Southend U3A

January 2023

In The Lap Of The Gods - Avril McOwen

I am Hester and I am here in Brussels with my husband Captain Lord Richard Armstrong, who is an Aide-de-Camp to the Duke of Wellington. We are here with the Combined Foreign Allies of British, Dutch, Belgium and German armies for the sole purpose of defeating Napoleon Bonaparte from imposing, yet again, a single state in Europe which he would control and rule over, again. It is the 14th June 1815 and we are here at the Duchess of Richmond's ball in her family's temporary home in Brussels. It is a very large ballroom with walls papered with a very fashionable trellis pattern with roses and from the ceiling there are hanging several beautiful large circular crystal chandeliers holding many lighted candles which give a golden glow all around the ballroom. All the walls are decorated with swags of silver and gold. There are so many people here consisting of various foreign royal princes, ambassadors, aristocrats, ambassadors, generals and officers of the Duke's armies talking and dancing that Richard points out to me, and my head is reeling trying to remember so many names. Many of the military men are dressed in their military uniforms but some have arrived in their dress uniforms of white satin breeches and dancing pumps. It is a room full of families with husbands, fathers and sons who are all soldiers in the Duke's army and those of the Allied Armies. There is a very heightened tension in the ballroom that is tangible indicating that something unknown was soon to occur.

In our society there is a very great chasm between the lower, middle and upper classes and the strict protocol determines who you can and cannot speak to. As the wife of a rich and aristocratic landowner I am now regarded as a member of the upper echelons of society and am able to associate with the highest in the land. But I was born into the loving family of the local curate whose parish was on Richard's father's land in Suffolk which Richard would eventually inherit. My plain-speaking father and gentle kind mother ensured that my two sisters and myself grew up in a very happy home and my father taught us all that the only permanent thing in life was change and he always answered anyone who came seeking his help when they had difficult events in their lives that ‘God will decide’, which he firmly believed in and trusted. However, as my life has taken the most unexpected turns from the home of a parish priest to the aristocratic homes of the very wealthy, plus my dream came true of becoming a highly regarded painter, I have always preferred to say ‘All is in the Lap of the Gods" and tonight it is very relevant. Right now, as I stand here in this beautiful ballroom’ many of the military men will soon be leaving their loved ones, some never to return and some coming back severely wounded.

Life is governed by the social class prescribed for you from birth. It was impressed upon everyone that you did not step out of your social class. If you did then life was made very difficult in a multitude of petty ways by your family and friends; and a woman wanting to become an artist was regarded as extremely scandalous. This was my dream to become an artist just like the two most famous women painters, Angelika Kauffman and Mary Moser, who, regardless of the impediments put in their way, became the first two female artists alongside the 22 male artists at the founding of the Royal Academy in 1768. Then there is the French artist Elizabeth Vigee-le-Brun who became the court painter to Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette.

We lived in the house owned by the landowner, Richard's father, so from childhood our family had to behave in accordance with the middle-class rules, which I found suffocating and very constraining. I received a very good education which was designed to equip me to eventually become a wife and mother, to look after the needs of my future husband and children, with a total disregard for the needs of me as a person, My husband would be my parents' choice, or one selected by Richards's father, as he was the landowner, and it was my duty to accept him without any argument and be handed over to this selected man, like a chattel, and become a dutiful wife and mother for the rest of my life. Heavy demands are placed upon women regarding their personal conduct and virtue which they were expected to uphold at all times or be judged accordingly. A woman was seen merely as a servant to her parents and then a possession to her husband. By contrast my selected husband could have as many mistresses as he wanted and any money I brought to the marriage would automatically belong to him. If I chose not to be married then the only option I had was to become a Governess in somebody's else's household which I definitely did not want to do. I wanted to earn my own living as an artist and that was very unacceptable because I was a woman, in fact, it was regarded as shocking. Regardless of that I was going to try and do it and see what happened. My good education had equipped me with a great deal of self-confidence so daily I was going to improve my artistic skills and see what occurred. This is the life I wanted for myself so it was most definitely In The Lap of The Gods.

Our home was surrounded by the most beautiful hills, valleys, waterfalls and streams and I would go as often as I could to various locations to paint what I saw. Oh, the sheer joy of the brush meeting the canvas and watching the colours follow each other, then mix together to become a new colour. My fingers tingled as I watched excitedly as the surrounding landscape began to appear on the canvas, there was so much to see, paint and colour. Sometimes, someone from the village would pass by and come over and see what I was doing and ask to be included in the painting and I would then receive admiration from the sitter because I had captured their likeness exactly. Then one day Richard was riding by me and came over to see what I was doing. He asked if he could be part of the painting, then praised me for capturing his likeness so well, and that was the beginning of people coming to my father and asking for permission for me to do a portrait of themselves and family members. It all added to my pleasure and strengthened my resolve to keep on improving my artistic skills. Being a woman barred me from the formal artistic training that was available to men. I was completely self-taught. I was allowed to keep half of the money I earned from selling my paintings but my father used the other half to help the needy in his parish. Richard and I became great friends over the years and found we had many common interests, and it soon became apparent that we loved each other but his family separated us as they had arranged for him to marry a great heiress. Richard, however, told his family that he would not marry anyone except me and arranged to leave to join the Duke of Wellington's campaign in the Iberian Peninsula for a tour of duty for 2 years, after which, hopefully he would return home and we would be married. His family had to accept this and we all waited through those 2 years until he did come home, much strengthened mentally, emotionally and physically. In the intervening time he had told all his aristocratic friends about the portraits I had done and word spread rapidly throughout the district and even as far as London. All of this happened spontaneously and I thanked the God that was looking after me as He wanted this to happen, and so it came about. Amazing what occurs when you leave Life alone and let go. His family were so thankful that Richard had come home that they allowed us to marry and we now have two children, Edward 6yrs and Thomas 4yrs old, who remain in England at the family's estates while Richard and I are here in Brussels with the Duke of Wellington.

It was as we were standing talking with friends that the military dispatch rider appeared and went directly to the Duke of Wellington. He was quickly followed by another dispatch rider and suddenly the order came from the Duke for all his aide-de-camps to join him, which included Richard. I noticed that many of the military men who were in their dress uniforms and lived nearby had left to go and change into their military uniforms and collect their rifles. However, some were unable to do this as they lived too far away so this is what they would have to wear on the battlefield. Suddenly Richard was in front of me and he took both my hands into his and we just stood looking at each. Then we were in each other's arms and speaking endearments to each other, saying all the things we could think of to demonstrate how deep our love was for each other, as we knew that this may be the last time that we would see each other. Then he was gone, and the order was given at 3am for all the soldiers to march off to the battlefield leaving behind distraught loved ones. That's when I began to weep and prayed so hard for his safe return and I placed Richard Into the lap of the Gods.

Being my father's daughter and so used to helping others I joined with many of the women to arrange for places to be allocated for the wounded that we knew would arrive. We would act as nurses, cooks and stretcher bearers. Once all the arrangements were made, we just waited for the inevitable to begin. We walked about nearly all morning, being unable to sit quietly listening to the firing of guns and cannons from the battlefield and not knowing what was happening. The first sight of the wounded was awful, some were able to walk, others needed crutches to support themselves, some came in two's and three's supporting each other. Those who could not walk arrived in horse drawn carts containing as many as ten soldiers all badly wounded. All of us were looking to see if any of our family or friends were in those carts. I spent those few days following the doctors' orders to clean the wounds with cherry water and to bandage the wounds before moving the soldiers to available allocated homes to recuperate. Suddenly, three days later, on the 18th June there was a brilliant victory and Napoleon had been defeated and had surrendered. All the soldiers began returning to Brussels, where they were cheered loudly by everyone waiting for them, there was great excitement that it was all over. I watched each day at the returning soldiers hoping to see if Richard was among them, but he was never there so I continued being busy looking after some of the wounded soldiers. Then someone tapped me on my back and I turned around and looked into the mud splattered face of Richard, his uniform torn in several places but he was unhurt and grinning broadly. I just threw myself into his arms and he hugged me so tightly while I was crying with relief that he had been sent back to me and he kept repeating over and over how much he loved me and then we were kissing each other. Oh how I thanked those Gods. Once again, I had placed my trust in them that they would protect him and bring him back home unhurt to me, and they did.

We have always had a very deep love for each other but we have now found that out of all that carnage when we never knew if we would ever see each other again our love for each other has deepened even further.