ustration: THE GOLD CROSS OF SIR WILLIAM DE LANCEY.

Received after serving in the Peninsular War.

_In the possession of Major J.A. Hay._]

At the close of the war he was made a Knight of the Bath. When
Napoleon landed from Elba, Wellington, in forming his staff, insisted
on having De Lancey appointed as his Quartermaster-General. The
officer really entitled to the promotion was Sir William's
brother-in-law, Sir Hudson Lowe;[12] but as Wellington had conceived
a dislike for him, he refused to accept that officer in that capacity.
The military authorities, however, insisted on his appointment, and it
was only when Wellington made the promotion of De Lancey a _sine qua
non_ of his acceptance of the supreme command that the former
yielded.[13] Six weeks before the battle of Waterloo, Sir William
married the daughter of Sir James Hall[14] of Dunglass, the Scottish
scientist. His bride accompanied him on the Continent. On the second
day of the battle[15] Sir William was knocked from his horse by a
spent cannon-ball, and it was at first supposed that he had been
instantly killed. Thirty-six hours afterwards he was discovered, still
alive and in his senses, but incapable of motion, although without any
visible wound. Notwithstanding the skill of the surgeons, and the
tender care of his wife, he succumbed to his injuries nine days after
the battle.[16]

[Footnote 12: It was not till the 16th December 1815--six months after
Waterloo--that Sir Hudson Lowe married Mrs Susan Johnson, sister of
Sir William De Lancey. (_Dictionary of National Biography_, vol.
xxxiv., p. 191.) See also _The Creevey Papers_, Third Edition (1905),
p. 247.]

[Footnote 13: "Wellington assumed command in the Netherlands early in
April 1815, and Lowe, who had been acting as Quartermaster-General in
the Low Countries under the command of the Prince of Orange, remained
for a few weeks under him as his Quartermaster-General; but having
been nominated to command the troops in Genoa designed to co-operate
with the Austro-Sardinian armies, he was replaced in May by Sir
William Howe De Lancey." (_Dictionary of National Biography_, art.
"Lowe, Sir Hudson," vol. xxxiv., p. 191.) See also _The Creevey
Papers_, Third Edition (1905), p. 247.

The following extract of a letter from Major-General Sir H. Torrens to
Earl Bathurst, Secretary for War, dated Ghent, 8th April 1815, alludes
to the hitch about Sir Hudson Lowe: "I shall communicate fully with
the Command