The Charge of the Light Brigade and Florence Nightingale

(first part of this story is given in  Sa Maison and Lady Lockwood this is part 2)

After a peaceful decade of living in Malta with her daughter and son, cultivating her lovely garden Lady Lockwood must have felt a genuine relief that the torment and turbulence of her married life was behind her.  Given the court case and widespread publicity within the British papers of her husband’s abuse her garden and home in Sa Maison must have been a solace.  Few, knew of her here and she could live a quiet life in the sunny and friendly Mediterranean island.  The views from her villa and garden are breath taking and the area to this day has a wonderful calm atmosphere.

It must have been horrendous to find that peace shattered by the onset of war in the Crimean.  The British Expeditionary force arrived on route to the Crimea and some of her husband’s ex regiments were included in the battalions posted to Malta.  It seems a strange coincidence that some of the British force should be billeted in her very garden.  For a year and a half Malta was full of soldiers and in order to get to their accommodation they had to gain access through her garden.  One of the soldiers posted at this time was an artist and his paintings ( and some photographs of troops) in Malta show how much the British Expeditionary force dominated the island during this period.

Having arrived in 1843-46 Various accounts suggest that they needed to use the site of her house to position guns to defend the walls.  They wanted to demolish her house and for a year and half Lady Lockwood held out hoping that she would not lose her home.  Having been to the garden and examined the bastions it seems strange to position the guns on this lower bastion when much higher sites on the walls above would have provided greater height and range.  In the end the military had their way and her villa was knocked to the ground.  It originally was a hunting lodge built in the 18^th century and its seems a shame that such a historic building was flattened to provide two gun mountings.  Lady Lockwood left the island and all that remains are the beautiful gardens and two circular slabs on which the guns were mounted.  On the adjacent walls the military have carved their insignia which can just be made out although weather worn.  I know historians have argued that the demolition  of the house was purely a military expediency but one wonders what other factors played a role in their decision.  All the paintings shown above are by a soldier from her husband’s old regiment the rifle brigade.  In the officer’s circles they must have known of her husband, Captain Robert Manners Lockwood and his disgrace in the press which had happened a few years previously.  From one historical account there is this piece which is tantalising.

‘In 1853 British military experts obtained permission to pull down the house to make way for a gun platform... the decision to bring in the Military experts to decide on the dismantling of the house was taken after Lady Lockwood gave the cold shoulder to a high ranking military official’. 

Who knows?  I found it fascinating to see that there are actual photographs of the troops at the Crimean war.  I had thought that this was before cameras were available but no there are these shots of various officers from this time and it makes it all seem so much closer.    

Florence Nightingale and forty of her nurses visited Malta on route to the Crimea and their services were much needed.  In the Crimean War (October 1853 – February 1856) Russia lost to an alliance of France, Britain, the Ottoman Empire, and Sardinia.  At its end there were 350,000–375,000 dead.  

Florence Nightingale 1854

I remember my father would often quote from a famous poem (by Lord Tennyson) about a battle of the Crimea known as the Charge of the Light Brigade.

Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
"Forward, the Light Brigade!
"Charge for the guns!" he said:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

"Forward, the Light Brigade!"
Was there a man dismayed?
Not tho’ the soldier knew
Someone had blundered:
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volleyed and thundered;
Stormed at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell
Rode the six hundred.

It ends with a section celebrating their bravery

When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made!
All the world wondered.
Honour the charge they made,
Honour the Light Brigade,
Noble six hundred.

A wonderful poem. It is thought a mistake was made in sending instructions to this brigade and they were sent into direct withering fire.  I find it hard to celebrate anything about war and loss of life.  Certainly, no glory or long lasting good seems to emerge from most conflicts.  Over 20,000 of the British Expeditionary force would die in the Crimean war.

“How is it possible for men to fight from morning until evening, killing each other, shedding the blood of their fellow-men: And for what object? To gain possession of a part of the earth! Even the animals, when they fight, have an immediate and more reasonable cause for their attacks! How terrible it is that men, who are of the higher kingdom, can descend to slaying and bringing misery to their fellow-beings, for the possession of a tract of land!

The highest of created beings fighting to obtain the lowest form of matter, earth! Land belongs not to one people, but to all people. This earth is not man’s home, but his tomb. It is for their tombs these men are fighting. “ Baha’i Writings

Yesterday, I walked along the front to the gardens of Sa Maison and found the flowers blooming along its outer bastions.  Spring has arrived and Lady Lockwood might have been delighted to see how much of her garden remains.  Perhaps, as Marcus Aurelius said so succintly around 170 AD, 

“What we do now echoes in eternity.”

another Australian man wore daring shorts with a “wife beating vest”

There is a fantastic cathedral here in Valletta, Malta.  It’s called St John’s Cathedral and I queued to get in and view the magnificent interior.  While waiting I decided that the entrance fee might be worth paying and entered.  Only to be accosted by a large officious woman at the door who said I needed to cover up!  Bemused, I checked myself, I am not generally known for my daring outfits.  I wore a long skirt down to my ankles and a high necked top.  What could possibly be offensive?  Then, the lady pointed out that part of my shoulders were visible at the edge of my top.  I mean, if you looked up my sleeves you might get a glimpse of my upper arms, but really there was nothing obscene about it.  I could tell the people in the queue around me were bewildered too.  One of them wore a cut away sarong to the waist, but she was okay, another Australian man wore daring shorts with a “wife beating vest” as my eldest son likes to call them.  The lady in front of me had shoulders covered but her neckline descended to her belly button and almost all her breasts were on display.  However, they were all okay, it was I who caused offence for some reason and was duly draped in a huge orange piece of material to make me decent. 

The Australian giggled, as he said, “Sorry love, you looked like Mary Poppins to me even without the shroud.”  I sigh, such things seem to happen to me.  It was at this point dressed in a huge orange tent surrounded by half naked people, I realised I had forgotten my glasses.  Having paid my fee I was trapped in a stunning church with poor eyesight that only let me see what was less than a metre in front of me.    Not to be outdone I peered hopefully at each nave, every picture and all the ornaments.  In fact I am pretty sure, every tourist that day in Valletta has a picture of me in a vast orange tent in all their pictures of the cathedral.  They are all probably at home now in far off places showing relatives and friends their holiday snaps and saying, “yes, I have no idea what this idiot was doing, dressed in an orange tent who managed to get into all the shots.”  Well, the explanation is that in order to see I had to stand in front of everyone really close to the exhibits.  While peering at the aforesaid object people were clicking away in the background. 

The floor is covered in gravestones of the famous knights who died and their names are engraved along with the dates.  The more famous have paid for huge statues of themselves posing with angels and such like.  In fact the more I read and examined the place the less I felt like admiring things.  Is that how it is, you pay for your immortality, your place in Holy places?  To get remembered, you need only get something ornate and gold trimmed and stick it up somewhere?  That doesn’t seem right.  Mind you King Charles V who actually gave the knights Malta, as their centre was not quite right either.  Charles suffered from an enlarged lower jaw, a deformity that became considerably worse in later Habsburg generations, giving rise to the term Habsburg jaw. This deformity was caused by the family's long history of inbreeding, which was commonly practiced in royal families of that era to maintain dynastic control of territory. His bloodline would become so genetically flawed that they could not survive, those red necks from the film “Deliverance”, were obviously not the only ones to marry their kith and kin.  I even think can hear a banjo playing as I wander round the church and its opulent décor.  But, it was perhaps holding his own funeral that makes Charles stand out in my mind.  Yes, you heard me right.  Here is an account of that very occasion.

“The chapel was hung with black, and the blaze of hundreds of wax-lights was scarcely sufficient to dispel the darkness. The brethren in their conventual dress, and all the Emperor’s household clad in deep mourning, gathered round a huge catafalque, shrouded also in black, which had been raised in the centre of the chapel. The service for the burial of the dead was then performed; and, amidst the dismal wail of the monks, the prayers ascended for the departed spirit, that it might be received into the mansions of the blessed. The sorrowful attendants were melted to tears, as the image of their master’s death was presented to their minds—or they were touched, it may be, with compassion by this pitiable display of weakness. Charles, muffled in a dark mantle, and bearing a lighted candle in his hand, mingled with his household, the spectator of his own obsequies; and the doleful ceremony was concluded by his placing the taper in the hands of the priest, in sign of his surrendering up his soul to the Almighty.” Yes, the rich and the royal are often, "gone in the head", as my nephew James would rightly say!  On that thought, I gave back my orange tent and left the cathedral pondering the dangers of riches, fame and glory.