The directory «Plots»
Cardigan James Thomas Brudenell, 7th Earl of Cardigan KCB
(1797–1868)
Ñommanded the Light Brigade of the British Army during the Crimean War.
James Brudenell was born in Hambleden, Buckinghamshire and brought up at the Cardigan family seat of Deene Park, Northamptonshire. He was educated at Harrow (whence he was expelled for fighting) and Christ Church, Oxford. He was Member of Parliament (MP) for Marlborough in Wiltshire from 1818 to 1829, before inheriting the earldom from his father in 1837.
Beyond all other interests, which included politics and the preservation of the ancient privileges of the aristocracy against the reformist climate of the period, Brudenell committed himself to a career in the army. At the age of 22 he formed his own troop of horse, armed from official stocks, to guard against possible reformist demonstrations in Northamptonshire. At the age of 27, in May 1824, he joined the 8th Hussars. Making extensive use of the purchase of commissions system then in use he became a Lieutenant in January 1825, a Captain in June 1826, a Major in August 1830 and a Lieutenant-Colonel, commanding the 15th Hussars, in December 1830. His youth and inexperience, compared with that of the battle-tested officers whom he lead (some were veterans of Waterloo) drew his naturally punctilious nature to manifest itself in petty-minded bullying: In 1833 he was publicly censured for “reprehensible...conduct” in a court martial held to determine charges he had laid against a subordinate. He was dismissed, by order of King William, early in 1834. However it was after a personal appeal to the king, that was allowed for his family’s friendship with royalty rather than any particular merit in the case, that in 1836 he took command of the 11th Hussars, notwithstanding the view of his commander-in-chief, Lord Hill, that he was “constitutionally unfit to command a regiment”.
In a genuine desire to lead a smart and efficient unit, Brudenell set about using his own fortune to improve his regiment’s performance. A consequence of this was his wish that his officers should be as aristocratic, flamboyant and stylish as he; he had no time for those men—“Indian officers”—who had learnt their profession over many years of service with the 11th during the its long posting to India. This attitude was particularly in evidence in the mess: Brudenell had forbidden the serving of porter, the beverage of choice among the professional officers, and when at a formal mess dinner a visitor had requested moselle wine, which was served in a “black bottle” similar to that of porter, he decided that the “Indian” Captain John Reynolds, who had ordered it for the guest, was defying him.
Reynolds was arrested and in due course received a strongly worded reprimand from Lord Hill, who although privately believing that his misgivings about Brudenell had been well founded, felt that in the interests of good order and discipline a public demonstration of support was necessary. Reynolds’s guardian sent the details of the case to all the London papers and for many months thereafter Brudenell, his regiment and the commander-in-chief were subject to ridicule, hissing and cat-calls of “black bottle” whenever they appeared in public.
Brudenell, by then Lord Cardigan, was prosecuted in 1841 for a duel with one of his former officers, another long-serving professional, but was acquitted on the most slender of legal technicalities, notwithstanding his boast on arrest that “I have hit my man”. This added to his unpopularity, with The Times alleging before the trial that there was a deliberate, high level decision to leave a loop-hole in the prosecution case and reporting the view that “in England there is one law for the rich and another for the poor” after the acquittal.
His most notorious exploit took place during the Crimean War on October 25, 1854 when, in command of the Light Cavalry Brigade at the Battle of Balaclava, he led the Charge of the Light Brigade, reaching the Russian guns before returning, personally unscathed, in a manoeuvre that cost the lives of 110 out of the 674 men under his command who took part in the charge. The extent to which Lord Cardigan was to blame is unproven, since he attacked only after expressing his doubts and receiving a direct order in front of the troops from his immediate superior Lord Lucan, Commander of the Cavalry Division. The order had been conveyed by Captain Louis Nolan, who died in the charge, and Cardigan blamed him for passing on the order incorrectly.
A staff officer to Lucan, Colonel the Hon. Somerset J.Gough Calthorpe, alleged in his book Letters from a Staff Officer in the Crimea that Cardigan had only survived because he had fled the scene before the charge made contact with the enemy. In his first edition, Calthorpe allowed that Cardigan’s horse may have bolted, but later editions pointedly stated the earl was too fine a horseman for this to be a satisfactory explanation. After some preliminary legal skirmishing Cardigan sought an indictment for criminal libel in 1863, but his action failed, although the bench made plain that it was only his competence, and not his courage, that was in doubt. They found that he had led his men onto the enemy’s guns with “valour...conspicuously displayed” but thereafter he “...was absent when his presence was desirable”.
A cooler assessment is that Cardigan, having reached and overrun the enemy battery, had then turned about and galloped for his own lines, encountering as he did so the second and third waves of attacking cavalry who had yet to reach their objective. It was the evidence of officers and men from those regiments that had given rise to the allegation.
In the week following the battle of Balaclava the remnants of the Light Brigade were posted inland, to high ground overseeing the British lines surrounding Inkerman. Cardigan, who had spent most nights of the campaign aboard his luxury steam yacht Dryad in Balaclava harbour, found this move a great inconvenience and his leadership of the brigade suffered as a result. Astonishingly, he missed the Battle of Inkerman (4 and 5 November 1854), casually asking journalist William Russell (who was returning from the conflict) “What are they doing, what was the firing for...?” as he rode up from the harbour at noon on the first day. The decisive stages of the battle were on the second day and again Cardigan was absent, although he managed to arrive at a more creditable 10.15 a.m.The part played by the brigade was not great and, to avoid embarrassing the earl, it was not mentioned in the official account of the battle forwarded to London.
Whatever Cardigan’s faults, he had always tried to ensure that the troops under his command were well equipped. However, as the Crimean winter fell over the Light Brigade’s exposed position, food, fodder, clothing and shelter were all in short supply. Beyond writing letters pointing out the deficiencies, Cardigan did nothing. Food and fodder were available at the coast, but he refused to release any men and horses to carry up stores, in case of a surprise attack by the enemy. Colonel Alexander Tulloch, who gave evidence to a board of enquiry into the failure, wrote privately after his evidence was excluded from the final report: “Because Lord Cardigan might have had some difficulty in carrying up all the barley to which his corps was entitled he [felt] therefore justified in bringing up none”. There was great hardship and many horses died.
On 5 December 1854, citing ill-health, Cardigan set off for England.
Newspaper accounts of the gallant charge had been given wide circulation in England by the time Cardigan's ship berthed at the port of Folkstone on 13 January 1855 and the town offered him a rapturous welcome. In London he was mobbed by an enthusiastic crowd and on 16 January at Queen Victoria’s invitation he was received at Windsor to explain to her and Prince Albert the details of the battle. Victoria noted how “modestly” he presented his story, but this reticence was absent in his public appearances: on 5 February, he gave a highly exaggerated account of his participation in the charge at a banquet held in his honour at the Mansion House, London. On 8 February, at a speech in his home town of Northampton, he went even further, describing how he had shared the privations of his men by living the “whole time in a common tent” and how, after the charge, he had rallied his troops pursued the fleeing enemy artillerymen as far as the Tchernaya river.
Cardigan was able to enjoy many months of adulation before doubts about his conduct emerged: He was made Inspector-General of Cavalry, the government recommended him for the Order of the Garter, although the Queen denied him this honour because of the previous unseemly incidents in his private life; he received instead a knighthood. Merchants, eager to profit from his fame, sold pictures depicting his role in the charge and written chronicles, based on his own accounts, were rushed into print. The “cardigan”, a knitted waistcoat supposedly as worn by the earl on campaign, became fashionable and many were sold.
Cardigan’s commanding officer, Lord Lucan, had been recalled in disgrace and arrived in England only two weeks after his subordinate but, as the officer who had “looked on” (a pun on his name much exploited by Cardigan) while the charge had taken place, little regard was given to his version of events. In July 1855 The Times hinted that the public had been mislead over “the real nature of [Cardigan’s] services in the East” but, in the absence of anything definitive, his popularity remained. However, officers who had taken command in the aftermath of the charge, the role that Cardigan was claiming for himself, had heard of his reception in England and were anxious to put the record straight. A writer, George Ryan, who had rushed out a hasty pamphlet praising Cardigan, retracted his words and was the first to report their reservations about the earl’s conduct on the day. As the soldiers themselves began to return to England, the doubts hardened. It was not until the following year, however, with the official enquiries of Colonel Tulloch and the publication of Calthorpe’s Letters and other books, was there proof that Cardigan had not been telling the truth. With characteristic arrogance and self-delusion, however, he continued as if nothing was amiss and he remained in his cavalry post for the next eleven years.
After his retirement in 1866 he lived happily at Deene, passing his time with hunting and shooting, with the occasional foray to London to speak in the House of Lords and to press for further official recognition of his glorious military career.
Isle of Man, 2000, Thomas Leigh Goldie and Earl of Cardigan
Great Britain, 1978.10.25, 
Postal Service of British forces. Seventh Earl of Cardigan
