Wellington: Waterloo and the Fortunes of Peace 1814-1852

by Rory Muir

Overview

The preeminent Wellington biographer presents a fascinating reassessment of the Duke’s most famous victory and his political career after Waterloo.

The Duke of Wellington’s momentous victory over Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo was the culminating point of a brilliant military career. Yet Wellington’s achievements were far from over. He commanded the allied army of occupation in France to the end of 1818, returned home to a seat in Lord Liverpool’s cabinet, and became prime minister in 1828. He later served as a senior minister in Robert Peel’s government and remained Commander-in-Chief of the Army for a decade until his death in 1852.
 
In this richly detailed work, the second and concluding volume of Rory Muir’s definitive biography, the author offers a substantial reassessment of Wellington’s significance as a politician and a nuanced view of the private man behind the legendary hero. Muir presents new insights into Wellington’s determination to keep peace at home and abroad, achieved by maintaining good relations with the Continental powers, resisting radical agitation, and granting political equality to the Catholics in Ireland. Countering one-dimensional image of Wellington as a national hero, Muir paints a nuanced portrait of a man whose austere public demeanor belied his entertaining, gossipy, generous, and unpretentious private self.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780300214048
Publisher:	Yale University Press
Publication date:	08/11/2020
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	728
Sales rank:	616,363
File size:	7 MB

About the Author

Rory Muir is visiting research fellow, School of History and Politics, University of Adelaide. The author of several previous books related to Wellington’s career, he lives in Australia.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations and Maps vii

Preface ix

Prologue 1

Part I War and Peace in Europe (1814-18) 3

1 Celebrations and Diplomacy (April 1814-March 1815) 5

2 The Return of Napoleon (March-June 1815) 22

3 Quatre Bras (15-17 June 1815) 36

4 Waterloo (18 June 1815) 56

5 Peacemaking in Paris (June-December 1815) 83

6 The Occupation of France (1816-18) 98

Part II In Cabinet (1819-27) 119

7 Politics and the Duke 121

8 The Radical Challenge (1819) 139

9 The Queen's Affair (1820-21) 154

10 The King and his Ministers (1821-22) 172

11 Verona and Spain (1822-23) 190

12 Latin America and the Catholic Question (1823-25) 208

13 The Last Year of Liverpool's Government (December 1825-February 1827) 228

14 Master-General of the Ordnance (1818-27) 246

15 Family and Friends (1819-27) 263

16 The Ins and Outs of 1827 279

Part III Prime Minister (1828-30) 299

17 Cabinet-Making (January-June 1828) 301

18 Catholic Emancipation (1828-29) 322

19 The Foreign Policy of Wellington's Government (1828-July 1830) 348

20 Domestic Difficulties (May 1829-July 1830) 366

21 The Fall of Wellington's Government (July-November 1830) 383

Part IV Out of Office (1830-41) 401

22 Opposing the Reform Bill (November 1830-June 1832) 403

23 The Limits of Opposition (1832-35) 427

24 Private Life (1828-35) 449

25 The Many Faces of Fame 466

26 Leading the Lords (1835-41) 483

27 Wellington and the Army (1819-41) 505

Part V Back in Harness (1841-52) 523

28 Peel's Lieutenant (1841-46) 525

29 Commander-in-Chief (1842-52) 545

30 In the Midst of Life (1842-52) 559

Conclusion 573

Wellington's Offices, Honours and Titles, 1814-52 586

Who's Who in Wellington's World 589

Chronology 595

Endnotes 599

Bibliography 665

Index 698

Editorial Reviews

"[An] authoritative and enjoyable conclusion to a two-part biography. Muir’s treatment of Wellington the general was methodical, but he handles Wellington the politician with flair and , importantly, penetrates his mind . . . This excellent biography should be compulsory reading for all Conservative ministers, MPs and prospective candidates since it will serve to remind them of the value of sober, dispassionate judgement and the duties and disciplines of public service."—Lawrence James, Times (London)

"After forty years, we finally have a definitive new life of the Duke of Wellington. Rory Muir conveys the military, political, social and personal sides of Wellington’s career with equal brilliance. This will be the leading work on the subject for decades."—Andrew Roberts, author of Napoleon and Wellington: The Long Duel

"Rory Muir is one of the foremost historians of the Napoleonic period. This is the richest biography of the Iron Duke in many years, brimming with originality and not shy of controversy."—John Bew, author of Castlereagh: Enlightenment, War and Tyranny

"Vivid, engaging and hugely readable. From it emerges a nuanced and well-rounded sense of Wellington the man, military hero, politician and public servant. Readers will gain much insight, knowledge and enjoyment from reading Muir’s authoritative portrait of one of the great figures of nineteenth-century Britain."—Angus Hawkins, author of The Forgotten Prime Minister, the 14th Earl of Derby


"In 1818 the Prime Minister, Lord Liverpool, offered Wellington a place in his government. The Duke replied with a word of caution which just about summarizes his whole approach to politics. 'The experience which I have acquired during my long service abroad has convinced me that a factious opposition to the government is highly injurious to the interests of the country; and thinking as I do now I could not become a party to such an opposition, and I wish that this may be clearly understood by those persons with whom I am now about to engage as colleagues in government.'
The Duke has often been summarized as a brilliant general who was hopeless in politics. Anyone reading Rory Muir’s book will have to think this through again. Muir gives a painstaking and brilliant account of the actual Battle of Waterloo – but in his analysis of the difficult years which followed, he argues that the Duke never forgot his guiding principle, that the King’s government has to be carried on."—Douglas Hurd, former UK Foreign Secretary and author of Robert Peel

From the Publisher

‘The fruit of more than thirty years labour, Rory Muir’s two-volume life of Wellington is a monumental achievement that will not be bettered for a generation.’—Saul David, Literary Review.
 

Literary Review - Saul David

‘[A] superb biography, which is as provocative as it is thorough, and as attractive as it is scrupulous.’—Ferdinand Mount, TLS.
 

TLS - Ferdinand Mount

‘This splendid biography makes substantial claims for Wellington… but it backs up these claims vigorously and convincingly. It is revisionist biography in the best sense’—Andrew Roberts, Mail on Sunday.
 

Mail on Sunday - Andrew Roberts

'[An] authoritative and enjoyable conclusion to a two-part biography. Muir’s treatment of Wellington the general was methodical, but he handles Wellington the politician with flair and , importantly, penetrates his mind… This excellent biography should be compulsory reading for all Conservative ministers, MPs and prospective candidates since it will serve to remind them of the value of sober, dispassionate judgement and the duties and disciplines of public service.’
—Lawrence James, the Times.
 

The Times - Lawrence James

"Vivid, engaging and hugely readable. From it emerges a nuanced and well-rounded sense of Wellington the man, military hero, politician and public servant. Readers will gain much insight, knowledge and enjoyment from reading Muir’s authoritative portrait of one of the great figures of nineteenth-century Britain."—Angus Hawkins, author of The Forgotten Prime Minister, the 14th Earl of Derby

Angus Hawkins

2015-07-01
Australian historian Muir (Wellington: The Path to Victory 1769-1814, 2013, etc.) completes his suitably imposing biography of the Iron Duke, guiding him from war to an uneasy peacetime. All great generals are also diplomats. So it was with Arthur Wellesley (1769-1852), first Duke of Wellington, who found himself at the head of an international army in his final showdowns with Napoleon at Quatre Bras and Waterloo. When not balancing the claims of contending generals and nobles, Wellington was wooing the ladies at oddly timed balls, famously one just after Napoleon's attack at Charleroi. Wellington might deservedly have been nostalgic for battle when, after Napoleon was packed off to Saint Helena, he was pressed into the service of the British government in various capacities, rising eventually to prime minister. Muir is unshakably comprehensive, and few details of his subject's life and deeds go by unremarked. Naturally, there's plenty of ammunition thereby for Monday morning quarterbacking and counterfactuals: What might have happened had the French column at Waterloo not been stacked up, one brigade after another? Might the Peterloo Massacre have been avoided? Wellington emerges from Muir's pages as a man generally unafraid of bullets and controversy alike, well-deserving of a reputation for both sternness and honesty. Certainly, he was no saint, and not simply because of the whispers about his many affairs (which Muir, naturally, enumerates). As the author notes, his diligence and enormous appetite for work were accompanied by impatience and a lack of generosity even to the veterans of his own campaigns ("it is not easy to understand or sympathise with his motives on this occasion," he writes of one failed effort on the part of those veterans for recognition). It helps to have a handle on late Georgian and Hanoverian British politics to understand such things as Corn Laws and Test and Corporation Acts, though this isn't a prerequisite for appreciating Muir's great accomplishment. Almost certainly not the last word on Wellington but, for now, the most definitive biography of him.

Kirkus Reviews