by Foster, R E
News of Wellington’s political death in 1832 had clearly been grossly exaggerated. Whilst his earlier shortcomings were never forgotten, they were to some extent forgiven. This owed something to his continued service to the State. But it owed more to the memory of services rendered in 1815. Wellington the politician of 1832 had become disconnected from the Wellington of Waterloo. The story of his final two decades was one of how the two Wellingtons became reconnected.339 Along the way, he played his part in ensuring that it was his vision of Waterloo that remained intact and largely undiminished in the national consciousness.
The revival of Wellington’s stock was partly a reflection of the inevitable swing of the political pendulum. Reduced to a paltry 185 seats in the general election of 1832, the Tory party, increasingly labelled Conservative and now led by Sir Robert Peel, recovered to 279 seats in 1835 and 314 in 1837, a parliamentary minority of only 30. Following the 1841 election it returned to office with a majority of 76. Those who cheered Wellington home on 30 April 1839 also cried out, ‘Down with the Whigs and up with the Tories.’ The newspaper that reported it concluded, with evident satisfaction, that, ‘England is herself again.’
But Wellington’s popular rehabilitation was more personal and began considerably earlier. It can plausibly be dated to Waterloo Day 1832 when, or rather because, he had been ignominiously jostled. To abuse former prime ministers was one thing; to treat the national hero so, on 18 June, quite another. One of the Duke’s sharpest political critics, The Times, expressed deep unease over the episode, concluding that, ‘No political obstinacy or error could provoke reasonable men to such infamous ingratitude – no sophistry can palliate it.’ Less than a year later, when riding with him in St James’s Park, Charles Greville was:
marvellously struck […] with the profound respect with which the Duke was treated, everybody we met taking off their hats to him, everybody in the park rising as he went by, and every appearance of his inspiring great reverence […] it is the more remarkable because it is not popularity, but a much higher feeling towards him. He has forfeited his popularity more than once [but] when the excitement subsides there is always a returning sentiment of admiration and respect for him, kept alive by the recollection of his splendid actions, such as no one else ever inspired.340
Traditional accounts of the Tory revival in the 1830s emphasise the importance of the appeal of Peel’s progressive Conservatism to the post–1832 electorate. In doing so, they miss the significance of Wellington’s name and the memory of Waterloo. The 150 ‘youthful patriots’ (Conservatives under 35), who met at Edinburgh’s British Hotel in 1832 chose Waterloo Day for their dinner. A letter from ‘A Tory’, dated Waterloo Day 1833, urged those of like mind to stand firm against the Whigs.341 And when Wellington appeared in person, even for ostensibly apolitical occasions, there was often a political subtext. Greville described his installation as Chancellor of Oxford in June 1834 – the University was, amongst other things, a bastion of Toryism – as ‘on the whole a very disgraceful exhibition of bigotry and party spirit’. More than one Tory present deemed the event ‘one from which I think the rally of Conservatism may be dated’. The following October, on Trafalgar Day, it was alleged that all the guests at a public dinner in Ramsgate to fete Wellington as Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports were Conservatives. It was ‘a trick to consolidate the scattered fragments of Toryism’.342
Within weeks of the Ramsgate dinner, William IV, objecting to the Irish Church policy of Melbourne’s Whig government, dismissed it, and turned to the Tories. Since Peel was on holiday in Italy, Wellington was temporarily vested, on 17 November, with all the major offices of state. He subsequently referred, laughingly, to his brief dictatorship. But it was poor politics, reviving memories of 1832, alienating moderates, and allowing his opponents to say that, ‘With unparalleled foolhardiness, the Duke of Wellington still continues to hold, alone, the reins of Government. He is himself the Cabinet.’343 Though Peel’s minority government gained seats in the January 1835 election, it was ousted in April. But the episode did not damage Wellington’s reputation with the faithful. Lieutenant-Colonel George Gawler was fresh from controversy in arguing the case for the decisive intervention of his beloved 52nd in 1815. He told South Derbyshire Conservatives during the election that the Duke had been unfairly maligned and that, ‘Englishmen at Waterloo defended the cause of Established Constitutions against the attacks of French democracy. You are now doing the same.’344
The events of 1834–1835 galvanised, if only for a while, the organisation of constituency associations. In these too, unsurprisingly, the rhetoric of Wellington and Waterloo was abundant. Somerset Tories, in particular, could hardly be accused of subtlety: they staged a grand gathering on 18 June 1835 in Wellington. Four years later, as their cause gained strength, they assembled again in Bridgwater’s Royal Clarence Hotel to reward their agent, Ruscombe Poole, for his efforts on behalf of Peel’s Conservative Party: Mr Poole was presented with a silver statue of Wellington on Copenhagen at Waterloo. Some 2,500 attended a dinner of the London Conservative Association in June 1837 where Sir Henry Hardinge, Wellington’s liaison officer with the Prussians in 1815, was amongst the speakers. Their Glasgow counterparts established a Wellington Society in 1839.345
The Wellington and Waterloo rhetoric persisted down to the election of 1841. Rumours that Parliament would be dissolved on Waterloo Day [in the event, 23 June], were seen as ‘an omen of victory for the Duke of Wellington’s party’. Sir J. Hamilton, standing for Marylebone, told a meeting called on 18 June that, ‘He might attribute much of the reception which he and his colleague had met with to their proffering those principles which were cherished by the illustrious Wellington.’ And in a speech at a celebratory dinner to Peel as incoming prime minister in his own Tamworth constituency, W. S. Dugdale MP chose to reflect over the previous decade with a suitably Wellingtonian metaphor:
[The] conduct of his right honourable friend in his political tactics assimilated, in a great degree to the tactics of the duke […] in his Peninsula campaigns. (Cheers.) Their right hon. friend commenced as commander of a very small company. (Cheers.) He entrenched himself, however, in the lines of the British Constitution. (Cheers.) That small company by degrees increased under his fostering care. (Cheers.) He sallied forth from his outposts – gained victory after victory (cheers), and, at length, attacked the enemy with his whole line (cheers) as did the Duke of Wellington at the close of the battle of Waterloo.346
The foregoing examples provide ample evidence that the Duke was seen as a partisan figure; too many historians have been inclined to accept Greville’s – and Wellington’s own – assessment that ‘with reference to mere party tactics, it is to his praise that he is generally “too fond of the right to pursue the expedient”’. In truth, the Wellington of the 1830s was a complex character finding his way in a new political landscape. Before 1830 he had never been a member of, what was for him an alien concept, His Majesty’s Opposition. But he knew that he was anti-Whig. He also disliked Grey, a critic of his from Peninsular War days, and Whig Prime Minister from 1830. When Grey retired in 1834, the Duke paid him an indifferent parliamentary tribute ‘and some one observed that “he would not have made so bad and so heartless a speech even to gain a battle of Waterloo”’.347 Grey’s cardinal sin had been to preside over, what Wellington never really ceased to believe, was a revolution in the shape of the Reform Act.348 His successor, Melbourne, was personally more acceptable to the Duke, but his party was not. In September 1839 Wellington:
spoke of his great alarm and anxiety at the danger from the present Ministry, leagued as they are with the worst enemies of the State. He compared them to the case of a servant left in charge of a house, but in confederacy with the gang that wished to rob and burn it.
He thus stayed silent when the government was assailed over the New Poor Law in 1836, even though he had backed ‘the original measure very frankly’. And he was foremost in leading the attack on the ministry in Jul
y 1839 following riots in Birmingham, ‘an outrage such as never happened, to my knowledge, in any siege that I have been present at’.349 The disturbances, he asserted, were the consequence of the government’s having sanctioned the appointment of unfit persons to act as magistrates in the town. He used his own position as Lord Lieutenant of Hampshire to ensure that Conservatives enjoyed an overwhelming preponderance on the county’s bench. It prompted a letter to the Morning Chronicle, accusing him, with some reason, of ‘political epicurism’ and ‘unjustifiable partiality’.350
But Wellington’s reputation for being more than simply a party politician did have substance to it. He persuaded Conservatives to support the government on a range of domestic and foreign policy issues. In the later 1830s he was being referred to, albeit with suitably ambivalent Cromwellian overtones by some, as the ‘Lord Protector of the Government’. Such a course was usually interpreted as being actuated by noble self-sacrifice on his part. As Anglesey put it, somewhat out of place at the 1838 Waterloo dinner, he supported ‘a Government in which it was well known he placed no confidence, because he thought that the national honour and interest required that they should be supported’. The Whig-supporting Caledonian Mercury judged, in 1838, that Wellington’s ‘character at this moment stands higher among his political opponents than among those who profess to be his supporters’.351
In reality, Wellington was motivated more by self-interest than altruism. Since he did not think that the Conservatives could win the support of a majority of the post–1832 electorate, he discounted the possibility of a Conservative government. But neither did he want to see a constitutional showdown between the Reformer-controlled Commons and the Tory-dominated Lords. For both reasons, Conservatives needed sometimes to be restrained. In so doing, Aberdeen believed, in 1840, that Wellington had never ‘rendered greater service in his whole life than he had done this session in moderating violence and keeping his own party together and in order’.352 Coming from the elder brother of the Colonel Alexander Gordon killed at Waterloo, this was no small compliment. To Wellington, though, his course was pragmatic common sense. He did not like the Whigs, but as the lesser of evils they needed to be saved from themselves. The alternative was more Radical legislation, anarchy and ultimately, as the long shadow of French history informed him, dictatorship. The 1830s might be seen as a rearguard in defence of the hegemony of the old order no less successful than that which he had conducted in 1815.
Wellington suffered a serious stroke at Walmer Castle in November 1839. It was widely presumed that this marked the end of his active life. He was after all, 70, what the Morning Post described delicately as ‘the date assigned by Heaven’. Less delicately, sensing that this might be a good time to publish, at least six new lives of Wellington appeared in 1840. The cabinet discussed plans for his funeral. Had the Duke died at this time, he would have done so with his reputation safely restored. In 1838, some 2,000 people had attended his ball in celebration of Queen Victoria’s coronation. They included his political opponents and an erstwhile military one, Marshal Soult. No other Briton could even begin to have thought about holding such an event.353 But it was not simply the combination of Wellington’s age and ill-health that prompted the media to be so notably fascinated and deferential towards him at this juncture. There was also increased interest in Wellington the man. He was revealed as a generous paternal landlord, distributing food and clothing to the poor on his Stratfield Saye estate. There was mention, too, of the iron bedstead he had had with him during the Peninsular War, and which he still used when staying at Walmer Castle. The year of 1840 also prompted reflection because it marked a quarter century since Waterloo, the more poignant because the same year brought fears that war with France might erupt once more, this time over the Eastern Question. As in 1832, however, the obituarists were premature, for as was ruefully remarked, ‘the brave Duke, by unexpected renovation of health and activity, so unreasonably deluded the speculation of our bibliophist neighbours’.354
One further reason why interest in Wellington increased during the late 1830s, to the advantage of his reputation, was the appearance in print of his despatches. The driving force behind this was John Gurwood, who had distinguished himself at Ciudad Rodrigo in 1812. Already, in 1832–1833, with the Duke’s blessing, he had edited two well-received volumes, General Orders, 1809–15.355 The prospect of editing his hero’s despatches was a logical grand sequel. Gurwood was also keen to correct what he saw as the untruths in Sir William Napier’s monumental History of the War in the Peninsula, the first volume of which had appeared in 1828. In January 1833, he duly proposed ‘the project of making His Grace write his own history, in the publication of his letters and dispatches, by which the present age and posterity would be enabled to form a less erroneous judgement of his wonderful career’.356
Wellington was initially unconvinced. It was not usual for official papers to appear as printed editions. He was against the inclusion of any previously unpublished material. For fear they would prove tendentious, he likewise vetoed Gurwood’s planned commentaries. He also insisted that ‘some proper names […] must be suppressed’. What appeared would be a simple compilation of his memoranda, despatches, and correspondence. These, however, must be uncensored. As he explained to Chad, when reviewing a letter he had written about wanting French prisoners to be well-treated, ‘my only motive was the hope of reciprocity – I ought to have said, my only motive besides humanity […] but I won’t put it in – I won’t alter a word – as they were written, so let them be printed’.357 The first volume duly appeared in July 1834. The thirteenth and last, an index, was published in 1839. A revised eight-volume edition appeared from 1844–1847. There were also two volumes of Selections in 1841. They, at least, became a staple of many early-Victorian libraries.
The Despatches were not received without criticism: cost (£12 10s), the scarcity of notes and the Duke’s imperfect French being the more salient. There was also substance in the Morning Chronicle’s complaint that, ‘We cannot say that they are always very sublime or vastly amusing.’ The volumes also provided plenty of ammunition to those looking for evidence that Wellington was ungenerous, critical no less of his officers and men than of his political masters. Radical critics seized particularly on a letter of 1 August 1800. In it he related how, when in India, ‘I have taken and destroyed Doondiah’s baggage and six guns, and driven into the Malpurba (where they were drowned) about five thousand people.’ The Chartist Circular called him, in consequence, ‘the cold-blooded unfeeling monster’.358 In general, however, the critical reception afforded the Despatches was overwhelmingly favourable. The Blackburn Standard declared that ‘it is impossible not to be struck with the extraordinary vigour of mind and energy of expression by which they are characterised’. What made them unique were the insights they provided into the reality of command. They:
first made the public acquainted with the enormous amount of labour thrown upon the hands of a general commanding an army in the field. The popular notion was, that he had but to fight the enemy, whereas, it would seem, that in comparison with the multitudinous details of organisation, means of transport, the supply of provisions, the necessity of continually stimulating the home Government to exertion, and checking its ardour for jobbing and patronage, and the preserving good will among the officers and discipline in the army itself, the mere winning of victories was an easy matter.359
Gurwood’s endeavours finally gave the lie to Wellington’s private complaint that ‘it had always been his fate to be considered an ignorant fellow’. A long-standing antagonist, Lord Grey, admitted, if only in private, that, ‘I have no hesitation in expressing my conviction, that in every circumstance of public life the Duke of Wellington is the greatest man that ever lived.’360
It was, inevitably, the twelfth volume of Despatches, covering the Waterloo campaign, published in 1838, which occasioned greatest public interest. The period from Wellington’s writing on 12 March in Vienna about Napoleon’s
escape from Elba to the eve of Waterloo alone occupied over 200 pages. From those, any reader could divine that he was initially unhappy with some of the senior appointments foisted upon him and with the quality of his army, but also that he remained reasonably confident that allied forces would ultimately prevail. Most people, however, presumably read only those letters that were reproduced in the press. These were highly untypical of the Despatches as a whole, since they tended to be drawn from the few items of the Duke’s personal correspondence which appeared in the volumes. By far the most common letters drawn upon by newspapers were those Wellington wrote reflecting on the titanic nature of the battle and his feelings of revulsion at its horror. His letters to FitzRoy Somerset’s father expressing distress at his having lost an arm and to Lord Aberdeen on the loss of his brother, Colonel Gordon, were also frequently quoted. They were hardly, except possibly to a new generation of readers, unfamiliar. This was not so true of another letter much cited, that of 28 June 1815 to Sir Charles Stuart, in which Wellington emphatically disassociated himself from any attempt to have Napoleon summarily executed. As commentators pointed out, this was in stark contrast to Napoleon’s bequeathing 10,000 francs in his will to Cantillon, Wellington’s would-be assassin of 1818.361
Wellington’s despatches down to 1815 had been seminal in creating his reputation. Published in full during the 1830s, they played their part in burnishing it anew. The Waterloo material, especially, suggested, as had been claimed by his parliamentary advocates during the Peninsular War, that the great and apparently austere commander was also a humane man. Thomas Raikes was not alone in thinking that Gurwood’s work would ‘place his name above all conception in public opinion, not only as a great captain, which was known before, but as a statesman, a gentleman, and a man of humanity and kindness’.362