The Scum of the Earth Read online

  Notes

  * Some, including Basil Jackson, said they ran; others say they were carrying out an orderly retreat.

  ** The hat with the hole of the musket ball is in the National Military Museum, Sandhurst. The top hat he wore in the Peninsular campaign to shield his eyes from the sun is in the National Army Museum, Chelsea.

  1. Jardine Aine, Equerry to the Emperor Napoleon, With Napoleon at Waterloo, unpublished papers edited by Mackenzie Macbride (London: Francis Griffiths, 1911), p.184.

  2. W.H. Fitchett, Wellington’s Men (1900), p. 16.

  3. Captain Rees Howell Gronow, Reminiscences of Captain Gronow (London: Smith, Elder and Co, 1862).

  4. Mark Bois, ‘The Inniskillings at Waterloo’ (www.napoleon-series.org, November 2007).

  5. John Booth, Waterloo (London: 1816, Google Books), p. XXXV.

  4

  THE MAN WHO CAUGHT AN EAGLE

  D’Erlon’s leading column was 80yds away when Captain Alexander Kennedy Clark of the 1st Royal Regiment of Dragoons saw the look of panic in their eyes at the sight of the two heavy brigades of cavalry bearing down on them. They ‘gave us fire, which brought down about twenty men’, and then they turned on their heels and tried to flee back through the two hedges that topped the ridge, he recalled.

  The Royals, a wave of scarlet and gold lace, had difficulty keeping up the momentum, as they negotiated a steep drop into the hollow lane on their heavy horses, but when they crossed the obstacle, they plunged into the melee of the French troops, who were caught in confusion. The French tried to escape the slashing sabres while the men behind pressed on:

  We were upon and amongst them before this could be effected … the whole column getting into one dense mass, the men between the advancing and retiring parts getting so jammed together that the men could not bring down their arms ... We had nothing to do but to continue to press them down the slope.

  The Royals were commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Arthur Clifton, and Kennedy Clark was one of four captains. They scythed through the head of the 105th Infantry Regiment, slashing with their long, straight, heavy swords at the massed ranks of blue coats and black shakos. Captain Duthilt of the French 3rd Division of infantry was pushing one of his men back into the ranks when he suddenly saw the man fall at his feet, bleeding from a sabre wound; he turned round and instantly saw the Union cavalry forcing their way into the midst of his men, hacking them to pieces with their sabres:

  In vain our poor fellows stood up and stretched out their arms; they could not reach far enough to bayonet these cavalrymen mounted on powerful horses, and the few shots fired in chaotic melee were just as fatal to our own men as to the English. And so we found ourselves defenceless against a relentless enemy who, in the intoxication of battle, sabred even our drummers and fifers without mercy.

  Captain Kennedy Clark had been slashing with his sabre at the massed ranks of d’Erlon’s columns for five minutes when he saw the gilded eagle about 40yds in front of him. It glittered on top of the standard of the 105me Regiment d’Infanterie de Ligne, with their battle honours. It was to his left and surrounded by French colour guards, who were pushing back deeper into their own ranks to protect it.

  Captain Kennedy Clark gave the order to his squadron, ‘Right shoulders forward, attack the colour,’ leading the attack himself with his sword stretched out in his right hand:

  On reaching it, I ran my sword into the officer’s right side, a little above the hip joint. He was a little to my left side, and he fell to that side with the eagle across my horse’s head. I tried to catch it with my left hand but could only touch the fringe of the flag and it is probable it would have fallen to the ground, had it not been prevented by the neck of Corporal Stiles’ horse, who came up close on my left at the instant. Corporal Stiles was Standard Coverer; his post was immediately behind me and his duty to follow wherever I led.

  Captain Kennedy Clark shouted, ‘Secure the colour, secure the colour, it belongs to me.’ The Captain grabbed the staff of the standard and tried to break the golden eagle off the top of the pole with the intention of stuffing it into the breast of his coat, but he could not break it. Captain Kennedy Clark says Corporal Stiles told him, ‘Pray sir, do not break it.’ The Captain replied, ‘Very well, carry it to the rear as fast as you can, it belongs to me.’ Stiles rode back to the crest of the ridge with the prize in his hand, cheered by the men as he went.

  At least that is the official version of how the eagle was captured.

  I found Captain Kennedy Clark’s captured eagle on show in a display case at the National Army Museum next door to the Chelsea pensioners’ hospital in London. The eagle does not look worth dying for. The gilded bird with its arrogant raptor’s head is perched on top of a short pole on a small gold plinth with the number 105 embossed on the base. Its beak is turned to one side, as if it is about to strike at a victim, and it grips a golden spindle in its right talon. It is tarnished but the spotlights in the display case lend a glint to its defiant gaze at passers-by, who glance and move on, not knowing its story. It is not made of precious metal, but it embodied the pride of Napoleon’s regiments and was regarded by their enemies as a trophy of priceless worth, more valuable than if it were made of solid gold.

  I look closer at the black wooden pole and I can clearly see the cuts, including one deep notch about 2ft below the eagle where Captain Kennedy Clark tried to hack off the eagle with his sabre.

  The eagles were a symbol borrowed by Napoleon from the all-conquering legions of Rome to instill pride and solidarity in his regiments. These were the prized possessions of each of Napoleon’s regiments and were defended to the death by the standard bearers. The coveted eagles of the old regiments were so potent that they were destroyed on the orders of King Louis XVIII after the emperor’s abdication in 1814, but the emperor presented 100 new eagles for his 1815 campaign at a spectacular military review that was called the Champ de Mai in Paris though it was actually held on 1 June 1815. One British officer, Captain Scott wrote: ‘They glittered over the heads of the vain Parisians, amid cries of Vive L’Empereur.’

  Napoleon presented this eagle to his 105th Line Regiment, commanded by Colonel Jean Genty, which formed part of Drouet d’Erlon’s 1st Corps with the regimental colours and a list of its battle honours, including Jena, Eylau, Essling and Wagram. Men gave their lives for it, because losing it would bring shame on their regiment. It was mentioned by Wellington in his Waterloo Despatch:

  Lord E. Somerset’s brigade, consisting of the Life Guards, the Royal Horse Guards, and 1st Dragoon Guards, highly distinguished themselves, as did that of Major General Sir William Ponsonby, having taken many prisoners and an eagle.

  However, a note in the display of the National Army Museum hints at an awkward dispute that arose over its capture and nagged on for years afterwards. The note says: ‘Captain Clark was severely wounded at the Battle. When he recovered, he found all the credit of the capture had gone to Corporal Stiles. His part in securing it was officially recognised in 1838.’

  Captain Kennedy Clark, in his account of the capture, clearly regrets he left it to Stiles, who took it to the rear. Part of the standard pole that carried it has disappeared with the colours. Lieutenant General W. Scott wrote that when he saw it after the battle, it ‘was much defaced with blood and dirt, as if it had been struggled for, and the eagle was also broken off from the pole, as if from the cut of a sabre; but it was nevertheless preserved.’ Captain Kennedy Clark staked his claim to the eagle in a series of letters to Captain Siborne when Siborne was doing the painstaking research in the 1830s for his detailed model of the Waterloo battlefield for a new United Services Museum. Captain Kennedy Clark modestly did not mention he was seriously injured after taking the eagle, but his version of the incident was taken as the official account.

  Officials at the United Services Museum who first displayed the eagle of the 105th clearly supported Captain Kennedy Clark’s version of events. The army is designed to believe in hierarchies – kn
owing who is in charge makes taking orders much simpler – so it was natural that the army establishment should back the officer. Stiles had his moment of glory but it was fleeting. The corporal was cheered when he galloped back to Brussels and, for a time, became famous as the ‘man who captured the eagle’. An official website of the Royal Dragoons says: ‘It was probably only because Corporal Stiles was seen removing the eagle by many senior Officers (including Wellington) that it was thought he had captured it.’ Infuriatingly for Captain Kennedy Clark, Corporal Stiles appeared in a fanciful Dutch painting of the wounded Prince of Orange and Wellington posing heroically after the battle. The prince is lying pasty-faced from his shoulder injury while the Duke takes the accolades from his troops. Stiles appears in the extreme left of the painting, holding the eagle standard. Captain Kennedy Clark is nowhere to be seen. However, I discovered that Stiles – another example of Wellington’s ‘scum of the earth’ – did not go quietly into oblivion. He was adamant that he deserved the credit for capturing the eagle and refused to be silenced. Stiles felt he had a right to take the glory, because he insisted that he, not Captain Kennedy Clark, had run through the colour guard and captured the eagle. His claims clearly caused consternation in the army.

  Six months after the battle, when he was stationed in Ipswich, Sergeant Stiles was challenged by his own commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel Arthur Clifton, to produce a witness who could verify what he was claiming had happened. Stiles wrote a letter from his Ipswich barracks to Lieutenant George Gunning, an officer in Captain C.L. Meredith’s D Troop of the First Dragoons, in Cheltenham, on 31 January 1816 asking Gunning to back him up:

  Sir,

  This day, Colonel Clifton sent for me about taking the Eagle and Colours. He asked me if I had any person that see me take the Eagle.

  I told him that you see me, I believe, as the officer of the French was making away with it. I belonged to your troop at that time and you gave me orders to charge him, which I did, and took it from him. When I stated it to him this day he wants to know the particulars about it, and me to rite to the Colonel as you was the nearest officer to me that day. Sir by so doing you will much oblige. Your most obedient and humble servant,

  Francis Stiles,* Sergeant 1st Royal Troop.

  This letter with its spelling mistakes and grammatical errors represents more than a clash of two men over the eagle. It is also a clash of class, and there could only be one winner in Wellington’s day. Stiles was semi-literate judging by his letter, and his word was never going to be taken before that of Captain Alexander Kennedy Clark. The dispute put Gunning on the spot. I have not been able to trace his reply to Stiles, if he wrote one, but there is clear evidence that Gunning did back up Stiles even though this meant challenging the version of events by his superior officer.

  In a long forgotten footnote in the Waterloo Roll Call written at the turn of the nineteenth century, there is a paragraph on Gunning by the army historian Charles Dalton. It says:

  Lieutenant George Gunning, Eldest son of George Gunning of Finsbury JP … Commanded his troop at Waterloo in the famous charge, where he was severely wounded. He always claimed that he gave the order to Corporal Stiles to seize the eagle of the 105th French regt. from the officer who held it. Died at Brighton 5th Jan 1849.

  Kennedy Clark fought for over twenty years to have his claim to the eagle fully recognised. In 1838, Colonel Kennedy Clark was officially recognised as the man who captured the eagle. He was allowed to include the eagle in his family coat of arms to commemorate his heroism in capturing the French standard, and his regiment was permitted to wear the eagle among its badges. Having settled the matter in Kennedy Clark’s favour, the row was eventually brushed under the regimental carpet. Corporal Stiles was given a sergeant’s stripes and then an ensigncy for his trouble, and was quietly elbowed out of the official history.

  By the time Charles Dalton compiled the Waterloo Roll Call in 1904, Stiles was not to be believed. Dalton wrote in a brief sketch of Captain Kennedy Clark:

  It was this officer and not Corporal Stiles who personally captured the French Eagle of the 105th Regiment at Waterloo after a desperate fight in which he was severely wounded and handed it over to Corporal Stiles to carry it to the rear.

  The emphasis is Dalton’s, who was in effect calling Stiles a liar. But then Stiles was long dead by that time and had no one to speak up for him.

  However, seven years earlier, in 1897, the military artist James Princep Beadle blundered into the dispute when he painted his first major battle canvas, choosing the heroic story of the capture of the eagle standard of the 105th for his subject. Instead of Kennedy Clark, he painted Stiles of the Royal Dragoons capturing the standard of the 105th in the centre of his large canvas. Stiles sits on his horse, heroically holding the eagle aloft with the French regiment’s colours and battle honours fluttering in the breeze, surrounded by cheering soldiers of the Black Watch and the Gordon Highlanders. Stiles is bare-headed, with ginger hair, sideboards and a square jaw. The painting is called The Captive Eagle and there is no sign of Captain Kennedy Clark. It is one of the most heroic images of the battle and by a renowned war artist. You would expect it to be in some regimental museum, but I discovered it on the wall by the entrance to the assembly room in Great Yarmouth Town Hall. Quite why it is there, nobody at Great Yarmouth borough council, who own it, could tell me, but it could be because the army regard it as perpetuating an unfortunate mistake. It is said that every picture tells a story but if the official record is to be believed, The Captive Eagle tells a lie.

  The fates of the two men could not have been more different after Waterloo. Captain Kennedy Clark was from an old and revered Scottish family – the Clarks of Nunland in Dumfries. His family on his mother’s side – the Kennedys of Knockgray – owned a mansion and estate in the nearby grouse-shooting moorlands of Galloway. He succeeded to the Kennedy estate in 1835 and after that, as laird of the manor, he adopted his mother’s family name as a surname; he thus became (confusingly) Sir Alexander Kennedy Clark-Kennedy. He married Harriet Randall in December 1816, had a son called John, who became a distinguished officer and was promoted to the post of colonel of the 6th Dragoon Guards and then the 2nd Dragoons. Sir Alexander went on to enjoy a life as a member of the privileged ruling class. He was knighted and elevated to the pinnacle of social respectability in Victorian England by being made an ADC to Queen Victoria. It was a largely ceremonial appointment, started by Queen Victoria to confer on a few high-ranking officers the greatest esteem of the young monarch. Prince William, the current Duke of Cambridge, is an ADC to Queen Elizabeth II. But it meant that Sir Alexander was a palace insider at a time of historic events, including the Crimea War. He also gained immense wealth when he inherited his mother’s family estate. He died at the grand age of 82 in 1864 and was buried in the family plot in Dumfries.

  Sir Alexander Kennedy Clark-Kennedy lived long enough to have his photograph taken by one of the earliest plate cameras shortly before he died; it was placed in the National Portrait Gallery. He sits in a chair, in full dress uniform, wearing his Waterloo and campaign medals, the Star of the Order of Bath, and a long curved sabre, a plumed hat resting on his right knee. He is white-haired, and looks relatively cheerful. By then he had ensured that he would go down in history as ‘the man who captured the Eagle’.

  Stiles had joined the 1st Dragoons – the Royals – on 21 May 1804 at the age of 18 or 19. He had been a trooper in the cavalry for eleven years, but he was still only a corporal when he rode after Captain Kennedy Clark down the slope at Waterloo. He certainly could not afford the cost of buying a commission. The best he could hope for was the three sergeant’s stripes he got for his supporting role when Captain Kennedy Clark captured the eagle. Stiles did become an officer – he was promoted to Ensign, the lowest commissioned rank, in the 6th West India Regiment as a reward for his undoubted courage in the capture of the eagle – but was quickly discarded by the army: like thousands of other soldiers, the peace mea
nt poverty for Stiles; he was placed on half pay on 28 December 1817, aged 32, and effectively laid off.

  He went to live in the East End of London after his discharge from the army, and it is not clear how he made a living, or how he made ends meet, but it must have been a hard life in Clerkenwell, East London. That may explain why he died in 1828 aged just 43. I searched through the parish records to find out more about Stiles, and found a tantalising record of a Francis Stiles getting married in 1818. He would have been 33, and his bride was Mary Ann House. They were married on 29 April 1818, at St James’s Church, a Georgian gem in the narrow lanes around Clerkenwell, with the curate T. Thimbleby officiating. Judging by their names, the witnesses were not related to either the bride or groom; perhaps they were friends. However, only ten years later, on a cold winter’s day on 17 January 1828, Francis Stiles was buried at the same church. No cause of death was given but cholera and typhoid were a scourge in the overcrowded east end of London and that year a satirical cartoon appeared in the London prints of a woman looking horrified at seeing the monsters in the water in her tea cup through a microscope; it is called ‘Monster Soup commonly known as Thames water’. Perhaps Stiles was one of its many victims in London’s east end?*