but educated in France where he won a scholarship to the military academy at Brienne before attending, at age fourteen, the Ecole Militaire in Paris. He had a moderately successful military career before his marriage to Joséphine de Beauharnais in 1796 (whom he later divorced to marry the Emperor of Austria’s daughter, Marie Louise) and her influence
secured him the command of the army of Italy. By 1799 he had become First Consul of France and, supported by the army, he proceeded to expand his rule, until in 1804 he was proclaimed Emperor. By 1811 he had gained control of much of Europe and only Britain continued firmly to resist him. The tide turned against Napoleon when he invaded Russia in 1812. Unable to maintain his position on two fronts, he was forced to retreat and by 1814 his empire was lost. Napoleon abdicated and went into exile on the island of Elba in the Mediterranean but in 1815 he escaped and, gathering loyal forces around him, marched on Paris. The ‘Hundred Days’ witnessed Napoleon’s attempt to regain his former power and culminated in the Battle of Waterloo in which the French army was decisively beaten. Exiled to the island of St Helena, a thousand miles off the west African coast, he died there in 1821.
Marshall Soult, Nicolas Jean de Dieu Soult (1769–1851): Soult was created a marshal of France by Napoleon in 1804. He spent six years leading the French armies in the Peninsular War and was finally defeated at Toulouse in 1814. He joined Napoleon for the Hundred Days and was appointed his chief-of-staff at Waterloo. After Wellington’s victory and Napoleon’s exile to St Helena, Soult was also exiled at the Second Restoration in 1815, but in 1819 he received full restoration of his honours and remained active in government until his death.
The Duke of Wellington.
Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington (1769–1852): The third son of an Irish peer, Wellington attended Eton before being sent to a French military academy at Angers. In 1787 he entered the army as an ensign, was promoted to captain in 1791 and to lieutenant-colonel in 1793. His greatest victories were in the Napoleonic Wars during which he commanded the British forces throughout the Peninsular campaign—forcing the French out of Portugal and Spain, and eventually routing Marshall Soult’s army at Toulouse in 1814. Already created a viscount in 1814, he was made 1st Duke of Wellington and it was under this title in 1815 that he led his ‘infamous army’ to triumph over Napoleon at Waterloo. Known to his men as ‘Douro’ or ‘old Hookey’ (due to his hooked nose), and to a grateful nation as ‘the Iron Duke’, Wellington was a man of few words, who cared more for the welfare of his men than any honour he might win—conservative, pragmatic and precise, he was impatient with those who looked for glory in war. On his return to England, Wellington resumed his political career, serving in Lord Liverpool’s Tory ministry and eventually becoming prime minister himself in 1828.
14
Who’s Who in the Regency
THE ROYAL FAMILY
George III, King of Great Britain and Ireland, and Elector of Hanover (1738–1820): The grandson of George II, George III came to the British throne in 1760. The first Hanoverian monarch to be born in Britain, he was a plain, rather stolid man with a keen interest in agriculture that earned him the nickname ‘Farmer George’. He was a devoted yet repressive parent, a faithful husband and devout Christian, with a liking for plain living. His long reign was first interrupted in 1788 by the illness (thought now to be the rare blood disease, porphyria) that eventually drove him to complete madness and seclusion in 1810, at which time his eldest son, George (later George IV), was appointed to rule as Regent until his father’s death.
Queen Charlotte, Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz (1744–1818): Married to King George III in 1761 when she was just seventeen, Queen Charlotte proved to be an uninspiring but devoted bride. The pair were well-matched with a mutual liking for domestic living, a regulated family life and children. Charlotte gave birth to fifteen royal offspring between 1762 and 1783, of whom thirteen children survived to adulthood. She was a dedicated mother but lacked empathy, and she and her husband were highly critical of their sons’ dissolute behaviour.
George Augustus Frederick, Prince of Wales, Prince Regent, King George IV of Great Britain and Ireland, and King of Hanover (1762–1830): The eldest son of the British monarch, George was made Prince of Wales at birth. A handsome, intelligent and high-spirited child, he burst the bounds of his excessively strict upbringing at an early age, indulging his passions and alternating between wanting his parents’ approval and outright rebellion. He had many affairs, but the great love of his life was a widow, Maria Anne Fitzherbert, whom he married clandestinely in 1785. The marriage was illegal as she was a Catholic and (according to the Royal Marriage Act) he was under age. The two lived for several years as husband and wife, however, until the Prince’s debts and the need for an heir forced him to consider a lawful marriage. Princess Caroline of Brunswick was the bride selected and they were married in April 1795, but the union proved disastrous and although a daughter, Charlotte, was born in 1796 they soon separated. Intense mutual dislike dogged them both and the Prince sought refuge in a series of affairs, returning first to Maria Fitzherbert before moving on to a succession of high-born older women. George IV’s hostility towards his wife was evident when he was told of Napoleon’s death by a government minister who declared, ‘Sire, I have the gratification to announce that your Majesty’s greatest enemy is dead.’ To which he reportedly replied, ‘Is she, by God?’ Although he was popular in his youth, and dearly loved by his sisters, the Prince’s treatment of his wife and daughter, his numerous affairs, his profligacy and huge debt saw the people take an increasing dislike to him. Much of his debt was incurred in creating many of the (now iconic) architectural and cultural monuments to his Regency, such as the Brighton Pavilion and Regent Street, but at the time his love of art and beauty, coupled with his histrionic tendencies, made him seem irresponsible and a burden rather than a blessing to the nation. Although he had been tall and handsome in his youth the Prince grew corpulent (so much so that he eventually had to wear corsets) and his face and figure bore the marks of a dissipated life. Yet, as Jenny, Lady Lynton, found in A Civil Contract, throughout his life ‘Prinny’ retained a charm of manner and a graciousness that endeared him to many; he was intelligent, accomplished and, in public, always affable. An unremarkable ruler politically, George, Regent and King, gave his title to a period and left a priceless legacy of art and culture to his people.
Princess Caroline of Brunswick (1768–1821): In 1794 Princess Caroline was chosen as a suitable bride for the Prince of Wales who felt an urgent need to marry in order to provide an heir and to alleviate his debt. The two were first cousins and had never met prior to her arrival in England in 1795 for the wedding. The April marriage was a disaster from the outset. Although willing and eager to please, Caroline was also headstrong, boisterous, unkempt and altogether incompatible with the ‘delicate’ and fastidious Prince. The couple were together long enough to conceive a daughter, but separated after her birth partly because of the Prince’s continuing intimacy with Lady Frances Jersey whom Caroline hated. The Prince and Princess established separate lives but there was a great deal of vindictive feeling between them. In 1806 reports of Caroline’s excessive and indiscreet behaviour prompted ‘a delicate investigation’ in which she was eventually cleared of charges of adultery. Husband and wife never achieved a reconciliation and Caroline spent much time in Europe surrounded by a disreputable entourage whose behaviour gave rise to intense gossip. In 1820, when George became King, Caroline returned to England in an attempt to become Queen but was faced instead with a Bill of Pains and Penalties. The case was heard in the House of Lords: the government’s aim was to forfeit her right to be Queen and allow the King to divorce her. When told of the divorce proceedings against her Caroline reportedly said, ‘Well, I can only say that I was never guilty of misconduct but once, and that was with Mrs Fitzherbert’s husband!’ The bill was eventually dropped but Caroline never officially became Queen. She was refused admission to the coronation in 1821 and died two weeks later.
Princess Caroline of Brunswick.
Princess Charlotte, Charlotte Augusta, Princess of Wales (1796–1817): The only child of George, Prince of Wales, and his soon-to-be estranged wife, Caroline of Brunswick, Charlotte had a restricted childhood with little contact with the outside world. Her parents’ intense dislike of e
ach other was a continual source of conflict for her and chafed her as much as the repressive life she was forced to lead. In 1813 her father arranged a marriage between her and William, Prince of Orange, to which she reluctantly agreed before abruptly terminating the arrangement on discovering she would have to live in the Netherlands. In 1814 she met Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg and they became engaged. They were married in May 1816 and found great happiness in each other’s company. On 5 November 1817 Charlotte gave birth to a stillborn boy and died some hours later. The entire nation was devastated and went into deep mourning for their beloved princess.
Frederick Augustus, Duke of York (1763–1827): The Duke of York spent much of his life involved in the army and was made Commander-in-Chief of the army in 1798. A pleasant, affable man, he was fond of gambling, women and the pleasures of the table. In 1809 he was forced to resign his leadership of the army after it was discovered that his mistress, Mary Anne Clarke, had used her position to sell commissions. He was reinstated in 1811, when his brother became Regent, and proved a better administrator than field officer. In 1791 he had married Frederica of Prussia, an intelligent, pleasant woman who lived in affable separation from her husband at Oatlands near Wimbledon where she kept a great many dogs. She happily played hostess to the Duke and his friends when he brought them down for gambling weekends.