Duchess of Richmond's ball

Charlotte's husband Charles Lennox, 4th Duke of Richmond, was in command of a reserve force in Brussels, which was protecting that city in case Napoleon Bonaparte invaded.

[3] The proceedings were interrupted soon after the arrival of the Duke of Wellington, when he was notified of Napoleon's unexpected advance on the nearby crossroads of Quatre Bras, located 34 km (21 mi) to the south.

According to Lady Georgiana, a daughter of the Duchess: My mother's now famous ball took place in a large room on the ground-floor on the left of the entrance, connected with the rest of the house by an ante-room.

There was quite a crowd to look at the Scotch dancers.While the exact order of the dances at this ball is not known, there is a comment from a contemporary critical observer about the season in Brussels: Whenever they get together the severest etiquette is present.

They begin a ball with a perfect froideur they go on with their dangerous waltz (in which all the Englishwomen join) and finish with the gallopade, a completely indecent and violent romp.Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington with his intimate staff arrived some time between 11 pm and midnight.

[d] After repeating to the Prince that he should return to his headquarters, Wellington continued to sit at the table and make small talk for 20 minutes more, before announcing that he would retire to bed.

I went with my eldest brother (ADC to the Prince of Orange) to his house, which stood in our garden, to help him to pack up, after which we returned to the ball-room, where we found some energetic and heartless young ladies still dancing.

I remember being quite provoked with poor Lord Hay, a dashing merry youth, full of military ardour, whom I knew very well for his delight at the idea of going into action, and of all the honours he was to gain; and the first news we had on the 16th was that he and the Duke of Brunswick were killed.Katherine Arden, daughter of Richard Arden, 1st Baron Alvanley, described the events towards the end of the ball and the rest of the night: ... on our arrival at the ball we were told that the troops had orders to march at three in the morning, and that every officer must join his regiment by that time, as the French were advancing, you cannot possibly picture to yourself the dismay and consternation that appeared on every face.

[11] Sir William Fraser examined the site and concluded that the room proposed as the ballroom by Lady de Ros was too small a space for the number of people who attended the ball.

[13][14] Research by lawyer P. Duvivier and published by Fleischman and Aerts in their 1956 book Bruxelles pendant la bataille de Waterloo put forward an alternative theory.

[36] Critics of the day were not kind to the picture itself, but the sequence in which the officers hurry to leave the ball — the red of their coats suddenly and emotionally filling the frame — was widely praised as showing great promise for the dramatic use of colour on-screen.

[16] The ball was a scene in the third act of a melodrama called In the Days of the Duke written by Charles Haddon Chambers and J. Comyns Carr; it was displayed sumptuously in the 1897 production, with a backdrop by William Harford showing the hall and staircase inside the Duchess's house.

[38] Several characters attend the ball in Georgette Heyer's novel An Infamous Army (1937), and also in The Spanish Bride (1940), her novelisation of the life of Sir Harry Smith.

[citation needed] A fictional account is given of the Duchess of Richmond's ball in The Campaigners, Volume 14 of The Morland Dynasty, a series of historical novels by author Cynthia Harrod-Eagles.