Wellington: The Iron Duke Unmasked


Wellington: The Iron Duke Unmasked

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The Duke of Wellington was the most famous Briton of the first half of the 19th century.

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His victory over Napoleon at Waterloo in 1815

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altered the course of history.

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Waterloo, together with Trafalgar,

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give Britain 100 years of domination. Britain becomes THE superpower.

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Steely-eyed, lantern-jawed, for later generations

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he came to embody the very essence of Britishness.

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This one, I think, of Wellington is excellent.

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You can see the determination.

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You can see the Iron Duke.

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But real men are not made of iron.

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My heart is broken.

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Next to a battle lost,

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the greatest misery is a battle gained.

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He's not just the stiff upper lip.

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He's got all the sort of characteristics of someone

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who's really quite complicated inside.

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This is an intimate portrait of a hero,

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seen through the eyes of those who knew him best -

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the women he slept with...

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"I am glad to see you are looking so beautiful," says he.

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"May I pay you a visit?"

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"When you like", say I.

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..the intelligent, insightful women he chose to spend his time with...

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He wishes to be the universal man.

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It is incredible how his pride has a share has everything that he does.

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..and through the eyes of the woman he was married to.

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For your own dear sake, for Christ's sake,

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do not use another woman as you have treated me.

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General, politician, lover, wit, outsider -

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the hero of Waterloo was far more complex than the public image,

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and there was no more brutal observer of his inner drama than Wellington himself.

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Would you believe that anybody could have been such a damned fool?

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Drawing on his own vast, private correspondence,

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as well as the diaries and memoirs of those around him,

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this is the story of the flesh-and-blood human being

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behind the iron mask.

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In September 1805, the 36-year-old Arthur Wellesley,

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as the future Duke of Wellington was then known,

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arrived back in Britain from India.

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The younger son of an Irish aristocratic family,

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he'd spent the previous nine years fighting to expand the British Empire.

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He came back from India very, very changed.

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He went out as a very junior, very inexperienced officer.

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He came back as Major General Sir Arthur Wellesley, KB -

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Knight of the Bath.

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He's become a man in India.

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He's become a real soldier.

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I think he came back from India a very confident,

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almost arrogant figure.

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Arthur Wellesley's victories in India

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had established his reputation.

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They had also made his fortune in booty seized from Indian princes.

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He left behind a few debts to his tailor and that sort of thing.

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And he came back with £40,000

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which is, in those days, you know,

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quite a reasonable amount of money.

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A huge sum of money,

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and given that he was a relatively penniless younger son

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of an aristocratic family,

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all of a sudden he's got serious private means.

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Arthur Wellesley was now on a personal mission.

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When he comes back from India, he basically says that he's come back

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for one reason alone, and that is to marry - and to marry Kitty Pakenham.

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Like Arthur himself,

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Kitty Pakenham was a member of the Anglo-Irish Protestant aristocracy.

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He had originally proposed to her before going to India,

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but was rejected by her family.

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He proposed not once but twice in the 1790s

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to a not particularly distinguished family,

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no more distinguished than his own family in Ireland,

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and both times he'd been turned down as effectively not good enough.

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He gets not only a wounding refusal,

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but a set of comments on his lifestyle.

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"Well, you're a young, impecunious cavalry officer,

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"you haven't got much prospects."

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That must have really hurt.

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and I think that's a major motivation in his coming back

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and of vindicating himself. "Here I am, now I'm a general.

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"Now I've got plaudits. Now I've got money. What do you think now?"

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But 12 long years had passed.

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Kitty was now entering middle age,

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painfully aware she was no longer the young beauty

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Arthur Wellesley had left behind, as she wrote to a friend.

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I am very much changed

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within these last three years, and you know it.

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So much that I doubt whether it would be in my power

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to contribute to the comfort or happiness

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of anybody who has not been in the habit of loving me for years.

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I think Arthur was still in love with the Kitty that he remembered.

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He's clearly got this picture in his mind of this very pretty,

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lively young girl he last saw when she was 21, 22.

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Sensibly, Kitty had suggested they take time to become reacquainted.

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"No need," Arthur replied,

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and responded by brusquely proposing marriage.

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Kitty accepted.

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He's convinced it will be as it was before.

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So, he doesn't go and see her.

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KNOCK AT DOOR

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And the first time he sees her is a few days before

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they actually get married, in April 1806.

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According to one account,

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Arthur later confided his initial reaction to his brother.

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'She's grown damned ugly, by Jove.'

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The wedding nevertheless went ahead just a few days later.

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It was a dreadful situation.

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Out of perhaps pique,

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he'd married the girl he was refused a few years earlier.

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He married her, and then he found that she was, for his purposes,

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far too inadequate, far too small for him, in a way.

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He's grown in confidence enormously while he's been in India,

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and hers seems to have drained away.

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I wouldn't say that it took long for them to find out

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they didn't have much in common.

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Soon afterwards, Arthur was made Chief Secretary for Ireland

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in a Tory government.

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The couple moved into the secretary's official residence

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in Phoenix Park, Dublin.

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Kitty, who came from a large, affectionate family,

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was delighted to be close to home.

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Arthur's memories of childhood were very different.

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Kitty's family, the Pakenhams, were a very warm, loving family.

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And I think that warmth was something that was

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entirely missing from Arthur's upbringing.

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His father died when he was very young, he was only 12.

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And his mother, left on her own with the children,

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I think, really regarded Arthur as sort of rather tiresome.

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He was the middle son, didn't seem to be good at anything.

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Arthur also felt little sentimentality

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towards the land of his birth.

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Because a man is born in a stable, that does not make him a horse.

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Whether Arthur ever uttered this famous put-down is disputed,

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but it summed up his attitude.

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For him, Ireland, like India, was a colony - a volatile, unstable one.

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I think Arthur was very much an Irishman of the rather

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embattled Anglo-Irish Protestant descendancy.

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Ireland had suffered a terrible civil war in 1798,

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a bloody rebellion, bloodily repressed.

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And that gives him, I think, a horror, a fear of the mob,

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and this is what makes him, I think, such a political reactionary.

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I lay it down as decided that Ireland, in a view to military operations,

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must be considered as an enemy's country.

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No political measure would alter the temper of the people of this country.

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They are disaffected to the British Government.

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Arthur's Irish aristocratic background would

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shape his political outlook throughout his life, making him

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simultaneously an outsider, and a staunch Conservative.

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And if Ireland tried his patience, so did his wife.

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Left to run the household, Kitty struggled.

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Kitty had never run a household, never lived on her own,

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never had any money of her own. She was 33.

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She didn't have any idea, really, how to be

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the counterpart in this marriage to this efficient man.

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He gave her money, gave her an allowance,

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and she quite often used that allowance not for paying

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the household expenses, which is what was the intention,

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but to support impoverished members of her family or impoverished friends.

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I believe I may have given away money very injudiciously,

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perhaps sometimes, often,

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to spare myself the pain of refusing.

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When the Duke found that out, he was indeed very annoyed.

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He just felt that that was deceitful of her, and irresponsible.

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I am much concerned that you should have

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thought of concealing from me any lack of money.

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The conclusion I draw from your conduct is that you must be mad,

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and that you must consider me a brute.

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Once and for all, you require no permission to talk to me

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about any subject you please.

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All I request is that a piece of work may not be made about trifles.

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And you may not go into tears, because I don't think them deserving

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of an uncommon degree of attention.

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He found out, was absolutely furious.

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It wasn't really so much that she'd bailed out her brother he minded,

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but it was the way that she'd concealed it from him.

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And this was to be a bit of a pattern in their marriage, I'm afraid.

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She was frightened of him. She was frightened of him.

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With brisk efficiency, Arthur quickly fathered two sons.

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The first, named after himself, born in 1807,

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the second, Charles, born in 1808.

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But it was soon clear he had a wandering eye.

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HORSES APPROACH

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CARRIAGE DOOR OPENS AND CLOSES

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A high-class courtesan called Harriette Wilson would later reveal

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she had an affair with Arthur during this period.

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She described his somewhat unsubtle seduction technique.

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He bowed, and said, "How do you do?" then wanted to take hold of my hand.

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"Really," said I, withdrawing my hand.

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"For such a renowned hero, you have very little to say for yourself.

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"I understood you came here to try and make yourself agreeable."

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"What, child?" said he. "Do you think that I have nothing better to do

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"than to make speeches to please ladies?"

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"This is indeed very uphill work," thought I.

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He wore a broad red ribbon

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and looked very like a rat catcher.

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I think there can be little doubt that he had visited

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Harriette Wilson in her professional capacity.

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I think there can be little doubt about that!

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He liked women.

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He liked women a lot.

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He's a bit of a Regency dandy, really.

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He was a sexually very active man,

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a man of his cast and a man of his time.

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It's likely Arthur Wellesley already had two illegitimate sons

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at the time he was married.

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And throughout his life, he would display

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an 18th-century aristocrat's attitude to sex.

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But in 1808, his real yearning was to return to the battlefield.

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Almost the whole of Europe at this point was under

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the sway of the French emperor, Napoleon Bonaparte.

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His Revolutionary Armies had driven the British from the Continent

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and defeated the other major powers.

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It was a moment of national peril, similar to 1940.

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Pretty much all the other allies,

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that is, the key allies - Russia, Austria and Prussia -

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had been knocked out of the war.

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Only Britain really is still in the ring against Napoleon.

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Then, in 1808, there was an uprising against French rule in Spain.

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For the British, it provided an opportunity.

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And for the ambitious, restless Arthur Wellesley,

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a chance to escape the desk job.

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Wellesley was dispatched with a small army to assist the Spanish.

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He would spend five years in the Iberian Peninsula

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without once returning home to see his family.

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While the cramped confines of his marriage magnified Arthur's faults,

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the vast plains of Spain and Portugal provided the stage for his greatness.

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His modest headquarters on the Spanish-Portuguese border

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presented a stark contrast

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with the grand chateaux favoured by Napoleon,

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and the two men were very different commanders.

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Napoleon tended to consider his soldiers as a dispensable item.

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Wellington was very protective towards his soldiers,

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and the principal reason for that is that he never enjoyed

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the sort of resources in men or material that Napoleon had.

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Although bolstered by Spanish and Portuguese troops,

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he was often outnumbered, and never gave battle unless he had to.

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The mark of a great general is to know when to retreat,

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and have the courage to do it.

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Wellesley made sure his troops were well fed without stealing.

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He insisted on paying for everything.

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I think he'd seen what French armies did,

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and the anger and the hatred they left behind them,

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and he made sure, as far as possible, that his troops behaved well.

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Superb organisation,

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meticulous attention to detail,

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and a humane pragmatism -

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these were the hallmarks of his command.

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But for all the care he took of them, he was famously

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contemptuous of the men who served beneath him.

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The French system of conscription

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brings together a fair sample of all classes.

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Ours is composed of the scum of the earth,

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the mere scum of the earth. It is only wonderful

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that we should be able to make so much of them afterwards.

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Unlike Napoleon, he had no great emotional rapport with his men.

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The key word with Napoleon was glory, the wonder of being Emperor.

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"Vive L'Empereur!" And he would glow, and his troops would glow

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in this amazing relationship that they had with each other.

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Wellington was quite different.

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Wellington wanted his men to fear him and respect him.

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He wanted his men to do what he told them.

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He wanted them to be disciplined,

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he wanted them to obey his orders.

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That is the difference between the French and English soldier.

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With the French, glory is the cause.

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With us, the result.

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His men may not have loved him, but they trusted him.

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Through a succession of battles, he slowly moulded them

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into an unbeatable force.

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The French met their match.

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Because these red-coated soldiers just didn't move.

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They stood rooted to the spot, and that is, of course,

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something that the Grande Armee had never encountered before.

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By the summer of 1812, the British had driven the French into northern Spain.

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On July 22nd, they confronted a French army

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led by Marshal Auguste de Marmont outside the town of Salamanca.

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In the battle that followed, Wellesley would show that,

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although a cautious general,

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when required, he could display flair, initiative and daring.

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As dawn breaks on the 22nd, Marshal Marmont is standing here

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with one of his divisional commanders, on this very spot.

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He's looking at the hills behind me.

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Wellington has actually hidden the whole of his army

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behind that hill, but Marmont doesn't know that,

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and what Marmont sees in the far distance is dust. A lot of dust.

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This is Wellington's baggage train,

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but he perceives this to be Wellington's army

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continuing their westerly movement and not wanting to give battle.

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Thinking the British were retreating,

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Marmont dispatched a division in pursuit.

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Wellington's command post is on that hill

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in front of the village of Las Torres.

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And it's about 1500 hours when, purportedly,

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Wellington is watching what is going on to his front,

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when he realises that that division has over-extended itself.

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He realises this is his opportunity and in an instant,

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he reacts. Purportedly, he's chewing on a chicken bone at the time

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and he throws the chicken bone over his shoulder, shouting,

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"By God, that will do!" Marmont is dead. He's made a fatal mistake.

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He ordered his men to attack.

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The French were taken by surprise.

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In the words of one Frenchman,

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40,000 French soldiers are destroyed in 40 minutes.

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Salamanca helped establish Wellesley's reputation

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as one of the greatest generals in Europe.

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He was exultant.

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I never saw an army get such a beating in so short a time.

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I am afraid to state the extent of the enemy's loss.

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What havoc in little more than four hours!

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The people of Salamanca swear that my mother is a saint,

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and the daughter of a saint,

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to which circumstance, I owe all my good fortune!

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Kitty was now living in London.

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Her life could not have been more different.

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Raising their two sons alone,

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she kept a diary that revealed the tedium of her existence.

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My time, I am conscious, is terribly dawdled away.

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So uninteresting, so unvaried is my life

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that to keep a daily journal is almost impossible.

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And yet, by not doing so, I lose the pleasure of knowing

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how he and I were employed at the same time.

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She has this idea in her journal,

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a rather lovely idea, in fact, of writing a journal

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which will have her doings down one side and his down the other.

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But the very, very sad thing is that those journals...

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pretty much all of the right side is blank,

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because she rarely got letters from him. He never confided in her.

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He never told her what was going on.

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Kitty's diary has never been published.

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But it's still in the possession of the Wellington family.

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Her diaries are just really heart-breakingly sad.

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Or at least I find it heart-breaking,

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thinking of her as my great-great-great grandmother.

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At one point, she writes in her diary

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just three words, "Alone and sad".

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Alone and sad...

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I fear indolence is again creeping about me.

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I am fatigued by a regular course of insignificant operations

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and dissatisfied with myself when idle.

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I have nothing to say to this languid day.

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I am tired.

0:22:050:22:06

This unvaried life fatigues, but must be endured.

0:22:080:22:12

So, ends a melancholy year.

0:22:130:22:15

Heaven spare me from such another.

0:22:160:22:18

She has the look of a woman who's battling with depression.

0:22:200:22:24

The languor that seems to come over her, the very opposite of what Arthur is going through.

0:22:240:22:28

The vigour that he seems to find in the field of action.

0:22:280:22:32

She, left behind, just dwindles, really.

0:22:320:22:35

Only in her two sons did Kitty find distraction

0:22:380:22:41

from her darkest thoughts.

0:22:410:22:43

My darling children,

0:22:450:22:47

may no degree of suffering tempt me

0:22:470:22:50

to forget my duty to you.

0:22:500:22:51

I little imagined the extent of my crime

0:22:530:22:55

when I so earnestly wished to die.

0:22:550:22:58

Her eldest, Arthur, he didn't remember his father,

0:23:010:23:05

but he was surrounded by busts or images of his father.

0:23:050:23:08

And there was one particular bust,

0:23:080:23:11

and he would go and rub the nose on the bust

0:23:110:23:14

and then he would sort of...touch his own nose.

0:23:140:23:18

And he would lament, he would say to his mother,

0:23:200:23:24

"My nose is such a time growing."

0:23:240:23:28

He wanted to be his father.

0:23:280:23:30

On October 7th, 1813, just a few months short

0:23:320:23:36

of his oldest son's seventh birthday,

0:23:360:23:39

Arthur Wellesley crossed the Bidasoa River into France.

0:23:390:23:43

A year earlier, Napoleon had been forced into his catastrophic

0:23:470:23:51

retreat from Moscow.

0:23:510:23:52

With British troops on French soil,

0:23:540:23:56

in the spring of 1814, he abdicated.

0:23:560:23:59

Wellesley had played a key role in his downfall.

0:24:010:24:04

Spain, in its way, though less spectacular,

0:24:070:24:09

I would submit, is as catastrophic

0:24:090:24:12

to the Napoleonic Empire as is Russia.

0:24:120:24:14

Something like a quarter of a million men

0:24:140:24:16

were held down in the Peninsula, who could have been fighting

0:24:160:24:19

in Central Europe because of Wellington's campaigns.

0:24:190:24:21

It was a vital element.

0:24:210:24:23

On May 3rd, 1814, Arthur Wellesley was made

0:24:240:24:28

Duke of Wellington by a grateful nation.

0:24:280:24:31

He entered Paris in triumph,

0:24:360:24:38

the saviour of Europe,

0:24:380:24:41

and quickly set about enjoying himself.

0:24:410:24:44

He was the most celebrated man, practically, in the world.

0:24:450:24:49

Every single woman in the land,

0:24:490:24:52

practically, was throwing themselves at his feet.

0:24:520:24:56

Did he have affairs? Yes, he had lots of affairs.

0:24:580:25:02

He was a bit naughty. I mean, he used his time in Paris

0:25:020:25:04

to have quite a bit of fun.

0:25:040:25:07

He rather prided himself on having a couple of mistresses

0:25:070:25:10

that Napoleon had had earlier on.

0:25:100:25:12

There's definitely something of the rutting stag going on here.

0:25:120:25:16

"I can prove that I'm more of a man than you

0:25:160:25:19

"because I'm going to take on all your old girlfriends."

0:25:190:25:22

One of Napoleon's mistresses that Wellington inherited

0:25:240:25:27

was the actress, Mademoiselle Georges.

0:25:270:25:31

His relationship with Mademoiselle Georges gives us the pleasing news

0:25:320:25:36

that when asked to compare, as lovers, Napoleon and Wellington,

0:25:360:25:40

that Wellington was very much the strongest and the best.

0:25:400:25:45

Wellington ran into an old acquaintance

0:25:470:25:49

while riding down the Champs-Elysees one day.

0:25:490:25:52

He quickly rekindled the friendship.

0:25:520:25:55

"I am glad to see you are looking so beautiful," says he. "May I pay you a visit?"

0:25:550:26:00

"When you like," say I. "I'll come tonight at eight o'clock."

0:26:000:26:05

His Lordship was punctual and came to me in a very gay equipage.

0:26:050:26:09

He was all over orders and ribbons of different colours, bows,

0:26:090:26:12

and stars, and he looked pretty well.

0:26:120:26:16

He kissed me by main force.

0:26:160:26:18

Wellington was made British ambassador and took up residence

0:26:230:26:26

in a house that had once belonged to Napoleon's sister.

0:26:260:26:29

He invited his wife Kitty to join him.

0:26:340:26:36

But Wellington's open philandering made hers a humiliating position.

0:26:390:26:44

He was perfectly prepared to almost insult his wife

0:26:460:26:49

by taking her to Paris and behaving very poorly even when she was there.

0:26:490:26:55

Friends of Wellington said, "You really shouldn't

0:26:550:26:57

"behave like that, it's a terrible thing to do to your wife."

0:26:570:27:00

He was extraordinarily insensitive to that,

0:27:000:27:03

more almost disdainful of his wife Kitty.

0:27:030:27:07

Was he cruel to her?

0:27:070:27:09

I think probably one would have to admit

0:27:090:27:13

that he had on occasions

0:27:130:27:15

been cruel to her.

0:27:150:27:17

Maybe many husbands have been guilty of this

0:27:170:27:20

over generations and centuries.

0:27:200:27:22

At this time, Wellington began to gather around him

0:27:260:27:29

a veritable harem of beautiful, aristocratic ladies,

0:27:290:27:33

far younger than himself,

0:27:330:27:35

united in their adoration of the great hero.

0:27:350:27:39

One of the best known was Lady Frances Shelley.

0:27:410:27:43

Wellington condescends to converse with me as a friend!

0:27:460:27:50

I hope my head won't be turned.

0:27:500:27:53

The other night, when the Duke was taking care of me after the opera,

0:27:530:27:57

the crowd made a way for us with the greatest respect.

0:27:570:28:01

The Duke turned towards me, and said in the gayest tone,

0:28:010:28:05

"It's a fine thing to be a great man, is it not?"

0:28:050:28:10

Equally devoted was political hostess Harriet Arbuthnot,

0:28:130:28:17

the wife of a close friend of Wellington's.

0:28:170:28:20

It is quite refreshing to be in constant

0:28:230:28:25

and habitual intercourse with a mind so enlightened,

0:28:250:28:29

so superior as his is, which is familiar with every subject

0:28:290:28:33

and which, at the same time, can find amusement in the most

0:28:330:28:36

ordinary occupations of life.

0:28:360:28:38

May God preserve him to us!

0:28:390:28:41

Intriguingly, it's likely that many of these relationships

0:28:430:28:47

were not sexual.

0:28:470:28:48

Curious man. A very curious man.

0:28:500:28:53

This incredibly powerful character,

0:28:530:28:55

who I think has an ambivalence about his relationship with women.

0:28:550:28:58

Some women are just there to be made love to and chucked aside,

0:28:580:29:03

and others are there to be friendly with and to be able to come out

0:29:030:29:07

with your inner thoughts and share deep, emotional feelings with.

0:29:070:29:11

I'm very struck by how important his friendships

0:29:120:29:16

with women were to him.

0:29:160:29:19

Women whose intellect he respected, he treated them

0:29:190:29:24

in a sense, as his equal. And I think that is quite unusual.

0:29:240:29:28

I mean, of course, the poor Kitty -

0:29:280:29:31

that was one of the problems.

0:29:310:29:33

She was lacking in confidence,

0:29:330:29:35

she wasn't that well informed about world affairs.

0:29:350:29:39

She was exactly the opposite of the sort of woman

0:29:390:29:42

whose company he enjoyed.

0:29:420:29:44

But Wellington's enjoyment of Paris

0:29:450:29:48

and the pleasure of female company was about to be rudely interrupted.

0:29:480:29:52

On February 26th, 1815,

0:29:570:30:00

Napoleon escaped from captivity on the island of Elba, off Italy.

0:30:000:30:05

Troops sent to arrest him,

0:30:070:30:09

joined him.

0:30:090:30:10

The newly restored French king fled.

0:30:100:30:13

Napoleon was back in power.

0:30:140:30:16

Wellington was in Vienna for the grand congress

0:30:190:30:21

that had been called to discuss the terms of the peace.

0:30:210:30:24

Once more, Europe turned to him

0:30:260:30:28

to lead the allied forces against Napoleon.

0:30:280:30:31

Wellington would now meet the French Emperor himself

0:30:330:30:36

on the field of battle for the first time.

0:30:360:30:39

The two armies met at Waterloo,

0:30:480:30:51

just outside Brussels, on June 18th, 1815.

0:30:510:30:55

For eight hours of savage hand-to-hand fighting,

0:30:580:31:02

the fate of Europe hung in the balance.

0:31:020:31:05

The present Duke retains an extraordinary memento

0:31:080:31:11

of that historic day.

0:31:110:31:12

A note, written by Wellington in the heat of the battle.

0:31:140:31:18

He sends this to Colonel MacDonald

0:31:190:31:22

in the Chateau d'Hougoumont,

0:31:220:31:24

which was an incredibly important position.

0:31:240:31:28

And he writes, sometime, I think, in the early afternoon,

0:31:280:31:31

"I see that the fire has communicated

0:31:310:31:35

"from the haystack to the roof of the chateau.

0:31:350:31:40

"You must, however, still keep your men in those parts

0:31:400:31:45

"to which the fire does not reach.

0:31:450:31:49

"Take care that no men are lost

0:31:490:31:53

"by the falling in of the roof or floors."

0:31:530:31:57

Incredible attention to detail, he'd obviously seen

0:31:570:32:00

with his telescope that roof of the chateau was on fire

0:32:000:32:04

and that, to me, completely embodies

0:32:040:32:09

the action during the battle.

0:32:090:32:11

The British managed to hold on to the chateau at Hougoumont.

0:32:130:32:17

But elsewhere on the battlefield, by early evening

0:32:180:32:22

they were facing defeat.

0:32:220:32:24

Then, at the last moment, Prussian reinforcements arrived.

0:32:260:32:30

The French were driven from the field.

0:32:310:32:34

Waterloo, together with Trafalgar,

0:32:350:32:38

give Britain 100 years of domination,

0:32:380:32:41

Britain becomes THE superpower.

0:32:410:32:44

This was the moment when Europe embarked on

0:32:440:32:47

100 years of virtual Continent-wide peace

0:32:470:32:51

because of the finality and totality of the victory at Waterloo -

0:32:510:32:55

terribly important.

0:32:550:32:56

But the victory came at a price.

0:32:580:33:01

The British and their allies

0:33:010:33:03

lost more than 22,000 men, dead and wounded.

0:33:030:33:07

Not for the first time after a battle,

0:33:070:33:10

the Iron Duke was traumatised.

0:33:100:33:12

While in the thick of it,

0:33:140:33:17

I am too occupied to feel anything,

0:33:170:33:20

but it is wretched just after.

0:33:200:33:22

It is impossible to think of glory.

0:33:240:33:26

Both mind and feelings are exhausted.

0:33:260:33:29

Next to a battle lost,

0:33:310:33:33

the greatest misery

0:33:330:33:35

is a battle gained.

0:33:350:33:37

Wellington would never fight another battle.

0:33:410:33:44

On returning to England, the Duke bought Apsley House in London

0:33:500:33:54

with the money awarded to him by a grateful nation.

0:33:540:33:57

In the foyer, he placed a large statue of the youthful Napoleon

0:34:000:34:03

that he had acquired in Paris.

0:34:030:34:06

The French were later outraged to discover

0:34:060:34:09

he was using it as a hat stand.

0:34:090:34:11

It would have been easy for Wellington to retire

0:34:180:34:21

from public life and enjoy the wealth and acclaim

0:34:210:34:23

his victories had bought him.

0:34:230:34:25

But he didn't.

0:34:280:34:30

I can't imagine that he would've,

0:34:320:34:34

for a moment, contemplated retirement.

0:34:340:34:37

He felt an overwhelming duty to perform public service.

0:34:370:34:42

Not yet 50, the Duke entered the murky world of politics,

0:34:430:34:48

joining the Tory government as Master of the Ordnance,

0:34:480:34:51

a senior military post with Cabinet rank.

0:34:510:34:54

He'd stepped down from his pedestal

0:34:560:34:59

and his vigorous sexual appetite quickly became a target

0:34:590:35:03

for Britain's robust tradition of satire and caricature.

0:35:030:35:07

'What a spanker! I hope he won't fire it at me!'

0:35:070:35:11

'It can't do any harm. He has fired it so often it is nearly worn out.'

0:35:120:35:16

At this time, he acquired a new female admirer -

0:35:190:35:22

Princess Lieven, the wife of the Russian Ambassador in London.

0:35:220:35:26

More combative than many of his other lady friends,

0:35:280:35:31

she would display a shrewd, insightful understanding

0:35:310:35:35

of the Duke's complex psychology.

0:35:350:35:37

He wishes to be the universal man.

0:35:400:35:43

It is incredible how his pride has a share in everything that he does.

0:35:430:35:47

It plunges him into despair not to be able

0:35:490:35:52

to do something or to do it badly.

0:35:520:35:54

It is a strange vanity.

0:35:550:35:57

Like Churchill 130 years later,

0:35:590:36:02

Wellington now found himself fighting a very different battle,

0:36:020:36:06

one for which his talents were less obviously suited.

0:36:060:36:10

He was returning to a country transformed

0:36:150:36:17

since his youth by the Industrial Revolution,

0:36:170:36:20

presenting a profound challenge

0:36:200:36:23

to his conservative outlook.

0:36:230:36:24

What you have is a society which is becoming increasingly urban.

0:36:250:36:30

Britain is no longer a predominantly agricultural country.

0:36:300:36:34

There's a tension here for Wellington in that he continues

0:36:360:36:42

to believe in the right, the duty and the obligation of landowners

0:36:420:36:47

to exercise dominant political influence. That never changed.

0:36:470:36:51

As Britain industrialised,

0:36:530:36:55

there were growing demands for an extension of the right to vote,

0:36:550:36:58

limited, at that time, to a small proportion of the population -

0:36:580:37:02

demands that had been fuelled by the experience of war.

0:37:020:37:06

If you can give a man arms and send him onto a battlefield,

0:37:070:37:11

why can't you give him a vote

0:37:110:37:12

and send him into the privacy of the ballot box?

0:37:120:37:16

That's the argument. You know, if a man can die for his country,

0:37:160:37:19

can't he have civil and political rights?

0:37:190:37:21

On 16th August, 1819, a crowd of around 70,000 gathered

0:37:280:37:33

at St Peter's Fields in Manchester to demand political reform.

0:37:330:37:37

Local magistrates called on the cavalry to arrest the speakers.

0:37:400:37:45

They charged the crowd, killing at least 11 people.

0:37:450:37:49

Among them, a veteran of Waterloo.

0:37:490:37:52

The massacre would become known as Peterloo, in ironic

0:37:570:38:01

remembrance of Wellington's famous victory four years earlier.

0:38:010:38:05

Wellington congratulated the magistrates in Manchester

0:38:070:38:10

on their actions.

0:38:100:38:12

Shaped by Ireland, scarred by memories of the French Revolution,

0:38:130:38:18

he had no sympathy with the radicals,

0:38:180:38:20

as he wrote to Harriet Arbuthnot.

0:38:200:38:22

It is very clear to me that they won't be quiet

0:38:220:38:25

till a large number of them "bite the dust", as the French say,

0:38:250:38:29

or till some of their leaders are hanged,

0:38:290:38:31

which would be a most fortunate result.

0:38:310:38:34

The following year, in 1820, government agents thwarted a plot,

0:38:410:38:46

known as the Cato Street Conspiracy, to murder the entire Cabinet.

0:38:460:38:50

Wellington's female admirers were horrified.

0:38:530:38:57

I have had such a fright about him and all those I love best

0:39:010:39:04

in the world, that I am now in a shake when I think about it.

0:39:040:39:08

How could such a plot be conceived against the Duke,

0:39:080:39:11

whom every English person ought to worship?

0:39:110:39:13

Wellington's own anger, though, was directed at his wife.

0:39:160:39:20

Strangely,

0:39:230:39:24

The Cato Street Conspiracy became

0:39:240:39:27

a reason for Wellington

0:39:270:39:29

finding fault with Kitty,

0:39:290:39:33

because one of the reasons that they used to justify

0:39:330:39:38

their actions was that he was so unkind to his wife.

0:39:380:39:43

And it absolutely infuriated him.

0:39:450:39:49

One thing he couldn't bear

0:39:490:39:52

is her confiding to others about any aspect of their life.

0:39:520:39:58

However he treated her, he expected her to be totally discreet.

0:39:590:40:03

Your whole family have complained of my conduct towards you

0:40:060:40:09

without reason. Your whole conduct is one of watching

0:40:090:40:13

and spying on me.

0:40:130:40:15

It really makes my life a burden to me.

0:40:150:40:17

If it goes on, I must live somewhere else.

0:40:170:40:20

It is the meanest, dirtiest trick of which anyone can be guilty.

0:40:210:40:25

By now, Kitty was spending most of her time at Stratfield Saye,

0:40:320:40:37

the country house in Hampshire

0:40:370:40:39

that Wellington had bought following the Battle of Waterloo.

0:40:390:40:43

She was distraught at what she regarded as unfounded allegations.

0:40:450:40:50

His letter provoked a rare outburst of anger.

0:40:500:40:53

I hope that I forgive you.

0:40:560:40:58

I would and I am sure I could have made you happy

0:40:580:41:01

had you suffered me to try,

0:41:010:41:04

but thrust from you, I was not allowed.

0:41:040:41:08

For God's - for your own dear sake - for Christ's sake,

0:41:080:41:12

do not use another woman as you have treated me.

0:41:120:41:15

Never write to a human being such letters.

0:41:150:41:18

They have destroyed me.

0:41:200:41:21

The couple now effectively lived separate lives,

0:41:250:41:27

Wellington staying mostly in London.

0:41:270:41:31

On the rare occasions he entertained in Stratfield Saye,

0:41:330:41:36

he had no hesitation in imposing his lady friends on Kitty.

0:41:360:41:40

I have been obliged to promise the Duke

0:41:430:41:46

to visit him in the country.

0:41:460:41:48

You have no idea how much it bores me.

0:41:480:41:51

So, it's always cold there and his wife is stupid.

0:41:510:41:55

What's to be done?

0:41:550:41:56

Homely and simple,

0:41:580:42:00

Kitty could not compete with the standards of fashionable London.

0:42:000:42:04

She is like the housekeeper and dresses herself

0:42:060:42:09

exactly like a shepherdess, with an old hat made by herself

0:42:090:42:13

stuck at the back of her head, and a dirty basket under her arm.

0:42:130:42:17

The Duke says he is sure she is mad!

0:42:170:42:19

She made his house so dull that nobody would go to it.

0:42:210:42:25

In 1822, Harriet Arbuthnot asked the Duke why he married Kitty.

0:42:250:42:30

Her diary entry for that day contains Wellington's only

0:42:320:42:35

recorded comments on what remains the central mystery of his life.

0:42:350:42:40

Would you believe that anybody could have been such a damned fool?

0:42:400:42:44

I was not the least in love with her.

0:42:440:42:47

I married her because they asked me to do it and I did not know myself.

0:42:470:42:51

I thought I should never care for anybody again

0:42:510:42:53

and that I should be with the Army.

0:42:530:42:56

In short, I was a fool.

0:42:560:42:58

I think Arthur really is rewriting history.

0:42:580:43:01

The truth is, if you look back to his letters of the period,

0:43:010:43:05

the letters of the time don't support the idea

0:43:050:43:08

that he was bumped into marriage.

0:43:080:43:11

They're all written by someone

0:43:110:43:13

absolutely in love in or in love with the idea of love, perhaps.

0:43:130:43:16

Observing Kitty at Stratfield Saye, Lady Shelley even mocked her

0:43:180:43:22

for her devotion to her two sons.

0:43:220:43:25

She was a slave of the boys when they came home for the holidays.

0:43:270:43:32

I have seen her carrying their fishing nets, their stumps,

0:43:320:43:35

their balls, their bats - apparently not perceiving how bad

0:43:350:43:39

it was for them to regard a woman, far less their mother,

0:43:390:43:43

as a simple drudge.

0:43:430:43:45

In consequence, her sons pitied, without respecting her.

0:43:450:43:49

It wasn't true. Kitty's two sons had always adored her.

0:43:530:43:58

It was their relationship with their father that was cold and distant.

0:43:580:44:02

By now the oldest, Arthur, was growing to manhood.

0:44:060:44:09

He later described his relationship

0:44:120:44:14

with the man whose title he would one day inherit.

0:44:140:44:17

My father never showed the least affection.

0:44:210:44:24

We were taught to go to his room first thing every morning

0:44:240:44:27

after we were dressed, and without interrupting his correspondence,

0:44:270:44:31

for we always found him writing, he would look up for a moment and say,

0:44:310:44:36

"Good morning." That was positively all the loving intercourse

0:44:360:44:41

that passed between us during the day.

0:44:410:44:43

In 1825, it looked briefly as if the Duke's philandering

0:44:480:44:52

and lack of interest in his own home and family

0:44:520:44:55

were about to catch up with him.

0:44:550:44:57

Wellington's old friend, the courtesan, Harriette Wilson,

0:44:590:45:02

had decided it was time to cash in.

0:45:020:45:05

She wrote a kiss-and-tell memoir, blackmailing a number

0:45:060:45:09

of her former clients to keep their names out of the book.

0:45:090:45:13

Legend has it the Duke responded with the famous words,

0:45:140:45:18

"Publish and be damned."

0:45:180:45:21

He was not prepared in any way to be blackmailed.

0:45:210:45:25

I think he was sufficiently confident of his own position

0:45:250:45:30

and probably had not done anything that was so unusual for the time.

0:45:300:45:35

Once again, the caricaturists had fun with the revelations.

0:45:360:45:40

But the public appeared uninterested.

0:45:400:45:43

His reputation doesn't seem to suffer from it at all.

0:45:440:45:47

The public accepted that a man of his type,

0:45:470:45:50

a man of his cast,

0:45:500:45:52

will do things like that.

0:45:520:45:54

The later Victorians wouldn't have approved at all,

0:45:540:45:57

but he got away with it at the time.

0:45:570:45:59

So little was the damage to the Duke's reputation

0:46:010:46:03

that just three years later, in 1828, he reached the pinnacle

0:46:030:46:08

of any political career -

0:46:080:46:11

appointed Prime Minister in a Tory government.

0:46:110:46:14

The job did not come naturally to him.

0:46:170:46:20

One man wants one thing and one another.

0:46:220:46:25

They agree with what I say in the morning, and in the evening

0:46:250:46:28

up they start with some crochet which deranges the whole plan.

0:46:280:46:32

I have been accustomed to carry on things in quite a different manner.

0:46:320:46:36

I assembled my officers, laid down my plan,

0:46:360:46:39

and it was carried into effect without any more words.

0:46:390:46:43

Wellington doesn't really ever accommodate

0:46:440:46:48

to the political mind-set.

0:46:480:46:50

Prime Ministers... Really, you have to manage your ministers.

0:46:500:46:54

You have to use an element of carrot and stick.

0:46:540:46:58

You have to work with them. He wasn't terribly good at that.

0:46:580:47:00

He was quite dictatorial.

0:47:000:47:02

Wellington quickly found himself confronted with the great issue

0:47:040:47:08

of the day - the growing clamour for reform of the electoral system.

0:47:080:47:12

It was a system which had hardly changed since the medieval period.

0:47:140:47:20

In a number of cases, parliamentary boroughs

0:47:200:47:23

were just owned by great landowners and could be bought and sold.

0:47:230:47:27

But Wellington remained firmly opposed to any change.

0:47:290:47:33

Not only do I think parliamentary reform unnecessary,

0:47:350:47:39

but it would be so injurious that society,

0:47:390:47:42

as now established in the Empire,

0:47:420:47:44

could not survive under the system, which must be its consequence.

0:47:440:47:48

I shall, therefore, at all times and under all circumstances, oppose it.

0:47:480:47:53

He genuinely believed that constituencies with a small

0:47:550:47:59

number of voters did actually ensure that the right people

0:47:590:48:04

were elected to the House of Commons.

0:48:040:48:06

He was mistaken, but I think he believed that

0:48:060:48:09

for perfectly reasonable reasons.

0:48:090:48:12

He sees reform as the road to revolution,

0:48:140:48:18

tyranny and worst of all, of course, civil war.

0:48:180:48:21

When the Duke repeated his implacable opposition

0:48:210:48:24

to reform in the House of Lords, there was outrage.

0:48:240:48:27

Even his friends were exasperated.

0:48:280:48:31

Why has the Duke pushed things to an extremity?

0:48:310:48:34

Why could he not have held his tongue?

0:48:350:48:38

You cannot conceive how universally he is blamed.

0:48:380:48:41

His peremptory declaration against any sort of reform

0:48:410:48:45

has dissatisfied the upper class,

0:48:450:48:47

aroused fear amongst the middle class and exasperated the populace.

0:48:470:48:52

Wellington's stance left him isolated

0:48:540:48:56

and led to the fall of his Tory government.

0:48:560:48:59

When the Whigs introduced their own reform bill,

0:49:000:49:03

it was rejected by the House of Lords.

0:49:030:49:06

The country teetered on the brink of disaster.

0:49:060:49:11

The immediate reaction was outrage

0:49:110:49:14

and violence in a number of cities.

0:49:140:49:16

Bristol was out of control for more than a week.

0:49:190:49:21

Nottingham and Derby, also.

0:49:230:49:25

Britain was, I think I'd say, close to revolution.

0:49:280:49:32

Wellington becomes a personal focus of hostility.

0:49:320:49:35

There's no doubt that he is seen as the arch anti-reformer

0:49:370:49:41

in this period.

0:49:410:49:42

You see his sort of historic reputation as the victor of Waterloo

0:49:420:49:46

under sustained assault.

0:49:460:49:48

Crowds made for Apsley House and broke the windows,

0:49:500:49:53

and they had to be defended with iron shutters.

0:49:530:49:56

Wellington was a man out of tune with the times.

0:50:010:50:04

And as revolutionary mobs swirled around his home,

0:50:070:50:10

inside, a private tragedy

0:50:100:50:13

was playing itself out.

0:50:130:50:15

Kitty was dying.

0:50:150:50:17

Kitty had some form of stomach cancer, we think,

0:50:220:50:26

and was pretty ill for the last two years of her life.

0:50:260:50:29

In those last weeks, finally,

0:50:310:50:34

Wellington became the devoted husband.

0:50:340:50:37

He sits with her and he holds her hand.

0:50:420:50:45

She feels up his sleeve to see if the armlet she'd given him

0:50:490:50:53

20 years ago is still there, and she finds it is.

0:50:530:50:57

He insisted that he had always worn it,

0:50:590:51:01

and that must have given her some comfort.

0:51:010:51:04

Kitty herself had never ceased to love the Duke,

0:51:060:51:09

as she wrote a few weeks before her death.

0:51:090:51:13

'With all my heart and soul, I have loved him

0:51:130:51:16

'straight from the first time I knew him -

0:51:160:51:20

'I was not then 15 - to the present hour.'

0:51:200:51:23

He remained her hero throughout her life.

0:51:260:51:28

I mean, this is the saddest...

0:51:280:51:30

He was her hero from the moment she probably first met him,

0:51:300:51:34

when she was quite young.

0:51:340:51:36

Kitty died in April 1831, aged 58.

0:51:410:51:45

At the very end, the Duke had done his duty to the woman

0:51:500:51:53

he'd been married to for quarter of a century.

0:51:530:51:56

But his comments about her to Harriet Arbuthnot

0:52:020:52:05

shortly afterwards were harsh.

0:52:050:52:08

The Duchess was one of the most foolish women that ever existed.

0:52:080:52:12

She spoilt my sons by making everything give way to them

0:52:120:52:16

and teaching them to have too high ideas of their own consequence.

0:52:160:52:20

She was in debt £10,000 at Stratfield Saye when she died,

0:52:200:52:24

and I discovered debts of another £10,000 or more.

0:52:240:52:26

The debts preyed upon her mind. She was constantly wretched about them.

0:52:280:52:32

Outside the iron shutters of Apsley House,

0:52:380:52:41

the country, too, appeared to be moving towards terminal crisis.

0:52:410:52:44

Wellington's stubborn opposition to any type of reform

0:52:490:52:52

looked likely to provoke what he had always most dreaded,

0:52:520:52:56

ever since his earliest days in Ireland - anarchy and civil strife.

0:52:560:53:01

Then, finally,

0:53:040:53:06

he pulled back from the brink.

0:53:060:53:09

He did, in the end, retreat on the point of

0:53:090:53:13

the Great Reform Bill and he...

0:53:130:53:16

In the end, the bill only carried

0:53:160:53:18

because he advised the House of Lords

0:53:180:53:21

to allow the bill to pass.

0:53:210:53:23

The gut opponent of reform gives way to the man who believes

0:53:290:53:33

above all else, in the sanctity of the King's government.

0:53:330:53:37

How is the King's government to be carried on?

0:53:370:53:40

That is the thing that wins the day for Wellington.

0:53:400:53:43

Like the great general he was, in politics as in war -

0:53:460:53:51

Wellington knew when to retreat.

0:53:510:53:53

In the end, he had little choice.

0:53:550:53:57

But over the remaining two decades of his life,

0:53:570:54:00

pragmatism and moderation would be his guiding principles.

0:54:000:54:05

Wellington is the living embodiment of this new idea

0:54:050:54:09

of conservatism. In other words, you maintain

0:54:090:54:12

the essentials of British society,

0:54:120:54:14

but where necessary, you reform abuses, where they are proven.

0:54:140:54:19

You don't stand in the way of change.

0:54:190:54:21

He was certainly not part of the "ultras", as they were

0:54:230:54:26

known in those days - the extreme right wing of the Tory Party.

0:54:260:54:30

He would not have been a supporter of Ukip,

0:54:320:54:36

or any of the right-wing elements of British politics today.

0:54:360:54:40

The Duke lived on into the age of photography.

0:54:480:54:50

A single image exists of him.

0:54:520:54:55

The first Duke on his 75th birthday

0:54:550:54:59

on May 1st, 1844,

0:54:590:55:02

went to the studio, Monsieur Claudet.

0:55:020:55:06

And his image was etched onto this plate,

0:55:060:55:09

and you can see, quite clearly, his features.

0:55:090:55:13

The great warrior's face is surprisingly benign.

0:55:140:55:17

Many of the portraits and images of the Duke

0:55:190:55:22

in the later part of his life

0:55:220:55:25

portrayed him as a rather gentle old man.

0:55:250:55:30

He loved children, not just his own grandchildren,

0:55:300:55:34

but children of friends.

0:55:340:55:36

And, in a way, I think that perhaps somewhere,

0:55:360:55:41

there was a real regret

0:55:410:55:42

that he hadn't experienced that with his own sons.

0:55:420:55:47

His heir, Arthur, continued to live in dread of the moment

0:55:480:55:52

when he would have to step into his father's shoes.

0:55:520:55:55

Think what it will be when the Duke of Wellington is announced,

0:55:580:56:01

and only I come in.

0:56:010:56:03

Wellington died in September 1852, aged 83.

0:56:120:56:16

Over a million people lined the streets for his funeral.

0:56:210:56:26

The traumas of the Reform Bill era were long forgotten

0:56:260:56:29

and he was once more the hero of Waterloo.

0:56:290:56:33

There is a massive funeral.

0:56:350:56:36

It was a huge outpouring of grief that probably wasn't seen again

0:56:360:56:41

for a public figure until Churchill's death in the 1960s.

0:56:410:56:45

Queen Victoria says, "We've lost more than a man,

0:56:490:56:52

"we've lost the very soul of this country."

0:56:520:56:54

And she wasn't the only person to hold that view.

0:56:540:56:57

The term the "Iron Duke" had been coined just a few years before

0:57:050:57:09

and over the coming decades, this was the image that would be

0:57:090:57:12

fixed in the public mind.

0:57:120:57:13

I think the Victorians, in many ways,

0:57:170:57:19

recast Wellington in their own self-image,

0:57:190:57:22

and he becomes the vision of that steely, blue-eyed,

0:57:220:57:25

lantern-jawed, unyielding hero.

0:57:250:57:27

And yet, when you look at the real, flesh-and-blood Arthur Wellesley,

0:57:290:57:32

was he's rather a different character. Men aren't made of iron.

0:57:320:57:35

Wellington remains an enigma.

0:57:370:57:40

Bluff and direct, he was capable of great sensitivity and kindness.

0:57:400:57:46

The sadness of his life was that these personal qualities

0:57:460:57:50

were so rarely displayed to those closest to him.

0:57:500:57:54

I don't think I could say that I'm proud of him as a person.

0:57:540:57:58

He won all the battles and he achieved what he set out to do,

0:57:580:58:02

but there were other casualties along the way.

0:58:020:58:05

I judge him to have been a bad husband

0:58:070:58:11

and an inadequate father.

0:58:110:58:14

But I have huge respect for him

0:58:160:58:19

in terms of how he conducted his public life.

0:58:190:58:24

Like many great men before and since, Wellington was not

0:58:250:58:29

always a great human being.

0:58:290:58:33

But he remains a British hero.

0:58:330:58:35

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