Posted on 06/18/2015 9:37:54 PM PDT by beaversmom
A plain dark cloak still streaked with mud from the battle of Waterloo – which the Duke of Wellington is said to have draped around the shoulders of Lady Caroline Lamb when he was one of the most famous, and she one of the most infamous people in Europe – is to be sold for the first time in 200 years.
The victor of Waterloo and the tempestuous aristocrat, who was once served up naked in a silver dish at a dinner, had a brief fling in Brussels in the weeks after the battle on 18 June 1815 which changed the course of European history and ended Napoléon Bonaparte’s power forever.
Both were married, but notorious for a string of affairs: a different Sotheby’s sale next month includes a portrait of the Iron Duke by a French artist, given in the same period to another society mistress, Lady Frances Wedderburn Webster. Her husband was subsequently talked out of suing Wellington, and later fought a duel after horsewhipping another of her lovers in St James’s Street in London.
Wellington and Lamb had met in London but came across each other again in Brussels, when she was nursing her brother who had been injured in the battle. Lamb, nicknamed the Sprite, was widely regarded as still being half-deranged by the breakup of her most famous affair, with the poet Lord Byron. After that split she had slashed her arms, stalked Byron in public, broken into his home disguised as a pageboy, and in 1816 published a thinly disguised account of the affair in her novel Glenarvon.
In a letter included in the auction, another society lady in Brussels commented acidly of Lamb’s arrival to minister to her brother: “The surgeon told her the best thing she could do would be to hold...
(Excerpt) Read more at theguardian.com ...
“served up naked on a silver dish”
Thus her name, ‘The Sprout of Brussels”.
Glad to be around for the 200th anniversary. The Napoleonic Wars is one of my favorite historical subjects. :)
Awesome pice of history to own.
This is really embarrassing, but I didn’t know about Wellington. And it’s explains a Woody Allen Movie joke I never got for more than 25 years until now :)
The movie had Napoleon in it and A general was complaining to a chef that his Beef Wellington had to taste better than the Napoleon dessert. I always wondered why they picked beef Wellington lol
lol! You and I are both newbies ‘cause I’m just finding out about him, too! I had heard the name, but I didn’t know any history. It just shows one is never too old to learn and have epiphanies even if just over a scene in a movie and/or a 200 year old battle and its participants. :)
Was it really? lol.
That’s gotta go for more than a mil.
Earlier tonight my FReeper friend informed me that the guards in England with the tall, fuzzy black hats are called the Grenadier Guards. I never knew that! My mom is English! How pathetic is that?
We will be there in a few weeks.
Very neat. Can you capture and share why it fascinates you? Interested to hear.
Because they are wearing the bearskins hats taken from the French at Waterloo.
Reminds me, I forgot to post an IMGUR thread here about the Grenadier Guards!
I dont remember if I ever knew the name :) And I consider myself a history buff lol. But mostly WWII. And not even the battles or weaponry really. Gee, what the heck DO i know!!
Time to buy some books. Even buying books is outdated lol.
And I had NO idea that those guards even had a name!
Oui. Lady Lamb was a real tomato as a young woman, Napoleon called her “Mon petite cabbage.” She didn’t carrot all for the nicknames, they left her steamed, and the irony is that she was run over on the left bank and remained a vegetable until her death in 1870, just as the Prussians entered Paris looking for shaven women and a good meal, something other than bloody sausages and kraut.
lol...well, don’t feel bad. You are not the only one. :) And we both learned some new things today. How cool is that?
lol..you are pulling my leg. And article says she died in 1828! Naughty!
An uncle just sent me a dozen puns and they’re stuck. Sorry!
I don’t hold a grudge. I forgive you. :)
“mud-streaked”? Couldn’t Sotheby’s at least had it cleaned before putting it on sale?
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