Orders, Decorations and Medals

WATERLOO 1815 (Sergeant John Royle, 2nd Batt. Coldstream Gds) fitted with steel clip and ring suspender, small edge bruise, otherwise about very fine

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, An Important Collection of Waterloo Medals.

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John Royle served at Waterloo in Lieut. Colonel Dawkin's company. The medal is sold with a manuscript document containing Sergeant Royle's reminiscences of Waterloo from which the following extracts are taken: 'Sergeant Royle was one of the Royles of North Etchells, a family that had always lived in the Parish. He would have been born about 1785 and was a hand loom weaver by trade. On the eve of the battle he and a Cpl. were in their tent, they spotted their Capt. coming towards them in a downpour of rain. He was badly injured, they bid him to come and lay down and sleep, shortly afterwards he sprung up in a dream. They tried to calm him down and get him to sleep again, but all he said was God be merciful as I have not long for this world, and the Capt. was the first casualty Sgt. Royle saw, he was hit with a nine pound shot on the battlefield and he died in the tent shortly afterwards.
The farm house that there was saw much fighting for was lost and retook six times in that day, and they were running the French in a circle. The place was a place of corn at the start of the battle and at the finish it was a place of mud and straw where the squares were formed, he said the French deliberately worked round the square to find a weak place. He fired his musket at the French as they did so, and one of the shots hit a currasier in the foot. He went to the farmhouse to inspect it. He said there was not a tile or brick in the farm that didn't show signs of being fired on. There were 3 birch trees in the garden that were covered with marks of shots, under the trees sat 5 Highlanders playing bagpipes, they were all that were left of one regiment. He returned to England and lived to be very old and was buried at Gatley.'