A Week at Waterloo in 1815 Part 7

(21) Doubtless the village of Mont St Jean, the village of Waterloo being two miles further north.

When Miss Waldie (afterwards Mrs Eaton--see _Dictionary of National Biography_, vol. lix., p. 26) went to Waterloo on the 15th July, she noticed the name of Sir William De Lancey written in chalk on the door of a cottage, where he had slept the night before the battle.

(_Waterloo Days_, p. 125.) The sketch on the opposite page is reproduced from _Sketches in Flanders and Holland_, by Robert Hills, 1816, and shows the village of Mont St Jean, as it appeared a month after the battle. The figures in the foreground represent villagers returning from the battlefield with cuira.s.ses, bra.s.s eagles, bullets, etc., which they had picked up.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE VILLAGE OF MONT ST JEAN, 1815.]

(22) See _Waterloo Roll Call_, p. 35, and _Army List_ for 1815, p. 31.

(23) The Duke began the Waterloo despatch very early on the 19th at Waterloo, but he finished it at Brussels, that same morning.

(24) _I.e._, not only Waterloo, but Ligny, Quatre Bras, and the fighting that took place on the 15th and 17th June.

(25) Mr William Hay of Duns Castle. He had been in the 16th Light Dragoons in the Peninsular War (see _Army List_ for 1811, p. 89), and had come over from England a few days before to see his old friends, and introduce his young brother, Cornet Alexander Hay, to his old regiment.

(26) Mr Hay was on the battlefield during the early part of the fight.

Early next morning he revisited the field, to try to find some trace of his brother. The body was never found. He had been killed late at night on the French position, while the 16th Light Dragoons were in pursuit of the enemy. (Tomkinson's _Diary of a Cavalry Officer_, 1809-1815, p. 314; also _Reminiscences_, 1808-1815, _under Wellington_, by Captain William Hay, C.B.) There is a memorial tablet to him in the church at Waterloo, with the following inscription:

"Sacred to the memory of Alexander Hay, Esq., of Nunraw, Cornet in the 16th Light Dragoons, aged 18 years, who fell gloriously in the Memorable Battle of Waterloo, June 18, 1815.

"_O dolor atque decus magnum ...

Haec te prima dies bello dedit, haec eadem aufert._

"This tablet was placed here by his Brothers and Sisters."

(27) No doubt Lieutenant-General John Mackenzie who was in command at Antwerp. He succeeded Sir Colin Halkett in that post. See _Army List_ for 1815, p. 8.

(28) Another indication that it was in the village of Mont St Jean and not Waterloo.

(29) "One of the most painful visits I ever paid was to a little wretched cottage at the end of the village which was pointed out to me as the place where De Lancey was lying mortally wounded. How wholly shocked I was on entering, to find Lady De Lancey seated on the only broken chair the hovel contained, by the side of her dying husband. I made myself known. She grasped me by the hand, and pointed to poor De Lancey covered with his coat, and with just a spark of life left."--_Reminiscences, etc._, by Captain William Hay, C.B., p. 202.

(30) Creevey states that as he was on his way from Brussels to Waterloo on Tuesday the 20th June, the Duke overtook him and said he was going to see Sir Frederick Ponsonby and De Lancey. The Duke was in plain clothes and riding in a curricle with Colonel Felton Hervey.--_The Creevey Papers_, p. 238.

(31) Probably the Duke had in his mind the charge of Lord Edward Somerset's Household Brigade against the French Cuira.s.siers, which took place about 2 o'clock. Alava, in his report to the Spanish Government, calls it "the most sanguinary cavalry fight perhaps ever witnessed."

(32) This was the general opinion at the time. Four days after the battle an officer in the 3rd Battalion of the 1st Foot Guards wrote as follows: "I constantly saw the n.o.ble Duke of Wellington riding backwards and forwards like the Genius of the storm, who, borne upon its wings, directed its thunder where to break. He was everywhere to be found, encouraging, directing, animating. He was in a blue short cloak, and a plain c.o.c.ked hat, his telescope in his hand; there was nothing that escaped him, nothing that he did not take advantage of, and his lynx eyes seemed to penetrate the smoke and forestall the movements of the foe" (p. 42, _Battle of Waterloo_, 11th edition, 1852, L. Booth). A highly interesting remark from the Duke's lips just before the attack made by the Imperial Guard has been preserved in a letter written at Nivelles on the 20th June, by Colonel Sir A.S.

Frazer. "'Twice have I saved this day by perseverance,' said his Grace before the last great struggle, and said so most justly." This seems to coincide with the observation which the Duke made to Creevey at Brussels the morning after the battle. "By G.o.d! I don't think it would have been done, if I had not been there."

(33) Another proof that it was Mont St Jean and not Waterloo.

(34) Probably James Powell, an apothecary in the Medical Department.

Date of rank, 9th September 1813. See _Army List_ for 1815, p. 93. In the Army List of 1817, and in subsequent Army Lists he is shown with a [symbol: Blackletter W] before his name, as being in possession of the Waterloo Medal. His last appearance in the Army List is in 1841, in which issue he is shown on page 340 as a surgeon on half-pay.

(35) John Robert Hume was a Deputy-Inspector of the Medical Department. See _Army List_ for 1815, p. 90. He also held the appointment of surgeon to the Duke of Wellington. He was in attendance on the memorable occasion when a duel took place in Battersea Fields between the Duke of Wellington and Earl Winchilsea, 21st March 1829.

He died in 1857. See _Dictionary of National Biography_, vol. xxviii., p. 229.

The following is Dr Hume's account of his visit to the Duke the morning after the battle. "I came back from the field of Waterloo with Sir Alexander Gordon, whose leg I was obliged to amputate on the field late in the evening. He died rather unexpectedly in my arms about half-past three in the morning of the 19th. I was hesitating about disturbing the Duke, when Sir Charles Broke-Vere came. He wished to take his orders about the movement of the troops. I went upstairs and tapped gently at the door, when he told me to come in. He had as usual taken off his clothes, but had not washed himself. As I entered, he sat up in bed, his face covered with the dust and sweat of the previous day, and extended his hand to me, which I took and held in mine, whilst I told him of Gordon's death, and of such of the casualties as had come to my knowledge. He was much affected. I felt the tears dropping fast upon my hand, and looking towards him, saw them chasing one another in furrows over his dusty cheeks. He brushed them suddenly away with his left hand, and said to me in a voice tremulous with emotion, 'Well, thank G.o.d, I don't know what it is to lose a battle; but certainly nothing can be more painful than to gain one with the loss of so many of one's friends.'"--(Extract from a Lecture by Montague Gore, 1852.)

(36) Stephen Woolriche was a Deputy-Inspector of the Medical Department. See _Army List_ for 1815, p. 90. His name appears for the last time in the Army List of 1855-56. By that time he had gained a C.B., and held the rank of Inspector-General of the Medical Department on half-pay.

(37) General Francis Dundas (_Army List_ for 1815, p. 3) was Colonel of the 71st Highland Light Infantry. He had served in the American War, and afterwards at the Cape. At the time of the alarm of a French invasion, of England in 1804-5, he commanded a portion of the English forces a.s.sembled on the south coast under Sir David Dundas, the Commander-in-Chief, who married an aunt of Sir William De Lancey. Sir David Dundas was at this time Governor of Chelsea Hospital, where he died at the age of eighty-five, on the 18th February 1820.--(See _Dictionary of National Biography_, vol. xvi., p. 185.)

(38) Sir Hew Dalrymple Hamilton, fourth baronet, was born on the 3rd January 1774, and married, on the 19th May 1800, Jane, eldest daughter of the first Lord Duncan of Camperdown.

(39) There were at that time three Protestant cemeteries at Brussels.

This was the St Josse Ten Noode Cemetery, on the south side of the Chaussee de Louvain. Many were here buried who had died of wounds received at Waterloo, including Major Archibald John Maclean, 73rd Highlanders; Major William J. Lloyd, R.A.; Captain William Stothert, Adjutant, 3rd Foot Guards; Lieut. Michael Cromie, R.A.; Lieut. Charles Spearman, R.A.; Lieut. John Clyde, 23rd Royal Welsh Fusiliers. See _Times_ of 9th February 1889.

(40) In 1889, Sir William De Lancey's remains were exhumed from the old, disused cemetery of St Josse Ten Noode, and, along with those of a number of other British officers who fell in the Waterloo campaign, were removed to the beautiful cemetery of Evere, three miles to the north-east of Brussels. On the 26th August 1890, H.R.H. the Duke of Cambridge unveiled the celebrated Waterloo memorial which contains their bones.

The following was the inscription on the gravestone which Lady De Lancey erected:--

"THIS STONE IS PLACED TO MARK WHERE THE BODY OF COL. SIR W. HOWE DE LANCEY, QUARTERMASTER-GENERAL, IS INTERRED.

"HE WAS WOUNDED AT THE BATTLE OF BELLE ALLIANCE (WATERLOO) ON THE 18TH JUNE 1815."

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE WATERLOO MEMORIAL IN EVERE CEMETERY.]

(41) _Tuesday, 4th April_ 1815.--This date is confirmed by the _Gentleman's Magazine_, 1815, which states: "April 4, Col. Sir W. De Lancey, K.C.B., to Magdalene, daughter of Sir James Hall, Bart."

On the other hand, the _Abridged Narrative_ states as follows:--"I was married in March 1815. At that time Sir William De Lancey held an appointment on the Staff in Scotland. Peace appeared established, and I had no apprehension of the trials that awaited me. While we were spending the first week of our marriage at Dungla.s.s, the accounts of the return of Bonaparte from Elba arrived, and Sir William was summoned to London, and soon after ordered to join the army at Brussels as Adjutant-Quartermaster-General." Napoleon landed in France on the 1st March, and in the London _Evening Mail_ of the issue headed:--

"From Wednesday, March 8, to Friday, March 10, 1815," the following appears as a postscript:--

"LONDON,

"_Friday Afternoon, March_ 10.

"Letters have been received at Dover of the most interesting import; they announce the flight of Buonaparte from the island of Elba, and his arrival at Frejus, the place at which he landed on his return from Egypt. We have seen the King of France's proclamation against him, dated the 6th instant, declaring him and his adherents traitors and rebels: of these he is said to have had at first only 1300, but to have directed his march immediately on Lyons. It was considered that he would make a dash at Paris. Now, however, the villain's fate is at issue."

This news probably reached Edinburgh by coach a week later, and may have been known at Dungla.s.s on the following day, the 18th March.

It seems doubtful, therefore, whether Lady De Lancey did not make a mistake of a month in dating her marriage exactly three months before the 4th of July. She may possibly have been married in March.

The "Hundred Days" cover the period between Napoleon's first proclamation at Lyons on the 13th March and his abdication on the 22nd June.

It will therefore be seen that the married life of the De Lanceys, if it extended from the 4th March to the 26th June 1815, covered this period, with just thirteen days to spare.

APPENDIX A

Letters to Captain Basil Hall, R.N., from Sir Walter Scott and Charles d.i.c.kens.[34]

[Footnote 34: From the autograph collection in the possession of Lady Parsons.]