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Great Britain - 1808

Wellington débarque en Portugal

Obverse:

Bare head of the Duke of Wellington, right. ARTHUR DUKE OF WELLINGTON.

Size:

41 mm.

Reverse:

Allegorical figures of Spain and Portugal being attacked by the French eagle, imploring aid from Britain. THE ENGLISH ARMY ARRIVES IN THE PENINSULAR.

Exergue:

MDCCCVIII.

Mudie:

Mudie - XII.
ARRIVAL OF THE ENGLISH ARMY IN THE PENINSULA.

The illustrious General, who forms the subject of this Medal, was born May 1, 1769, being the fifth son of the late Earl of Mornington. The family from which he is descended (that of Cowley or Colley) was of English origin, and settled in the county of Rutland. In the reign of Henry VIII. it migrated to Ireland, and that country has to boast of having given birth to the greatest warrior of modern times. The seat of his ancestors (Dengan Castle) was the place of his nativity, but, when he attained a sufficient age, he was sent to Eton. An early and decided predilection for a military life occasioned his removal from that celebrated seminary before he had time to acquire those scholastic advantages which a longer abode there would have secured. From Eton he went to Angers in France, and in the military academy of that town he prosecuted studies, which, were congenial to his nature. On the 25th December 1787, being then in his eighteenth year, Mr. Wellesley received an ensign's commission in the 41st regiment.

England was then enjoying a profound peace, and Ensign Wellesley had no immediate prospect of gratifying his wishes by signalizing himself in active service. Meanwhile, however, he continued to rise in rank. On the 23d January 1788 he obtained a lieutenancy; and on the 30th June 1791 he was appointed Captain in the 58th or Rutlandshire regiment. On the 30th April 1793 be received a majority in the 33d regiment; and on the 30th September, in the same year, he purchased a lieutenant-colonelcy in it.

The year 1794 may be regarded as the commencement of that career whose glorious progress and termination will form a bright page in the annals of England. Lieutenant-colonel Wellesley was with his regiment in the expedition under Lord Moira, which-landed on the coast of Britanny. The troops composing this expedition were subsequently compelled to hasten to the relief of the Duke of York in the Netherlands, and Lieutenant-colonel Wellesley, at the head of three battalions, covered all the movements of the army during the disastrous retreat that followed. It is said that on this occasion he displayed a degree of coolness and skill which excited the highest admiration among those officers who witnessed his conduct.

In 1797 the Earl of Mornington (now Marquis Wellesley) was nominated Governor General of India, and his brother, Colonel Wellesley, went out to that country with his regiment (the 33d) in the same year. We cannot enter into the details of his military achievements in the East, which could have been surpassed only by his own more renowned exploits afterwards in Europe. At the memorable siege of Seringapatam he signally distinguished himself as far as any opportunity for doing so was afforded him; and he was subsequently appointed to the command of that city, when it passed, with the other dominions of Tippoo, into our possession. “The command of Seringapatam,” observed Lord Mornington, in one of his dispatches to the Court of Directors, “will remain in the hands of Colonel Wellesley. It is a trust of great delicacy and importance, which it is my duty to repose in a person of approved military talents and integrity.” On the 25th July 1801 he was gazetted as brigadier-general of the English army in Egypt, though, in point of fact, he never joined the troops under the command of Sir Ralph Abercromby.

It was in India that this great commander gained his first victory, and displayed those consummate talents in the field which afterwards raised him to so proud a height of glory. The battle of Assye, which was fought on the 24th Sept. 1802, exhibited all those peculiar features which, expanded upon a wider theatre, and dignified by a mightier stake, have filled Europe with his renown. It was distinguished by three circumstances, all of them component parts of his subsequent achievements, viz. the promptitude with which be changed his proposed mode of attack, even though in actual march to execute it; his determination to engage with an inferior force, rather than by waiting for his own troops to arrive, also give time for the enemy to receive reinforcements; and lastly, the ready abandonment of his cannon, when he found that the difficulty of advancing it checked the more valuable rapidity of his movements. This victory was no less decisive in its consequences, than brilliant in its character, for it led to the pacification of India. The thanks of both Houses of Parliament were bestowed upon him, May 3, 1804, and he was elected a Knight Companion of the most honourable Order of the Bath.

In March 1805 he returned to England, and in 1806 took his seat in Parliament as Member for Newport in Hampshire. In the same year, on the 10th April, he was married to the present Duchess of Wellington. This lady was the Hon. Catherine Packenham, third daughter of Edward Lord Longford.

In 1807 Sir Arthur Wellesley was appointed Chief Secretary of Ireland, during the viceroyalty of the Duke of Richmond, and in the same year he accepted a command under Lord Cathcart in the expedition which was fitted out against Copenhagen. On this occasion also he eminently distinguished himself; and again received the thanks of the House of Commons as one of the officers who were employed on that memorable service.

The following year (1808) saw him land upon the coast of Portugal at the head of a small army which was intended merely to assist the Portuguese in throwing off the detestable yoke of France. How little did Napoleon, how little did Europe, how little did England herself think, at that moment, what a rich harvest of glory he was destined to reap. The rest of his biography is written in the annals of his country, and commemorated in our medallic series. The separate description which we have to give of his principal victories, will form the noblest history of his life. From the lines of Torres Vedras he marched step by step, in the track of victory, dispersing the hostile legions that opposed him, baffling the skill of the ablest generals in Europe, and beating them by the superior energies of his comprehensive mind, not by the decisive superiority of numbers. He turned the arms of the oppressors on themselves. The invaders became the invaded: the conquerors were the conquered: the imperial eagle, dabbled with blood, and checked in her towering flight, fled in terror before him. He entered the Peninsula, and saw it, in dreary prospect before him, bowed down in its captivity; he left it, and looking behind him from the lofty summit of its Pyrenean frontiers, beheld it smiling and grateful, freed from an odious bondage, standing erect again, and breathing the free air of liberty. “The military triumphs,” to use the energetic language of the late Speaker of the House of Commons (now Lord Colchester), “which his valour achieved on the banks of the Douro and the Tagus, of the Ebro and the Garonne, called forth the spontaneous shouts of admiring nations.” This eulogy was pronounced before the battle of Waterloo. In what terms of wonder and delight could the same accomplished orator have conveyed the feelings of England and of Europe at that stupendous triumph ?

DESCRIPTION OF THE MEDAL.

Obverse. - Head of the Duke, in imitation of the antique; inscription, “ARTHUR DUKE OF WELLINGTON.”

Reverse. - An allegorical display of the arrival of the British army in the Peninsula, to assist it against the French, whose military power and success in that country are pourtrayed by the eagle with the fulmen or thunder-bolt pursuing the armed force of Spain and Portugal, who are personated by two females imploring British aid. Round the face of the Medal is inscribed, “THE ENGLISH ARMY ARRIVES IN THE PENINSULA.” On the exergue, or small division of the Medal, parted off from the subject, is the date of the arrival. In the back ground are the mountains peculiar to the country, which are also represented by the pillars of Hercules, the ancient emblems of the Peninsula.

Bramsen:

Bramsen - 742
Wellington débarque en Portugal. (Brenet et J. Mudie.)

ARTHUR DUKE OF WELLINGTON. Tête, à droite.

Rev: THE ENGLISH ARMY ARRIVES IN THE PENINSULA. Deux femmes, représentant l'Espagne et le Portugal, fuient l'aigle français et implorent l'assistance de la flotte anglaise, dont on voit un bâtiment au pavillon britannique. Dans le fond, une montagne et les colonnes d'Hercule.

Exergue: MDCCCVIII.

Médaille, 40 mm. - T. N. 26, 10.

BHM:

AR, AE 41 by N. G. A. Brenet & J. Mudie.
AR R; AE N.
AM; HC. M. 12.


The Spanish people having risen against their French masters, Napoleon brought an army of 16,000 men into Spain in 1809. Canning, however, had anticipated this action and in July 1808 landed a force of 30,000 men commanded by Sir Arthur Wellesley on the Mondego river north of Lisbon.
One of Mudie's series of National Medals (see No. 1057) issued in 1820. Examples of this medal are believed to have been struck in gold but no specimen has been met with.
There is a mule of the obverse of this piece with the obverse of No. 595 in the Fitzwilliam Museum.
from British Historical Medals, Volume 1, p. 156