The government of Great Britain had two foreign policy issues on the plate in late 1814. The first was the war with the US and the second was the Congress of Vienna, the conference to reshape Europe after the abdication of Napoleon and his exile to Elba.
By the middle of the year, the hero of the Peninsular War had been made Duke of Wellington. The prime minister wrote to him suggesting that he go to Canada to oversee the US campaign.
Wellington replied that he would but he thought he might be needed in Europe, adding “I think you have no right, from the state of war, to demand any concession of territory from America”.
The government came round to Wellington’s way of thinking and negotiations got underway. By 24 December, the US and Great Britain were ready for peace and made the Treaty of Ghent.
As things turned out, the US war was not quite over and the European peace had not quite begun. Weeks later and without knowledge of the peace, Andrew Jackson had his famous victory at the Battle of New Orleans, while Wellington rushed from the Congress to give an escaped and defiant Napoleon his Waterloo in June. Curiously enough, it was Wellington’s brother-in-law Edward Pakenham who led the army against Jackson. He died with Jackson later writing to President Munroe:
I did not know where General Pakenham was lying or I should have sent to him, or gone in person, to offer any service in my power to render.
Both English and Americans have cause to celebrate another treaty of sorts, Magna Carta, the deal by which the barons and the church brought King John to heel. King John was born on 24 December 1166.
King Charles III is a descendant of King John. So is the heir apparent of the current Duke of Wellington. The latter gets there because his mother and the wife of the current duke is great-granddaughter of Kaiser Wilhelm II and therefore the great-great-great-granddaughter of Queen Victoria. While the Prussians were definitely “the enemy” in the Kaiser’s Great War, let Wellington’s words at Waterloo be recalled: “Night or the Prussians must come.” So the latter, and victory, and a Pax Britannica which survived until that Great War, did.
The King can also claim Christmas Eve on his father’s side. Prince Philip’s grandfather King George I of Greece was born on 24 December 1845.
