Redcoat: The British Soldier in the Age of Horse and Musket. Richard Holmes
emulation, gutter-fighter toughness, regimental pride and brave leadership, laced with a propensity to drink and plunder, and buttressed by a harsh disciplinary code.
It overcame the most brutal trials. When Wellington stormed Badajoz in 1812 his success cost him 4,000 British and 1,000 Portuguese, and the carnage in the breach beggars description. Lieutenant Robert Blakeney of the 28th Regiment tells how:
gallant foes laughing at death met, fought, bled and rolled upon earth; and from the very earth destruction burst, for the exploding mines cast up friends and foes together, who in burning torture gasped and shrieked in the air. Partly burned they fell back into the inundating water, continually lighted by the incessant bursting of shells.
He went on to describe the ladders some of the stormers had ascended as ‘warm and slippery with the blood and brains of many a gallant soldier.’99 In wondering how men were able to endure experiences like this, we must remember that they had been forged in the crucible of social change, endemic violence and economic deprivation; this harsh background bred hard men.
BY ALL APPEARANCES it was the monarch’s army. The red and blue so prominent in its uniforms originated in the Tudor livery; the royal cipher was embroidered on regimental colours, engraved on sword-blades and musket-locks; officers’ commissions bore the monarch’s personal signature, and orders were issued in his or her name. The monarch was commander-in-chief of the army, ‘unless the office is granted away,’ which was often the case.1 Royal birthdays and accession anniversaries were marked with appropriate ceremony, even on active service. On 18 January 1777 John Peebles recorded:
This being the Anniversary of the Queen’s Birthday (or the day that is kept for it) a Detachment of 300 British fired 3 vollies on the parade at 12 o’clock Proceeded by 21 guns from ye Battery & the like number of Hessians on the Green behind the Church, and at 1 o’clock the navy fired, each ship 21 guns…
Unfortunately the frigate HMS Diamond, which had recently been in action, ‘had not taken sufficient care in drawing the shot, & discharged a load of Grape[shot] into a Transport ship close by them, & killed 5 men and wounded 3…’2
The guards – horse and foot – were troops of the Royal Household, and their officers came into frequent social contact with the royal family. William IV, Duke of Clarence before his accession, regularly dined with the officers of the company on duty at St James’s Palace and when at table expected no more deference than one gentleman might normally show another. He once asked whether officers still got ‘chocolate’, slang for a wigging, which derived from General Sir David Dundas’s practice of inviting offenders to breakfast and then giving them a talking-to over the hot chocolate. Young Ensign ‘Bacchus’ Lascelles of 1st Guards (whose nickname arose from altogether different potations) piped up that he had got ‘goose’ from the adjutant for having too little powder on his hair that morning, adding ‘it is quite immaterial whether a rowing be denominated “chocolate” or “goose,” for it is all the same thing.’3 However, things were not always this genial. When Ensign Gronow went on duty with his hair unpowdered, George Ill’s seventh son, Adolphus Frederick, Duke of Cambridge, threatened him with arrest for ‘appearing on parade in so slovenly and disgraceful a condition.’4 Shortly after his accession, William IV was furious when the guard at St James’s failed to turn out because the sentry had not recognised him in plain clothes. He also upset the guards’ bandsmen by making them play for him every night, thus depriving them of fee-paying engagements elsewhere.
The first two Georges were ‘soldier-kings in the German tradition. ’5 George II identified closely with his army, keeping a brown coat for civil business and a red one for military, and maintaining a notebook in which he recorded officers’ characters and achievements. He was the last English monarch to command an army in battle, at Dettingen in 1743. When his horse bolted he dismounted and spent the day on foot, stumping about bravely enough but doing little to control things. Frederick the Great described him standing in front of a favourite Hanoverian regiment with his sword out in front of him like a fencing-master demonstrating a thrust: ‘He gave signs of courage, but no order relative to the battle.’6 But he was certainly in the forefront of the action. Late in the day he said to Sir Andrew Agnew, commanding Campbell’s Regiment, that he saw ‘the cuirassiers get in amongst your men this morning, Colonel.’ ‘Oh aye, your Majestee,’ replied the broad Sir Andrew, ‘but they dinna get out again.’7 Lieutenant General Lord George Sackville was court-martialled for disobeying Prince Ferdinand’s orders to charge at Minden, and the king, who had a high sense of duty and discipline, regarded his sentence of cashiering as too lenient. He personally struck Sackville’s name off the roll of the Privy Council, and penned an addendum to the sentence, which was read out at the head of every regiment in the service:
that others may consider that neither high birth nor great achievements can shelter offences of such a nature, and that seeing they are subject to censure much worse than death to a man who has any sense of honour, they may avoid the fatal consequences arising from disobedience to orders.8
William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, George’s second son, was wounded at Dettingen and narrowly defeated at Fontenoy. He had greater success against the Jacobites at Culloden, but was retired after his defeat in Germany 1757. Cumberland was a martinet, with what might be called a Germanic approach to giving orders, and took no care that they should be ‘softened by gentle persuasive arguments by which gentlemen, particularly those of a British constitution, must be governed.’9 His elder brother Frederick, Prince of Wales, and his political allies maintained that he was a dangerous militarist, and after Frederick died in 1751 there were even suggestions that he coveted the succession.
George III, no soldier himself, had a martial brood. His fifth son, Ernest Augustus of sinister repute (he was said to have fathered a son on his sister Sophia) was created Duke of Cumberland in 1799. He lost an eye at Tournai, commanding Hanoverian cavalry, in 1794, and was badly injured by his own sabre in a murderous attack by his valet in 1810. He commanded the Hanoverian army, and in 1837 became king of Hanover. His brothers Edward Augustus, Duke of Kent and Adolphus Frederick, Duke of Cambridge, both became field-marshals, and Kent served as Governor of Gibraltar during the Peninsular War, being recalled after his severity provoked unrest.
George III’s second son, Frederick, Duke of York and Albany, took the profession of arms seriously, though fortune did not smile on him in Flanders in 1793 or at the Helder in 1799. He was an efficient and wholly useful commander-in-chief of the army from 1798 till his death in 1827, with a brief interlude between 1809 and 1811 after he was accused of allowing his mistress, the ‘gaily-disposed’ Mary Ann Clarke, wife of a bankrupt stonemason, to dabble in the commissions trade. The duke had set Mrs Clarke up as his mistress in 1802 with a handsome £1,000 a year, but she supported her extravagant lifestyle by conning tradesmen who trusted her because of her royal connections, and taking bribes to secure the duke’s patronage for civil, military and even clerical appointments.
The duke, warned of what was afoot, ended the relationship in 1806, pensioning off Mrs Clarke on £400 a year provided she behaved discreetly. Two years later, however, she threatened to make matters public unless her full pension was restored and arrears paid. When the duke refused, her