One Leg

Letters and unpublished material contribute to this dramatic, humorous, and romantic biography of the heroic nobleman written by his descendant.

Henry William Paget, first Marquess of Anglesey, was born more than twenty years before the French Revolution. Like his famous contemporary the Duke of Wellington, he became a legend during his lifetime. As a youth he was in one scrape after another; in his forties he figured in a celebrated elopement and duel which caused much scandal; but he is best known for his greatness as a cavalry leader. His brilliant timing of the charge of his “heavies” at Waterloo averted disaster in the first crisis of that battle. Having lost a leg by one of the last shots fired on that sanguinary day, he was later known as One-Leg Paget. Anglesey was twice lord-Lieutenant of Ireland. He was still in high office two years before his death at the age of sixty-five.

Among the famous figures prominent in this absorbing story are the Prince Regent, Queen Victoria, Sir John Moore, Lord Melbourne, Daniel O’Connell and, of course, the “Iron Duke,” with whom Anglesey was often at odds but of whom in old age he became a very close friend.