Why Was Wellington's Horse called Copenhagen?

I had heard of the Battle of Copenhagen, and knew it was a naval battle, but I had always assumed it had been against the French and had always wondered vaguely why Wellington called his horse Copenhagen when he hadn't fought at sea.

Then when I visited Copenhagen recently I climbed the 17^th century Rundetarn (Round Tower) and discovered why. The Round Tower was the university’s observatory and has no steps until you get right to the top, just a beautiful circling brick slope. Close to the top is a chamber with exhibits and one of them, in a void under the floor, was a book from the university library with a large chunk ripped out of it and the shattered remains of a shell. The label explained that this was part of the dreadful damage done when the British bombarded the city in September 1807.

Wondering rather nervously why the Danes were so pleasant to the British if we had done that much damage – and confused about what had happened when I’d always assumed Denmark-Norway (as it was then) was neutral – I climbed to the very top of the tower and saw why it had been such an easy target. The views are fabulous (and for those who are fans of Scandinavian crime drama on TV, the bridge in the far background of the shot is "The Bridge").

When I visited the excellent Royal Danish Arsenal Museum I discovered what had happened.

Danish and Norwegian commercial shipping thrived during the French wars with Britain in the late 18^th century – sailing under a neutral flag they did business with both sides. But by 1798 Britain had control of the world oceans and did not want to stand by while neutral countries traded with France and broke their blockades, so the British navy began to intercept cargoes destined for France.

Danish-Norwegian shipping began to sail in convoys with  naval escorts, leading to numerous armed skirmishes and in December 1800 Denmark-Norway joined a league of armed neutrality with Russia, Sweden and Prussia. Britain retaliated by sending a fleet under Admiral Sir Hyde Parker, with his second in command, Lord Nelson, into the Baltic. On April 2 1801 the British attacked ferociously with over 15,000 shots fired in four and a half hours. Many ships fled or were captured and Nelson came ashore and threatened to burn all captured ships, regardless of their crews. The government backed down, allowing Britain to take control of the Baltic and to cut off all cargoes that would benefit France.

The Danes now found themselves in an impossible position. The French marched into Zeeland and the British were in the Baltic – they were caught in the middle. The British government believed the French would invade and take over the sizeable Danish fleet and so asked them to hand over the ships. On the other hand the French were pressing them to allow their troops onto Danish soil. The Danes held out for neutrality but were so beleagured that in August 1807 they effectively declared war on Britain.

British troops under General Wellesley (later Wellington) fought the land battle of Koge, just south of Copenhagen and the city was encircled and bombarded by shells and Congreve rockets from land and sea between 5-7 September. There was vast devastation – almost 30% of the city was in ruins –  and the loss of over 2,000 civilian lives.

The Danes capitulated and the British took their naval stores and the entire fleet – including eighteen ships of the line and eleven frigates. It was not until 1814 that the Treaty of Kiel finally ended hostilities.

So now I know why Wellington called his horse Copenhagen – but I still don’t know why the Danes are so nice about it!

Louise Allen

Georgian and Regency Greenwich

This month I have a new book out in the US, Desired, book 5 in my Scandalous Women of the Ton series. Desired will be out in the UK next year. One of the geographical locations I used for the book was Greenwich. I love modern day Greenwich with its park, riverfront and Maritime Museum and as a place with a long and fascinating history it proved to be a very interesting setting for a book.

Here are a few of the things I learned about Greenwich in the course of my research:

At the beginning of the 18th century Greenwich was an impoverished fishing village on the Thames with no more than a collection of timber cottages on some dirty lanes and some very dodgy inns such as Fubb’s Yacht, a notorious “beer house” for the sailors. By the end of the century, however, planners were imposing order and geometry on the growing town, designing houses in the style of Bath or Cheltenham but on a miniature scale. Gloucester Circus was the epitome of this, two crescents of houses enclosing a central circle. Only one of these crescents was built and the twenty-one houses, completed in 1809, are still standing.

Greenwich was the place where the body of Lord Nelson was brought ashore after his death at the Battle of Trafalgar. It was Christmas Eve 1805 and crowds had gathered but the weather was so poor that by the time the ship carrying Nelson finally arrived in Greenwich at 8pm, everyone had gone home assuming that he would not arrive that day. The sailors carrying Nelson’s coffin had to leave it at the top of the riverfront steps whilst they went off to find someone to let them in to the Seaman’s Hospital.

Princess Caroline, wife of the Prince Regent, rented Montague House in nearby Blackheath from 1798 and was a fixture on the Greenwich party scene. One guest commented of her: “The Princess is grown very coarse and she dresses very ill, shewing too much of her naked person.”

The Blackheath caverns were a considerable tourist attraction during the Regency period. They consisted of four underground caves cut from the chalk. They appealed to the romantically inclined as dating from an age long past and there were wild theories about their origins and purpose. Visitors complained of the cold and the spooky atmosphere and suggested that they had been created in Anglo Saxon times as a hiding place from the Vikings. In fact they originated as a 16th century quarry but this explanation was not suitably gothic to satisfy people. During the 19th century candles were installed in the caves and masked balls held there. These were considered extremely indecorous.

I drew much of my research from “The Story of Greenwich” by Clive Aslet and “Greenwich” by Charles Jennings which are both great reads as well as being packed full of useful facts.

TRAVELLING, CHISEL IN HAND…

First, an apology to those who commented on my last post, on 10th November. Sorry I didn’t respond. My excuse – and it’s a good one, I reckon – is that I was on my way to Egypt at the time and didn’t have access to the internet.

Which brings me to the subject of this post. Any one who has visited Pompeii will know that graffiti is everywhere. It’s not just a modern thing.

One of the things I learned on my Nile trip was that 19th century travellers all seemed to journey with a chisel in their pocket. The graffiti are everywhere. Look at this, for example, from the temple of Philae at Aswan:


You’ll notice that Mr Cradock was there in April 1823 as was another with an indecipherable name. There was also a gentleman from Rome whose name seems to be something like Cav. D Riga. A cavalryman, or perhaps an Italian knight?

Another interesting example from Philae is this, which was done by the French Navy in order to show how good their navigation was. The numbers at the bottom are the latitutude and longitude of Philae. The numbers are actually wrong! That’s because the temple was moved to a different, higher island, in order to avoid the rising waters of Aswan when the High Dam was built. The original numbers were right at the time, I understand.

You’ll note, too, that the heading is R. F. (which I assume to be République Française) and the year is seven – an 7 – which should be 1799 or thereabouts. That’s round about the time of the Battle of the Nile (1798) which, as I’m sure you’ll recall, the Royal Navy won, under Nelson.



Men were not the only graffiti culprits. I found one example of a female working with her chisel, also at Philae. The lady in question was called Sarah Day. And above her is a very decorative mark from a certain Mr Hughes in 1822. Were they there together? Impossible to tell, since Sarah didn’t put a date.

I am also proud to say that I overcame my fear of heights enough to go up in a balloon to see the West Bank of the Nile at Luxor at sunrise. Isn’t it stunning?

And this is the temple of the Pharaoh Hatshepsut, the only female pharaoh, taken from the balloon.

This is what her temple looked like in broad daylight, when I had my feet safely back on the ground. Quite an edifice for 1500 BC, isn’t it?


Joanna

www.joannamaitland.com