Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria to include a Fine Collection of Napoleonic Medals

Wellington, Arthur, 1st Duke of (1769 - 1852) Autograph Letter Signed with Initial (’W’), to Lady Caroline (Lamb), Paris, 25 December 1815, 5 1/2 pages, 8vo; leaf removed from second bifolium, endorsed by Lady Caroline ‘from the Duke of Wellington / after the Battle of Waterloo’, very good condition
£1,000-1,500

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, A Fine Collection of Napoleonic Medals and Artefacts.

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Wellington assures Caroline that her letters give him pleasure and encourages her to write ‘whenever you have a leisure moment’. He describes the balls and concerts he had given ‘a sort of farewell to Paris’ and teases her about a letter of hers to (Charles) Arbuthnot which he had read, ‘I am quite convinced that you never go out of a morning without having your schemes in your head in the same delightful state of confusion in which they were in that letter’.

Caroline Lamb was referred to by Wellington in his letters as ‘Calantha’ after the heroine of Glenarvon, her novel about Byron. According to Elizabeth Longford, ‘Calantha was of constant concern and interest to the Duke, both for her lurid past and unhappy present’. In 1816 the Duke attempted to have her admitted to Almack’s but Lady Jersey ensured he did not succeed (Wellington Pillar of State, 1972, p.35).