The annual winter clean at Plas Newydd gives volunteers and the conservation team an excellent chance to look over all of the items we have in our collection to ensure that they remain in tip-top condition. This week, our job was to check the items in the cases of our military museum, to make sure that none of the uniforms or weapons had been damaged by things such as insects since the last time they were checked. It was very macabre but fascinating to be checking weapons which we knew had actually killed people.
The 1st Marquess, looking rather dashing!
Some of the most interesting items we have in the military museum are those which concern the 1st Marquess and the Battle of Waterloo, and these set the scene for one of the disasters in the history of Plas Newydd.
The Waterloo uniform of the Marquess
The sword used in the Battle of Waterloo by the Marquess
One of the most beautiful items in the museum is this gold locket. It was given by the 1st Marquess of Anglesey (back in the days when he was simply the Earl of Uxbridge) to his wife before his departure for the Battle of Waterloo in 1815. I had the pleasure of checking this beautiful piece of craftsmanship, and was delighted when I saw that it could be opened easily. Inside the locket is a lock of hair from the Marquess himself. It is a very bizarre feeling indeed to see the hair of a man you have only ever seen in paintings! It was quite common for lovers in those times to exchange locks of hair when the man went away to war, but to get the chance to handle a locket this fine was quite an experience for all of the volunteers.
It was during the Battle of Waterloo that disaster struck the Marquess. During the battle he was leader of the Allied cavalry, but on the last day of the battle, in one of the last bouts of cannon fire that day, Lord Anglesey’s right leg was hit. Myth has it that the Marquess cried to the Duke of Wellington, ‘By God, sir, I’ve lost my leg!’ and Wellington replied ‘By God, sir, so you have!’. The leg was left in such a state that it had to be amputated by surgeons without anaesthetic , although it is said that the Marquess managed to keep up his good humour throughout the procedure, claiming that the knives were ‘somewhat blunt’ and that it was only fair that he should lose a leg, to give the younger beaus a chance! In the museum at Plas Newydd we have the trousers which the Marquess was wearing that day. Or, to be more precise, we have one leg of those trousers, since you can still see the marks where the trousers were cut off of the Marquess in preparation for his surgery. These trousers of course had to be checked for damage too, and we could see historic insect activity on the fabric where bugs had seen fit to make a meal of the yummy blood stains! There are shot marks in the trousers, and to this day the trouser leg still has splashes of mud from the Battle of Waterloo, which are truly amazing.
However, it has to be said that the loss of a leg was not a complete disaster for the 1st Marquess. He was fitted with a revolutionary articulated artificial leg, which gave a greater range of movement than any previous types of artificial limb. This leg is also on display in the museum, along with the stump cap which he wore over his healing stump.
With this artificial leg, the 1st Marquess went on to take up the Viceroyalty of Ireland in 1828 and fathered 10 more children! On a recent visit to Dublin Castle, I was told by a tour guide that it was rumoured that the Marquess used to keep a bottle of alcohol in the hollow of the artificial leg’s thigh! Having checked the leg, we can’t confirm or deny this, although we think that a secret stash of alcohol would probably have affected the functionality of the leg (and we don’t just mean that the Marquess would have been too drunk to walk)!
Until next time!
Lindsey xx
Death and Disaster at Plas Newydd 