1 May: The Duke of Wellington

Today was the birthday of Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington. 10 things you might not know about him:

1. There is some doubt as to whether his birthday was actually the first of May. Written records of the time, and the family nursemaid, all gave different dates. However, his mother, Anne, insisted he was born on 1 May and she should know. Wellington took her word for it and celebrated his birthday on this date. He was born in Dublin, to an aristocratic Irish family. His father, Garret, was the first earl of Mornington while his mother, Anne, was the eldest daughter of Arthur Hill, first Viscount Dungannon.
2. As a child he was socially awkward and not a good scholar. The only thing he seemed to be any good at was playing the Violin. His mother despaired of him. Nevertheless, he was sent to Eton at 12. However, since his father had died, the family finances weren't great and in due course he was taken out of the school so that a younger brother with more intellectual promise, could take his place. A career in the military seemed the only option for a seemingly unpromising young man.
3. At first, most of the jobs he secured in the military were down to the influence and wealth of one of his brothers, becoming, in due course, the commanding officer of the 33rd Foot, which was as far as he could get with his brother's help. After this, he was on his own. In 1794 the 33rd Foot was sent to the Netherlands and he fought the French for the first time. The British lost on that occasion, but Wellington had learned by experience how not to command an army.
4. After that, he spent some time in India, and spent his time there studying military history. He was promoted to the rank of major general and 1803 saw his first major victory. Facing an enemy force much greater than the 7,000 at his disposal, he won a desperate battle at Assaye, a small village in western India. He wouldn't have lived to see the Battle of Waterloo were it not for an attack of Delhi Belly. In 1801 he received orders to go to Egypt and fight the French, but crippling diarrhoea, a severe fever, and a painful skin condition caused by parasites meant he was too ill to go. The ship he would have travelled on sank in the Red Sea with no survivors.
5. When he left India in 1805 it took him six months to get home. He spent a month on the remote South Atlantic island of Saint Helena, quite possibly lodging in the same building in which Napoleon would later spend his exile.
6. His wife was Catherine "Kitty" Pakenham, daughter of the Second Baron Longford. When he first proposed to her as a young man, her family said no, because it was at the time when he had no prospect of a title, being a third son, and no prospects of a good job, either. Being accomplished on the violin didn't cut it with her father. It's said he was so upset at the refusal that he went home and burned his violin, and never played it again. On his return from India, he met up with her again and proposed again, even though she had changed from the girl he'd proposed to years before and he was no longer so sure she was "The One". It's thought he felt some obligation to marry her. They had two sons, but lived separate lives and he had very public affairs.
7. In January 1812 he led troops from Portugal into Spain, fighting the French, and got as far as Salamanca where they seemed to reach a stalemate. The story goes that one day, Wellington was eating his lunch, a chicken leg, while keeping an eye on the French army through a spyglass. He noticed a gap in the French defences where they'd overextended, threw the drumstick in the air and shouted "Les Français sont perdus!" ("The French are lost!"). Later, when the news arrived of Napoleon's abdication Wellington broke into an impromptu flamenco dance, spinning around on his heels and clicking his fingers. This was a rare display of emotion from a man who usually showed hardly any emotion at all. It was after this victory that he gained the title of Duke of Wellington and moved to Paris as ambassador to France, and even took up with some of Napoleon's former mistresses. Wellington was attending a ball held by the Duchess of Richmond, and just sitting down to eat when the news reached him that Napoleon had escaped exile. "Napoleon has humbugged me, by God," he exclaimed. Early next morning he left for the front. The rest, as they say, is history.
8. On his return from the Battle of Waterloo, he turned to a political career and in due course became prime minister. However, he soon learned that leading a bunch of MPs and running a country was somewhat different from leading an army. He couldn't, for example, beat dissenters into submission with a cat o' nine tails as he could with errant soldiers. He fell out with many over the Roman Catholic Relief Act. He even fought a duel with one political opponent, the Earl of Winchilsea on Battersea Fields. Both survived. Eventually, however, Wellington was forced to resign.
9. He was a strict disciplinarian when commanding an army and appeared to hold contradictory views on the men he commanded. On the one hand, he described them as "scum" but would also describe them as the tools he needed to win battles and lauded their achievements. It may have been that he knew many had joined up because they had no choice and as new recruits, would be entirely useless, but with with discipline and experience, they could become a fearsome army. While he ruled his men with an iron fist, he was also known to show sympathy and care, like when he gave up his bed for a wounded man who was dying. Legend has it that he once went to the aid of a wounded soldier named Tommy Atkins, who said, “It’s all right sir. It’s all in a day’s work”, and later died of his injuries. This gave rise to the nickname of "Tommies" for British soldiers.
10. In later life he was a friend and advisor to Queen Victoria. He was godfather to her second son, who was born on 1 May 1850 and was also named Arthur, after him. When advising her about what to do about the flocks of Sparrows flying around inside Crystal Palace, his advice was typically pithy, concise and to the point - "Sparrowhawks, ma'am".

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