Born: Robert Stewart, Marquis of Londonderry, minister
of George IV, 1769, London; Karl Wenceslaus Rodecker von Rotteck, historian,
1775, Frieburg, in Breisgau.
Died: Caliph Othman, assassinated at Medina, 655;
Bishop Thomas Bilson, 1616; A. Philips, poet, 1749, near Vauxhall, London;
Gerard Van Swieten, eminent physician and teacher of medicine, 1772,
Schoenbrunn, Vienna; Arthur Murphy, dramatist, 1805,
Knightsbridge; General Sir Thomas Picton, 1815, Waterloo; William Coombe,
novelist and comic poet, 1823, London; William
Cobbett, political writer, 1835; John Roby, author of Traditions
of Lancashire, drowned at sea off Portpatrick,
1850.
Feast Day: Saints Marcus and Marcellianus, martyrs,
286; St. Amand, Bishop of Bordeaux; St. Marina, of Bithynia, virgin,
8th century; St. Elizabeth, of Sconauge, virgin and abbess, 1165.
THE BATTLE OF WATERLOO
When William IV was lying on his death-bed at Windsor, the
firing for the anniversary of Waterloo took place, and on his inquiring and
learning the cause, he breathed out faintly, 'It was a great day for England.'
We may say it was so, in no spirit of
vainglorious boasting on account of a well-won victory, but as viewed in the
light of a liberation for England, and the civilized world generally, from the
dangerous ambition of an unscrupulous and too powerful adversary.
When Napoleon recovered his
throne at Paris, in March 1815, he could only wring from an exhausted and but
partially loyal country about two hundred thousand men to oppose to nearly a
million of troops
which the allied sovereigns were ready to muster against him. His first business
was to sustain the attack of the united British and Prussians, posted in the
Netherlands, and it was his obvious policy to make an attack on these himself
before any others could come up to their
assistance.
His rapid advance at the beginning of June, before the
English and Prussian commanders were aware of his having left Paris; his quick
and brilliant assaults on the separate bodies of Prussians and British at Ligny
and Quatre Bras on the 16th, were movements
marked by all his brilliant military genius. And even when, on the
18th, he commenced the greater battle of Waterloo with both, the
advantage still remained to him in the divided positions of his double enemy,
giving him the power of bringing his whole host
concentratedly upon one of theirs; thus neutralizing to some extent their
largely superior forces. And, beyond a doubt, through the superior skill and
daring which he thus shewed, as well as the wonderful gallantry of his soldiery,
the victory at Waterloo ought to have been his. There was just one obstacle, and
it was decisive�the British infantry stood in their squares
immovable upon the plain till the afternoon, when the arrival of the Prussians
gave their side the superiority.
It is unnecessary to repeat details which have been told in a
hundred chronicles. Enough that that evening saw the noble and in large part
veteran army of Napoleon retreating and dispersing never to re-assemble, and
that within a month his sovereignty in France had definitely closed. A heroic,
but essentially rash and ill-omened adventure, had ended in
consigning him to those six years of miserable imprisonment which form such an
anti-climax to the twenty of conquest and empire that went before.
If we must consider it a discredit to Wellington that he was
unaware on the evening of the 15th that action was so near�even
attending a ball that evening in Brussels�it was amply
redeemed by the marvellous coolness and sagacity with which he made all his
subsequent arrangements, and the patience with which he sustained the shock of
the enemy, both at Quatre Bras on the 16th, and on the
18th in the more terrible fight of Waterloo.
Thrown on that occasion into the central position among the opponents of
Bonaparte, he was naturally and justly hailed as the saviour of Europe, though
at the same time nothing can be more clear than the important part which the
equal force of Prussians bore in meeting the French
battalions. Thenceforth the name of Wellington was venerated above that of any
living Englishman.
According to Alison, the battle of Waterloo was fought by
80,000 French and 250 guns, against 67,000 English, Hanoverians, Belgians,
&c., with 156 guns, to which were subsequently added certain large bodies of
Prussians, who came in time to assist in
gaining the day. There were strictly but 22,000 British troops on the field, of
whom the total number killed was 1,417, and wounded 4,923. The total loss of the
allied forces on that bloody day was 22,378, of whom there were killed 4,172. It
was considered for that time a very
sanguinary conflict, but
'The glory ends not, and the pain is past.'
BURLESQUE AND
SATIRICAL HERALDRY
Horace
Walpole and a select few of his friends once beguiled the tedium of
a dull day at Strawberry Hill by concocting a satirical coat-of-arms for a club
in St. James's Street, which at that time had an
unfortunate character for high play as well as deep drinking. The club was known
as 'the Old and Young Club,' and met at Arthur's. Lady Hervey gives a clue to
the peculiarity of its designation in a letter dated 1756, in which she laments
that 'luxury increases, all public places
are full, and Arthur's is the resort of old and young, courtiers and
anti-courtiers�nay, even of ministers.' The arms were invented in 1756 by
Walpole, Williams, George
Selwyn, and the Honourable Richard Edgecumbe, and drawn by the
latter. This drawing formed lot twelve of the twenty-second day's sale at
Strawberry Hill in 1842, and is here engraved, we believe, for the first time.
The arms may be thus described:�On a green field (in
allusion to the baize on a card table) three cards (aces); between, a chevron
sable (for a hazard table), two rouleaus of guineas in saltier,
and a pair of dice; on a canton, sable, a white election-ball. The crest is an
arm issuing from an earl's coronet, and shaking a dice-box. The arms are
surrounded by a claret-bottle ticket and its chain; the supporters are an old
and a young Knave of Clubs; and the motto, 'Cogit
amor nummi,' involves a pun in the first word, the letters being so separated as
to allude to the cogging of dice for dishonest play.
Burlesque heraldry very probably had its origin in the mock
tournaments, got up in broad caricature by the Hanse Towns of Germany in the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when the real tournaments had lost their
chivalric charm, and feudalism was fast
fading away. The wealthy bourgeoisie of the great commercial towns delighted in
holding these mock encounters, and parodied in every particular the tourneys and
jousts of the old noblesse; dressing their combatants in the most grotesque
fashion, with tubs for breastplates and
buckets for helmets, and furnishing them with squires who bore their shields
with coat-armour of absurd significance. In that curious old poem, The
Tournament of Tottenham, preserved in Percy's Reliques, the plebeians who fight
for Tyb the Reve's daughter proclaim their blazonry
in accordance with their calling; one bears:
A riddle and a rake,
Powdered with a burning drake,
And three cantells of a cake
In each corner.'
Another combatant declares:
'In my arms I bear well,
A dough trough and a peel,
A saddle without a panel,
With a fleece of wool.'
Severe satirical allusions to individuals were sometimes
indulged in; the most celebrated being the coat-of-arms invented by Roy, and
placed in the title-page of his bold and bitter attack on Wolsey; a
satire in which Roy risked his life. It is printed in red and black, and
described in caustic verse, of which we quote only as much as will explain it:
'Of the proud cardinal this is the shield,
Borne up between two angels of Satan:
The six bloody axes in a bare field
Sheweth the cruelty of the red man.
The six bulls' heads in a field black
Betokeneth his sturdy furiousness.
The bandog in the midst cloth express
The mastiff cur bred in Ipswich town,
Gnawing with his teeth a king's crown.
The club signifieth plain his tyranny
Covered over with a cardinal's hat.'
Walpole, with his antiquarian tastes, must have been
fully aware of these old satires; but he had a nearer and cleverer example in
'The
Under-takers' Arms,' designed and published by Hogarth as a satire on medical
quacks, whom he considers their best friends, and thus describes the coat: The
Company of Undertakers beareth, sable, an urinal proper, between twelve
quack heads of the second, and twelve cane heads, or, consultant. On a chief,
nebuly, ermine, one complete doctor, issuant, cheeky, sustaining in his right
band a baton of the second. On the dexter and sinister sides, two demi-doctors,
issuant of the second, and two cane-heads
issuant of the third; the first having one eye couchant, towards the dexter side
of the escutcheon; the second faced, per pale, proper, and gules guardant. With
this motto, Et plurima mortis imago (the general image of death).'
The humour of this satire is by no means restricted to the
whimsical adaptation of heraldic terms to the design, in which there is more
than meets the eye, or will be understood without a Parthian glance at the
quacks of Hogarth's era, and whom the artist
hated with his usual sturdy dislike of humbug. Thus the coarse-faced central
figure of the upper triad, arrayed in a harlequin jacket, is intended for one
Mrs. Mapp, an Amazonian quack-doctress, who gained both fame and money as a
bonesetter�her strength of arm being only
equalled by her strength of language; there are some records of her sayings
extant that are perfectly unquotable in the present day, yet she was called in
by eminent physicians, and to the assistance of eminent people. To the right of
this Amazon is the famous Chevalier Taylor,
the oculist (indicated by the eye in the head of his cane), whose impudence was
unparalleled, and whose memoirs, written by himself, if possible outdo even that
in effrontery. To the lady's left is Dr. Ward, whose pills and nostrums gulled a
foolish public to his own emolument.
Ward was marked with what old wives call 'a claret stain' on his left cheek; and
here heraldry is made of humorous use in depicting his face, per pale, gules.
In 1785 a curious duodecimo volume was published, called The
Heraldry of Nature; or, instructions for the .King-at-Arms: comprising the arms,
supporting crests and mottoes of the Peers of England. Blazoned from the
authority of Truth, and
characteristically descriptive of the several qualities that distinguish their
possessors. The author explains his position in a preface, where he states that
he has 'rejected the common and patented bearings already painted on the
carriages of our nobility, and instituted what
he judges a wiser delineation of the honours they deserve.' He flies at the
highest game, and begins with King George the Third himself, whose coat he thus
describes:
'First, argent, a cradle proper; second, gules, a rod and
sceptre, transverse ways; third, azure, five cups and balls proper; fourth,
gules, the sun eclipsed proper; fifth, argent, a stag's head between three
jockey caps; sixth, or, a house in ruins.
Supporters: the dexter, Solomon treading on his crown; the sinister, a jackass
proper. Crest: Britannia in despair. Motto: " Neque tangunt levia"
(little things don't move me).'
The irregularities of the Prince of
Wales are severely alluded to in his shield of arms, but the satire
is too broad for modern quotation. The whole of the nobility are similarly
provided with
coats indicative of their characters. Two are here selected as good specimens of
the whole. The first is that of the Duke of Norfolk, whose indolence, habit of
late hours, and deep drinking were notorious; at public dinners he would drink
himself into a state of insensibility,
and then his servants would lift him in a chair to his bedroom, and take that
opportunity of washing him; for his repugnance to soap and water was equal to
his love of wine. The arms are 'quarterly; or, three quart bottles, azure;
sable, a tent bed argent; azure, three tapers
proper; and gules, a broken flagon of the first.
Supporters: dexter, a Silenus tottering; sinister,
a grape-squeezer; both proper. Crest: a naked arm holding a corkscrew. Motto:
" Quo me, Bacche, rapis" (Bacchus, where are you running
with me?).'
For Seymour Duke of Somerset a simpler but not more
complimentary coat is invented:�' Vert, a mastiff couchant, spotted proper.
Sup-porters: dexter, a bear muzzled argent; sinister, a savage proper. Crest: a
Wiltshire cheese, decayed. Motto: "Strenua
nos exercet inertia" (The laziest dog that ever lounged).'
Though most of the nobility are 'tarred with the same
brush,' a few receive very complimentary coat-armour. Thus the Duke of Buccleuch
bears 'azure a palm-tree, or Supporters: the dexter, Mercy;
the sinister, Fortitude. Crest: the good Samaritan. Motto: "Humani nihil
alienum " (I'm a true philanthropist).' The foppish St. John has his
arms borne by two beaux, a box of lipsalve for a crest, and as a motto
'Felix, qui placuit.'
Hone, whose erudition in parody was sufficient to save him in
three separate trials for alleged profanity by the proven plea of past usages,
invented for one of his satirical works a clever burlesque of the national arms
of England; the shield being
emblazoned in a lottery wheel, the animals were represented in the last stage of
starvation, and all firmly muzzled. The shield is supported by a lancer
(depicted as a centaur), who keeps the crown in its place with his lance. The
other supporter is a lawyer (the
Attorney-General, with an ex-officio information in his bag), whose rampant
condition is expressed with so much grotesque humour, that we end our selection
with a copy of this figure.
THE BRITISH
SOLDIER IN TROUSERS
On the 18th of June 1823, the British infantry
soldier first appeared in trousers, in lieu of other nether garments. The
changes in military costume had been very gradual, marking the slowness with
which novelties are sanctioned at
head-quarters. When the regiments of the line first began to be formed, about
two centuries ago, the dress of the officers and men partook somewhat of the
general character of civil costume in the reign of Charles II. We have now
before us a series of coloured engravings, showing
the chief changes in uniform from that time to the beginning of the present
century. Under the year 1685, the 11th foot are represented in full
breeches, coloured stockings, and high shoes. Under date 1688, the
7th and 5th foot appear in green
breeches of somewhat less amplitude, white stockings, and high shoes. Under
1692, the 1st royals and the 10th foot are shewn in red
breeches and stockings; while another regiment appears in high boots coming up
over blue breeches. In 1742, various regiments
appear in purple, blue, and red breeches, white leggings or gaiters up to the
thigh, and a purple garter under the knee. This dress is shewn very frequently
in Hogarth's pictures. In 1759, the foot-soldiers shewn in the 'Death of General
Wolfe' have a sort of knee-cap covering
the breeches and gaiters. In 1793, the 87th foot are represented in
tight green pantaloons and Hessian boots. During the great wars in the early
part of the present century, pantaloons were sometimes worn, breeches at others,
but gaiters or leggings in almost every
instance.
The reform which took place in 1823 was announced in a Horse
Guards' order, when the Duke of York was commander-in-chief. The order stated
that 'His Majesty has been pleased to approve of the discontinuance of breeches,
leggings, and shoes, as part of the
clothing of the infantry soldiers; and of blue grey cloth trousers and
half-boots being substituted.' After adverting to the deposit of patterns and
the issue of supplies, the order makes provision for the very curious anomaly
that used to mark the clothing system of the British
army. 'In order to indemnify the colonels for the additional expense they will
in consequence incur, the waistcoat hitherto provided with the clothing will be
considered as an article of necessaries to be provided by the soldier; who,
being relieved from the long and short
gaiters, and also from the stoppage hitherto made in aid of the extra expense of
the trousers (in all cases where such have been allowed to be furnished as part
of the clothing of regiments), and being moreover supplied with articles of a
description calculated to last longer
than the breeches and shoes now used, cannot fail to be benefited by the above
arrangement.' Non-professional readers may well be puzzled by the complexity of
this announcement.
The truth is, that until Lord Herbert of Lea (better known as
Mr. Sidney Herbert) became Secretary of State for
War, a double deception was practised on the rank and file of the British army,
little creditable to the nation.
The legislature voted annually, for the clothing of the troops, a sum much
larger than was actually applied to that purpose; and the same legislature, by a
similarly animal vote, gave about a shilling a day to each private soldier as
pay, the greater part of which was anything
but pay to him. In the first place, the colonel of each regiment had an annual
allowance for clothing his men, with a well-understood agreement that he was to
be permitted to purchase the clothing at a much lower rate, and put the balance
in his own pocket.
This balance usually varied from �600 to �1000 per annum, and
was one of the prizes that made the 'clothing colonels' of regiments so much
envied by their less fortunate brother-officers. In the second place, although
the soldiers received their shilling a
day, or thereabouts, as pay, so many deductions were made for the minor articles
of sustenance and clothing, that only about fourpence remained at the actual
disposal of each man. The two anomalies are brought into conjunction in a
singular way in the above-quoted order, in
reference to the soldier's waist-coat; the colonel was to be relieved from
buying that said garment, and the poor soldier was to add the waistcoat to the
number of 'necessaries' which he was to provide out of his slender pay. The
miseries attendant on the Crimean war, by awaking
public attention to the condition of the soldiers, led to the abandonment of the
'clothing colonel' system.
