Lord Uxbridge's Leg - Shrine

Shrine

Paris asked if he might bury the leg in his garden, later turning the place into a kind of reliquary shrine. Visitors were first taken to see the bloody chair upon which Uxbridge had sat during the amputation, before being escorted into the garden, where the leg had its own 'tombstone', inscribed as follows:

Here lies the Leg of the illustrious and valiant Earl Uxbridge, Lieutenant-General of His Britannic Majesty, Commander in Chief of the English, Belgian and Dutch cavalry, wounded on the 18 June 1815 at the memorable battle of Waterloo, who, by his heroism, assisted in the triumph of the cause of mankind, gloriously decided by the resounding victory of the said day.

Some were impressed; others less so. According to an article headed "Marquis of Anglesey's Leg" in Notes and Queries, 1862, a wag wrote on the tombstone –

Here lies the Marquis of Anglesey's limb;
The Devil will have the remainder of him.

The poetaster Thomas Gaspey recorded his own impressions in verse. Some of these lines are also recorded in Notes and Queries, which says they "went the round of the papers at the time":

Here rests, and let no saucy knave
Presume to sneer and laugh,
To learn that mouldering in the grave
Is laid a British calf.
For he who writes these lines is sure
That those who read the whole
Will find such laugh were premature,
For here, too, lies a sole.
And here five little ones repose,
Twin-born with other five;
Unheeded by their brother toes,
Who now are all alive.
A leg and foot to speak more plain
Lie here, of one commanding;
Who, though his wits he might retain,
Lost half his understanding.
And when the guns, with thunder fraught,
Pour'd bullets thick as hail,
Could only in this way be taught
To give his foe leg-bail.
And now in England, just as gay -
As in the battle brave -
Goes to the rout, review, or play,
With one foot in the grave.
Fortune in vain here showed her spite,
For he will still be found,
Should England's sons engage in fight,
Resolved to stand his ground.
But fortune's pardon I must beg,
She meant not to disarm;
And when she lopped the hero's leg
By no means sought his h-arm,
And but indulged a harmless whim,
Since he could walk with one,
She saw two legs were lost on him
Who never meant to run.

The leg attracted an amazing range of tourists from European society of the very top drawer, from the King of Prussia to the Prince of Orange. It was a nice earner for Monsieur Paris and his descendants, all the way down to 1878, when it was the occasion for a minor diplomatic incident. Uxbridge's son visited, to find the bones not buried, but on open display. On investigation by the Belgian ambassador in London, it was discovered that they had been exposed in a storm which uprooted the willow tree beside which they were buried. The ambassador demanded repatriation of the relics to England but the Paris family refused, instead offering to sell the bones to the Uxbridge family, who, not surprisingly, were enraged. At this point the Belgian Minister of Justice intervened, ordering the bones to be reburied. However, the bones were not reburied; they were kept hidden. In 1934, after the last Monsieur Paris died in Brussels, his widow found them in his study, along with documentation proving their provenance. Horrified by the thought of another scandal, she incinerated them in her central heating furnace.

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