Went the Day Well?

by David Crane

  ‘fragments of burning …’: Mary Cosh, Edinburgh: The Golden Age, Edinburgh, 2003, p. 487.

  ‘For you will …’: Chalmers, CHA-6.16.91.

  ‘On the fast day …’: S. J. Brown, Thomas Chalmers and the Godly Commonwealth in Scotland, Oxford, 1983, p. 50.

  ‘publicans and harlots …’: Chalmers, CHA-6.16.91.

  ‘Call of Providence …’: Brown, p. 92.

  ‘with despair …’: Wheeler, p. 153.

  ‘Perhaps at this very …’: Wilberforce, Vol IV, p. 261.

  12 noon: Ah, You Don’t Know Macdonell

  ‘Ah, you don’t know …’: Longford, p. 450.

  ‘The dead and the wounded …’: Gronow, Llewellyn, p. 124.

  1 p.m.: Never Such a Period as This

  ‘I wish thou …’: Charles Lloyd to Mary Lloyd, 18 June 1815, Temp Mss 403/4/7/1/33, Library of the Religious Society of Friends in Britain.

  ‘a time of much …’: Elizabeth Fry, Journal, BL Add Ms 47456.

  ‘I am convinced …’: Samuel Lloyd, The Lloyds of Birmingham, London, 1907, pp. 124–5.

  ‘speculative principles …’: Ibid., pp. 124–5.

  ‘I found a most …’: Charles Lloyd, Temp Mss 210, No 33.

  ‘Sammons was …’: Benjamin Haydon, Autobiography of Benjamin Robert Haydon. Ed. Edmund Blunden, London, 1927, p. 290.

  ‘finest of all …’: Ibid., p. 292.

  ‘Apollyon …’: Ibid., p. 241.

  ‘In the history …’: Ibid., p. 279.

  ‘tell me …’: Alethea Hayter, A Sultry Month: Scenes of London Literary Life in 1846, London, 1965, p. 184.

  ‘would not cloud …’: Haydon, p. 218.

  ‘Designing my Entry …’: Ibid., p. 270.

  ‘I am full of …’: Ibid., p. 272.

  ‘He bore it …’: Ibid., p. 277.

  ‘singular compound …’: Ibid., p. 226.

  ‘O God …’: Benjamin Haydon, The Diary of Benjamin Robert Haydon, Vol 1, 1808–1815, p. 254.

  2 p.m.: Ha, Ha

  ‘Reader have you seen …’: Hazlitt, ‘The Fight’, Selected Essays, p. 119.

  ‘Why?’ demanded Hazlitt …: Ibid., p. 120.

  ‘His height …’: Pierce Egan, Boxiana: Or Sketches of Ancient and Modern Pugilism, London, 1813–29, Vol II, pp. 382–4.

  ‘had heard of battles …’: Ibid., p. 384.

  ‘No one but …’: Wheatley, p. 70.

  ‘Hast thou given …’: Job, Chapter 39, verses 19, 23, 24, 25.

  ‘felt a strange thrill …’: Llewellyn, p. 194.

  ‘like a bit …’: Haydon, p. 292.

  ‘In the melee …’: Foulkes, p. 229.

  ‘Ye who despise …’: Hazlitt, p. 124.

  ‘On that great day …’: Tom Moore, Egan, p. 382.

  3 p.m.: The Walking Dead

  ‘Confused by his …’: Charles Dickens, Sketches by Boz, London, 1836, p. 257.

  ‘steady, honest …’: J. Watkins & W. Hone, The important results of an elaborate investigation into the mysterious case of Elizabeth Fenning, London, 1815, p. 3.

  ‘I am the wife …’: A. Knapp & W. Baldwin, The New Newgate Calendar, Vol VI, London, 1824, p. 119.

  ‘an extreme violent pain’: Ibid., p. 119.

  ‘Mr Marshall, the surgeon …’: Ibid., p. 126.

  ‘message for her mistress …’: Ibid., p. 126.

  ‘to form a liquid …’: Ibid., p. 120.

  ‘I washed it …’: Ibid., p. 125.

  ‘I now lay …’: Watkins, Appendix, Letter I.

  ‘Gentleman, you have …’: Knapp, pp. 125–8.

  ‘carried from the bar …’: Ibid., p. 129.

  ‘As to exercise …’: Watkins, Appendix, Letter X, passim.

  ‘Be careful of …’: Ibid., Letter XXV.

  ‘Some one …’: Ibid., Letter XXV.

  4 p.m.: The Finger of Providence

  ‘everywhere to be found …’: De Lancey, p. 115.

  ‘indeed look very bad …’: Barbero, p. 231.

  ‘a ball came …’: De Lancey, p. 14.

  ‘The Duke bade …’: Ibid., p. 51.

  ‘ever advancing …’: See Capt. Siborne, quoted in Cotton, p. 104.

  ‘But as he spoke …’: De Lancey, p. 51.

  ‘Nothing else …’: Ibid., p. 52.

  5 p.m.: Portraits, Portraits, Portraits

  ‘One of the most …’: Morning Post, 29 April 1815.

  ‘The Distraining for Rent …’: Ibid., 1 May 1815.

  ‘The colouring of …’: The Entertaining Magazine or Expository of General Knowledge for the Year 1815, p. 261.

  ‘The seventh day …’: Byron, Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Canto I, Stanzas LIX and LXX, Works, p. 186.

  6 p.m.: Vorwärts

  ‘Not an individual …’: Wheatley, p. 86.

  ‘Impelled by curiosity …’: Ibid., p. 48.

  ‘About two o’clock …’: Ibid., p. 66.

  ‘when a passe-parole …’: Ibid., p. 68.

  ‘About four P.M. …’: Llewellyn, p. 118.

  ‘Charge after charge …’: Wheatley, p. 67.

  ‘it struck the front …’: Barbero, p. 263.

  ‘About four o’clock …’: William Lawrence, Sergeant Lawrence: With the 40th Regt. of Foot in South America, the Peninsular War & at Waterloo, Leonaur, 2007, p. 145.

  ‘screaming like a …’: Llewellyn, p. 66.

  ‘Would it not …’: Llewellyn, p. 70.

  ‘A thought struck me …’: Wheatley, p. 71.

  ‘I could see …’: Ibid.

  7 p.m.: Noblesse Oblige

  ‘I was in Newgate …’: Records of the Old Bailey, Ref t18150913-4.

  ‘with two or three …’: Ibid.

  ‘being appointed …’: Morning Post, 19 June 1815.

  ‘While the glorious …’: Ibid.

  ‘A noble Gothic …’: Exeter Flying Post, 16 June 1815.

  ‘the floor matted …’: Caledonian Mercury, 17 June 1815.

  ‘purporting to be …’: The Times, 14 July 1815.

  ‘Mr. Romanis …’: Ibid.

  ‘London November fog …’: Ed. Gareth Glover, Letters from the Battle of Waterloo: Unpublished Correspondence by Allied Officers from the Siborne Papers, London, 2004, p. 98.

  ‘The sanguinary drama …’: Cotton, p. 128.

  ‘but he still refused’: Glover, p. 106.

  ‘Their praise …’ Byron, Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Canto III, Stanza XXIX, The Works of Lord Byron, London, 1994, p. 207.

  8 p.m.: A Mild Contusion

  ‘drinking beer …’: Foulkes, p. 138.

  ‘a mild contusion …’: G. G. Stonestreet, BL Add Ms 61805.

  ‘advancing the cause …’: Ibid.

  ‘The streets were …’: Ibid.

  ‘But how …’: Ibid.

  ‘The Theatre and …’: Ibid.

  ‘I am appointed …’: Ibid.

  ‘leading families …’: Ibid.

  ‘every man of them …’: Ibid.

  ‘The Gentlemen of England …’: Ibid.

  ‘Consols have fallen …’: George Ireland, Plutocrats: A Rothschild Inheritance, London, 2008, p. 34.

  9 p.m.: Religionis Causa

  ‘a most affectionate …’: Sheriff’s Court, Bedford Street, 10 December, Report of Proceedings, Morning Post, 12 December 1814.

  ‘O my friend …’: Ibid.

  ‘than which …’: Hansard, 1 June 1815.

  ‘they owed it …’: Ibid.

  ‘Stripped of all …’: Hansard, 14 June 1815.

  ‘Society for the …’: Sydney Smith, The Works of The Rev. Sydney Smith, London, 1840, Vol I, p. 84.

  ‘I still think …’: Ed. L. Marchand, Byron’s Letters & Journals, Vol IV, London, 1982, p. 324.

  ‘For thee. My …’: Byron, Epistle to Augusta, Stanza XVI, Works, p. 90.

  ‘To soothe thy …’: Byron, The Bride of Abydos, Canto I, Stanza XIII, ibid., p. 258.

  ‘Oh! but it is …’: L. Marchand, Byron’s Letters & Jo
urnals, Vol IV, p. 104.

  ‘Surely the Heaven …’: Charles Mackay, Medora Leigh: A History and an Autobiography, London, 1869, p. 54.

  ‘Early in our …’: Ethel Mayne, The Life and Letters of Anne Isabella, Lady Noel Byron, London, 1929, p. 58.

  ‘I am almost …’: Ibid., p. 111.

  ‘As soon as …’: Malcolm Elwin, Lord Byron’s Family, London, 1975, p. 250.

  ‘You were a fool …’: Mayne, p. 183.

  10 p.m.: Clay Men

  ‘My Dearest Mama …’: Earl of Bessborough and A. Aspinall, eds, Lady Bessborough and Her Family Circle, London, 1940, p. 73.

  Frederick Ponsonby: BM Add Ms, 19390/11-13 and passim.

  ‘the Guards in their …’: Llewellyn, p. 124.

  ‘a foot-soldier …’: Wheatley, p. 74.

  ‘I found poor Curzon …’: Llewellyn, p. 130.

  ‘I had hardly …’: John Hume, Surgeon’s Hall, Edinburgh GD 1/5.

  ‘Well, thank God …’: Barbero, p. 415.

  ‘I know not why …’: Frazer, pp. 546–81.

  ‘What will they say …’: Llewellyn, p. 200.

  11 p.m.: Went the Day Well?

  ‘The object of …’: Morning Chronicle, 19 June 1815.

  ‘a little swarthy …’: Robinson, Vol I, p. 256.

  ‘It souths now …’: Carlisle Journal, 24 June 1815.

  ‘two women’s slips …’: The National Archives of Scotland, JC 26/367.

  The Opening of the Vials

  ‘What wonderful changes …’: Ed. Richard Edgcumb, The Diary of Frances, Lady Shelley, London, 1912, p. 83.

  ‘Jesu, what gotho-barbaric …’: Eds. William Beckford and Boyd Alerand, Life at Fonthill 1807–1827, London, 1957, p. 178.

  ‘Horses! can these …’: Eds. Thomas De Quincey and Robert Morrison, The English Mail-Coach: Confessions of an English Opium Eater and Other Writings, Oxford, 2013, p. 192.

  ‘On any night …’: Ibid., p. 192.

  ‘We lose not …’: Bombay Courier Extraordinary, 27 October 1815.

  ‘I asked him …’: De Lancey, p. 53.

  ‘I did not …’: Ibid., p. 54.

  ‘I hope no one …’: Ibid., p. 67.

  ‘Come Magdalene …’: Ibid., p. 68.

  ‘On Thursday he …’: Ibid., p. 82.

  ‘He generally lay …’: Ibid., p. 80.

  ‘I left him …’: Ibid., p. 85.

  ‘This was the first …’: Ibid., p. 87.

  ‘I went and stood …’: Ibid., p. 95.

  ‘seemed quite bent …’: Ibid., p. 97.

  ‘See what control …’: Ibid.

  ‘he wished she would not …’: Ibid., p. 98.

  ‘I hastened to him …’: Ibid., p. 99.

  ‘You may form …’: Llewellyn, p. 23.

  ‘Poor Lord Hay …’: BL Add Mss 6305722-2.

  ‘Sir W. Delancy …’: The Hon. Mrs J. Swinton, A Sketch of the Life of Georgiana, Lady de Ros: With Some Reminiscences of her Family and her Friends, including the Duke of Wellington, London, 1921, p. 190.

  ‘I have not …’: Llewellyn, p. 24.

  The Days That Are Gone

  ‘Church twice forenoon …’: National Library of Scotland Ms 25467.

  ‘The messenger who …’: Eds. John Wilson Croker and L. J. Jennings, The Croker Papers, Vol I, London, 1884, p. 59.

  ‘You must immediately …’: A. Hayward, Diaries of a Lady of Quality from 1797 to 1844, p. 167.

  ‘I had spent …’: Haydon, p. 281.

  ‘Sammons my model …’: Ibid., p. 282.

  ‘I saw a man …’: University of York, Borthwick Institute of Historical Research. Halifax/A1/4/29.1.

  ‘I hired a horse …’: Hobhouse, p. 299.

  ‘If you have …’: BL Add Ms 43466.

  ‘There are hopes …’: Caledonian Mercury, 29 June 1815.

  ‘When the wife …’: Shelley, p. 83.

  ‘Vague reports …’: Morning Chronicle, 21 June 1815.

  ‘I can say no more …’: Joanna Baillie, The Collected Letters of Joanna Baillie, p. 337.

  ‘We have claimed …’: BL Add Ms 42556.

  ‘To the mind’s eye …’: PAR 116/7/1, West Sussex Record Office.

  ‘The most painful …’: John Blackman, Capt. J. H. Blackman Papers, National Army Museum 1988-07-52.

  ‘Alas he is fallen …’: Ibid.

  ‘Our bells are ringing …’: Eds. R. Southey and Rev. Charles Southey, The Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey, London, 1849, Vol IV, p. 115.

  ‘the former liberal …’: Annual Register 1815, p. 50.

  ‘I enclose you …’ BL Add Ms 43466, June 1815.

  ‘Lady Caroline Lamb …’: BL Add Ms 63057, f225.

  ‘The great amusement …’: BL Add Ms 45,546 f85.

  ‘June 22 …’: Ticknor, p. 62.

  ‘through his body …’: BL Add Ms, 75925.

  New Battle Lines

  ‘We had collected …’: Wheeler, p. 176.

  ‘They’ – the French government: BM Add Ms 37726 ff1o9-11.

  ‘The most ridiculous …’: Add Ms 37726 ff109-111.

  ‘Damn all foreign …’: L. C. B. Seaman, Victorian England: Aspects of English and Imperial History 1837–1901, London, 1973, p. 101.

  ‘Pray come soon …’: Watkins, Appendix, Letter XXVI.

  ‘Dear Parents …’: Ibid, Letter XXVIII.

  ‘an immense concourse …’: Morning Advertiser, 26 July.

  ‘because she was pretty …’: Watkins, p. 80.

  ‘Dearest Friend …’: Ibid., Letter XXX.

  ‘elbow leaning on …’: Wansbrough, p. 19.

  ‘Pray tell my …’: Watkins, Letter XXIX.

  ‘Before the just …’: Gatrell, p. 355.

  ‘O what a blessed …’: Watkins, p. 22.

  ‘Thus perished …’: Wansbrough, p. 25.

  ‘thrown into houses …’: Watkins, p. 106.

  ‘My aching heart …’: Gatrell, p. 353.

  ‘Friday an Inquest …’: Morning Chronicle, 15 August 1815.

  ‘Not the slightest …’: The Times, 1 August 1815.

  Myth Triumphant

  ‘Waterloo, in its …’: Hugo, p. 317.

  ‘Have not the …’: Haydon, Diaries, Vol I, p. 456.

  ‘Poor Haydon …’: Hayter, p. 184.

  ‘I should not …’: Haydon, Autobiography, p. 327.

  ‘strange, tottering …’: Ibid., p. 258.

  ‘How can we …’: PAR 116/7/1, West Sussex Record Office.

  ‘Period of honour …’: W. Scott, The Field of Waterloo, London, 1815, Stanza XXI.

  ‘Let honour be paid …’: Eaton, p. 21.

  ‘Towards the end …’: Nasmyth, p. 69.

  ‘The ferocious …’: Dr Sharpe, Report … for the better regulation of the Madhouses in England, London, 1815, p. 198.

  ‘My LORD …’: William Cobbett, Political Register, 1 July 1815.

  ‘Will these ladies …’: De Quincey, p. 194.

  ‘The English name …’: Countess of Airlie, In Whig Society, 1775–1818, London, 1921, p. 171.

  under commanders who …: G. Corrigan, Waterloo: A New History of the Battle and its Armies, London, 2014, p. 320.

  ‘What was most …’: Hugo, p. 315.

  ‘manufacturers, merchants …’: Thompson, pp. 749–55.

  ‘The doctrine of God’s …’: PAR 116/7/1.

  ‘such are the acts …’: Carlisle Journal, 12 August 1815.

  ‘the meanest peasant …’: De Quincey, p. 174.

  ‘I was carried …’: Ibid., pp. 213–22.

  ‘What makes the …’: The Times, 13 November 1852.

  ‘There’ was the sombre …: Ibid.

  ‘They have ruined my battlefield …’: Longford, Vol II, p. 79.

  ‘at night a sort …’: Hugo, p. 316.

  Select Bibliography

  There is a vast and growing literature dedicated to the Battle of Waterloo and Bonaparte’s Hundred Days, but I have restricted myself here to those prima
ry sources and commentaries that are either of particular relevance to this story or have shaped the way in which I have approached it. Some of the early printed accounts are only available in research libraries, and where appropriate I have indicated whatever modern reprint or anthology has made the material most easily available. The documentary sources for this book are scattered around libraries and archives across Britain, and are separately indicated in the endnotes.

  Annual Register, Or a View of the History, Politics, and Literature, for the Year 1815 (London, 1816)

  Barbero, Alessandro, The Battle: A History of the Battle of Waterloo (London, 2006)

  Beckford, William, Life at Fonthill 1807–1822 (ed. Boyd Alerand, London, 1957)

  Bell, Charles, Letters of Sir Charles Bell (London, 1870)

  Bobbitt, Philip, The Shield of Achilles: War, Peace and the Course of History (London, 2002)

  Breton, B., The Story of St George’s Altrincham (Altrincham, 1999)

  Brewer, John, Sentimental Murder: Love and Madness in the Eighteenth Century (London, 2004)

  Brougham, Henry, The Life and Times of Henry Lord Brougham, Vol II (London, 1871)

  Burney, Fanny, The Journals and Letters of Fanny Burney (ed. P. Hughes, Oxford, 1980)

  Byron, George Gordon, Byron’s Letters and Journals, 12 Volumes (ed. Leslie A. Marchand, London, 1982)

  Cobbett, William, Selected Writings, Vol 111 (ed. Lenora Nattrass, London, 1998)

  Cockburn, Henry, Memorials of his Life (Edinburgh, 1856)

  Colley, Linda, Britons Forging the Nation (London, 1992)

  Cordingley, David, Cochrane the Dauntless: The Life and Adventures of Thomas Cochrane (London, 2007)

  Corrigan, Gordon, Waterloo: A New History of the Battle and its Armies (London, 2014)

  Cosh, Mary, Edinburgh: The Golden Age (Edinburgh, 2003)

  Cotton, Edward, A Voice from Waterloo (London, 1862)

  Creevey, Thomas, The Creevey Papers (ed. Sir Herbert Maxwell, London, 1903)

  Croker, John Wilson, The Croker Papers (ed. Louis Jennings, London, 1884)

  Crumplin, M. K. H. and Starling, P., A Surgical Artist At War: The Paintings and Sketches of Sir Charles Bell 1809–1815 (Edinburgh, 2005)

  De Lancey, Magdalene, A Week at Waterloo in 1815 (ed. Major B. R. Ward, London, 1906)

  Dixon, J. H., Gairloch and Guide to Loch Maree (Fort William, 1886)

  Farington, Joseph, The Diary of Joseph Farington (ed. K. Cave, New Haven, 1984)