Lord Uxbridge's leg - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Lord Uxbridge's leg was shattered by a cannon shot at the Battle of Waterloo

Battle of Waterloo

The Battle of Waterloo was fought on Sunday 18 June 1815 near Waterloo in present-day Belgium, then part of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands...

and removed by a surgeon. The amputated limb went on to lead a somewhat macabre after-life as a tourist attraction in the village of Waterloo

Waterloo, Belgium

Waterloo is a Walloon municipality located in the province of Walloon Brabant, Belgium. On December 31, 2009, Waterloo had a total population of 29,573. The total area is 21.03 km² which gives a population density of 1,407 inhabitants per km²...

in Belgium

Belgium

Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...

, where it had been removed and interred.

Waterloo

Henry Paget, 2nd Earl of Uxbridge

Henry Paget, 1st Marquess of Anglesey

Field Marshal Henry William Paget, 1st Marquess of Anglesey, KG, GCB, GCH, PC , styled Lord Paget between 1784 and 1812 and known as The Earl of Uxbridge between 1812 and 1815, was a British military leader and politician, now chiefly remembered for leading the charge of the heavy cavalry against...

, was commander of some 13,000 Allied cavalry and 44 guns of horse artillery

Horse artillery

Horse artillery was a type of light, fast-moving and fast-firing artillery which provided highly mobile fire support to European and American armies from the 17th to the early 20th century...

at the Battle of Waterloo. At about 2:30 pm, at a critical stage in the battle, he led a charge of the 2,000 heavy cavalry

Heavy cavalry

Heavy cavalry is a class of cavalry whose primary role was to engage in direct combat with enemy forces . Although their equipment differed greatly depending on the region and historical period, they were generally mounted on large powerful horses, and were often equipped with some form of scale,...

of the Household Brigade and the Union Brigade to throw back the columns of D'Erlon

Jean-Baptiste Drouet, Comte d'Erlon

Jean-Baptiste Drouet, comte d'Erlon was a marshal of France and a soldier in Napoleon's Army. D'Erlon notably commanded the I Corps of the Armée du Nord at the battle of Waterloo....

's French I Corps, who were threatening to push back Picton

Thomas Picton

Lieutenant General Sir Thomas Picton GCB was a Welsh British Army officer who fought in a number of campaigns for Britain, and rose to the rank of lieutenant general...

's severely outnumbered 5th Division, with some 15,000 French infantry advancing on 3,000 British. The charge succeeded in sweeping the French infantry away in disorder, but Uxbridge was unable to rally his troops, who ran on in pursuit and were cut up by counter-attacking French cavalry. Uxbridge spent the rest of the battle leading a series of charges by British light cavalry

Light cavalry

Light cavalry refers to lightly armed and lightly armored troops mounted on horses, as opposed to heavy cavalry, where the riders are heavily armored...

formations, and had eight or nine horses shot from under him.

One of the last cannon shots fired on 18 June 1815 hit his right leg, necessitating its amputation

Amputation

Amputation is the removal of a body extremity by trauma, prolonged constriction, or surgery. As a surgical measure, it is used to control pain or a disease process in the affected limb, such as malignancy or gangrene. In some cases, it is carried out on individuals as a preventative surgery for...

above the knee. According to anecdote, he was close to the Duke of Wellington

Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington

Field Marshal Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, KG, GCB, GCH, PC, FRS , was an Irish-born British soldier and statesman, and one of the leading military and political figures of the 19th century...

when his leg was hit, and exclaimed, "By God, sir, I've lost my leg!", to which Wellington replied "By God, sir, so you have!"

Amputation

After receiving his wound, Lord Uxbridge was taken to his headquarters in the village of Waterloo

Waterloo, Belgium

, a house owned by a certain M. Hyacinthe Joseph-Marie Paris, who was still in residence at 214, Chaussée de Bruxelles. There, the remains of his leg were removed by surgeons, principally James Powell of the Ordnance Medical Department, and James Callander of the 7th Hussars

7th Queen's Own Hussars

The 7th Queen's Own Hussars was a cavalry regiment in the British Army, first formed in 1690. It saw service for three centuries, before being amalgamated into The Queen's Own Hussars in 1958....

, without antiseptic

Antiseptic

Antiseptics are antimicrobial substances that are applied to living tissue/skin to reduce the possibility of infection, sepsis, or putrefaction...

or anaesthetics. The Prince Regent

George IV of the United Kingdom

George IV was the King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and also of Hanover from the death of his father, George III, on 29 January 1820 until his own death ten years later...

created him Marquess of Anglesey

Marquess of Anglesey

Marquess of Anglesey is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created in 1815 for Henry Paget, 2nd Earl of Uxbridge, a hero of the Battle of Waterloo...

and made him a Knight Grand Cross

Knight Grand Cross

Knight Grand Cross is the most senior grade of seven British orders of chivalry, three of which are obsolete. The rank entails admission into knighthood, allowing the recipient to use the title 'Sir' or 'Dame' before his or her name...

of the Order of the Bath

Order of the Bath

The Most Honourable Order of the Bath is a British order of chivalry founded by George I on 18 May 1725. The name derives from the elaborate mediæval ceremony for creating a knight, which involved bathing as one of its elements. The knights so created were known as Knights of the Bath...

five days after the battle.

Lord Uxbridge, true to his nature, remained stoical and composed. According to his aide-de-camp

Aide-de-camp

An aide-de-camp is a personal assistant, secretary, or adjutant to a person of high rank, usually a senior military officer or a head of state...

, Thomas Wildman

Thomas Wildman

Colonel Thomas Wildman was an officer in the Napoleonic Wars, a draftsman, and landowner. He was a nephew of the political reformer John Horne Tooke and friend of Lord Byron at Harrow. In 1816 he married Louisa Preisig...

, during the amputation Paget smiled and said, "I have had a pretty long run. I have been a beau these forty-seven years, and it would not be fair to cut the young men out any longer." According to another anecdote his only comment through the dreadful procedure was, "The knives appear somewhat blunt."

According to the account of Sir Hussey Vivian

Hussey Vivian, 1st Baron Vivian

Lieutenant General Richard Hussey Vivian, 1st Baron Vivian GCB, GCH, PC , known as Sir Hussey Vivian from 1815 to 1828 and Sir Hussey Vivian, Bt from 1828 to 1841, was a British cavalry leader who came of a Cornish family.-Early career:Educated at Harrow and Exeter College, Oxford, Vivian entered...

recorded by Henry Curling in 1847:

A further anecdote reports him saying "Who would not lose a leg for such a victory?" The saw used to amputate his leg is held by the National Army Museum

National Army Museum

The National Army Museum is the British Army's central museum. It is located in the Chelsea district of central London, England adjacent to the Royal Hospital Chelsea, the home of the "Chelsea Pensioners". The National Army Museum is open to the public every day of the year from 10.00am to 5.30pm,...

. Uxbridge was offered an annual pension of £1,200 in compensation for the loss of his leg, but refused.

Shrine

Paris asked if he might bury the leg in his garden, later turning the place into a kind of reliquary

Reliquary

A reliquary is a container for relics. These may be the physical remains of saints, such as bones, pieces of clothing, or some object associated with saints or other religious figures...

shrine. Visitors were first taken to see the bloody chair upon which Uxbridge had sat during the amputation, before being escorted into the garden, where the leg had its own 'tombstone', inscribed as follows:

Here lies the Leg of the illustrious and valiant Earl Uxbridge, Lieutenant-General of His Britannic Majesty, Commander in Chief of the English, Belgian and Dutch cavalry, wounded on the 18 June 1815 at the memorable battle of Waterloo, who, by his heroism, assisted in the triumph of the cause of mankind, gloriously decided by the resounding victory of the said day.

Some were impressed; others less so. According to an article headed "Marquis of Anglesey's Leg" in Notes and Queries
Notes and Queries
Notes and Queries is a long-running quarterly scholarly journal that publishes short articles related to "English language and literature, lexicography, history, and scholarly antiquarianism". Its emphasis is on "the factual rather than the speculative"...

, 1862, a wag wrote on the tombstone –

Here lies the Marquis of Anglesey's limb;

The Devil will have the remainder of him.

The poetaster

Poetaster

Poetaster, like rhymester or versifier, is a contemptuous name often applied to bad or inferior poets. Specifically, poetaster has implications of unwarranted pretentions to artistic value. The word was coined in Latin by Erasmus in 1521...

Thomas Gaspey recorded his own impressions in verse. Some of these lines are also recorded in Notes and Queries, which says they "went the round of the papers at the time":

Here rests, and let no saucy knave

Presume to sneer and laugh,

To learn that mouldering in the grave

Is laid a British calf.

For he who writes these lines is sure

That those who read the whole

Will find such laugh were premature,

For here, too, lies a sole.

And here five little ones repose,

Twin-born with other five;

Unheeded by their brother toes,

Who now are all alive.

A leg and foot to speak more plain

Lie here, of one commanding;

Who, though his wits he might retain,

Lost half his understanding.

And when the guns, with thunder fraught,

Pour'd bullets thick as hail,

Could only in this way be taught

To give his foe leg-bail.

And now in England, just as gay -

As in the battle brave -

Goes to the rout, review, or play,

With one foot in the grave.

Fortune in vain here showed her spite,

For he will still be found,

Should England's sons engage in fight,

Resolved to stand his ground.

But fortune's pardon I must beg,

She meant not to disarm;

And when she lopped the hero's leg

By no means sought his h-arm,

And but indulged a harmless whim,

Since he could walk with one,

She saw two legs were lost on him

Who never meant to run.

The leg attracted an amazing range of tourists from European society of the very top drawer, from the King of Prussia

King of Prussia

King of Prussia may refer to:* A ruler of the former German state of Prussia**List of rulers of Prussia* Place names** King of Prussia, Pennsylvania* Shopping Centers** King of Prussia Mall...

to the Prince of Orange

Prince of Orange

Prince of Orange is a title of nobility, originally associated with the Principality of Orange, in what is now southern France. In French it is la Principauté d'Orange....

. It was a nice earner for Monsieur Paris and his descendants, all the way down to 1878, when it was the occasion for a minor diplomatic incident. Uxbridge's son visited, to find the bones not buried, but on open display. On investigation by the Belgian ambassador in London, it was discovered that they had been exposed in a storm which uprooted the willow tree beside which they were buried. The ambassador demanded repatriation of the relics to England but the Paris family refused, instead offering to sell the bones to the Uxbridge family, who, not surprisingly, were enraged. At this point the Belgian Minister of Justice intervened, ordering the bones to be reburied. However, the bones were not reburied; they were kept hidden. In 1934, after the last Monsieur Paris died in Brussels, his widow found them in his study, along with documentation proving their provenance. Horrified by the thought of another scandal she incinerated them in her central heating furnace.

Aftermath

Uxbridge's close family lost several limbs in the service of the United Kingdom

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

during the Napoleonic Wars

Napoleonic Wars

The Napoleonic Wars were a series of wars declared against Napoleon's French Empire by opposing coalitions that ran from 1803 to 1815. As a continuation of the wars sparked by the French Revolution of 1789, they revolutionised European armies and played out on an unprecedented scale, mainly due to...

: his brother, Major-General Sir Edward Paget

Edward Paget

General Sir Edward Paget GCB was a British Army officer.-Career:Born the fourth son of Henry Paget, 1st Earl of Uxbridge, Edward Paget became a cornet in the 1st Regiment of Life Guards in 1792...

, lost his right arm in the crossing of the Douro

Douro

The Douro or Duero is one of the major rivers of the Iberian Peninsula, flowing from its source near Duruelo de la Sierra in Soria Province across northern-central Spain and Portugal to its outlet at Porto...

during the Second Battle of Porto in 1809, and his daughter lost a hand tending her husband on a battlefield in Spain.

Uxbridge himself used an articulated above-knee artificial leg invented by James Potts, with hinged knee and ankle and raising toes which became known as the Anglesey leg, after his marquessate. One of the artificial legs designed by Potts and worn by the marquess is still extant, preserved at Plas Newydd

Plas Newydd

Plas Newydd, located in Llanfairpwllgwyngyll, Anglesey, Wales, is the country seat of the Marquess of Anglesey. The family's former principal seat at Beaudesert, Staffordshire, was sold and demolished in the 1930s....

in Anglesey, as is also a leg of the hussar trousers worn by the 1st Marquess at Waterloo. The loss of his leg did not impede the Marquess of Anglesey's career – he rose to become a Field Marshal

Field Marshal

Field Marshal is a military rank. Traditionally, it is the highest military rank in an army.-Etymology:The origin of the rank of field marshal dates to the early Middle Ages, originally meaning the keeper of the king's horses , from the time of the early Frankish kings.-Usage and hierarchical...

and Knight of the Garter, twice serving as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland

Lord Lieutenant of Ireland

The Lord Lieutenant of Ireland was the British King's representative and head of the Irish executive during the Lordship of Ireland , the Kingdom of Ireland and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland...

and twice as Master-General of the Ordnance

Master-General of the Ordnance

The Master-General of the Ordnance was a very senior British military position before 1855, when the Board of Ordnance was abolished.-Responsibilities:...

Waterloo

Amputation

Shrine

Aftermath

Further reading