For more than a dozen years before his death “Copenhagen,” leading the
easy, comfortable career of a well-pensioned veteran who had retired
from all the activities of life, was only twice surreptitiously saddled
and ridden by the duke’s eldest son, the Marquis of Douro. The second
Duke of Wellington, who died in 1884, erected two monuments on the
grounds of Strathfieldsaye, that fine estate of nearly seven thousand
acres on which is situated Silchester, the site of a Roman station,
presented to the “Iron Duke” by the British government for a day’s work
at Waterloo. One of these, a superb and lofty marble column, is to the
memory of his illustrious father, the other to that of “Copenhagen.”
The former stands just outside the park at the point where, immediately
in front of one of the lodges, the London road meets at right angles
that which connects Reading with Basingstoke. A simple marble tombstone
standing under the shadow of a spreading Turkish oak marks the spot
where the brave steed was buried with military honors, and bears the
following inscription from the pen of the second duke:
Here lies Copenhagen, the charger ridden by the Duke of Wellington
the entire day of the battle of Waterloo. Born 1808, died 1836.
God’s humbler instrument though meaner clay
Should share the glory of that glorious day.
[Illustration: WELLINGTON’S WATERLOO CHARGER “COPENHAGEN”