|
Lieutenant-General James Thomas Brudenell, 7th Earl of Cardigan, KCB (16 October 1797 – 28 March 1868), was an officer in the British Army who commanded the Light Brigade during the Crimean War. He led the Charge of the Light Brigade at the Battle of Balaclava. Throughout his life in politics and his long military career he characterised the arrogant and extravagant aristocrat of the period. His progression through the Army was marked by many episodes of extraordinary incompetence, but this can be measured against his generosity to the men under his command and genuine bravery. As a member of the landed aristocracy he had actively and steadfastly opposed any political reform in Britain, but in the last year of his life he relented and came to acknowledge that such reform would bring benefit to all classes of society. ==Early life== James Brudenell was born in a modest, by the standards of the Brudenell family, manor house at Hambleden, Buckinghamshire.〔 In February 1811 his father inherited the Cardigan earldom, along with the immense estates and revenues that went with it, and the family seat of Deene Park, Northamptonshire. James accordingly became "Lord Brudenell", and took up residence in the most grand of households, at the age of fourteen. He was educated at Harrow where, notwithstanding the fears of his family that a childhood head injury caused by a dangerous fall from a horse had seriously damaged his intellect, he showed aptitude in Greek and Latin.〔David (1997: 15)〕 He made good academic progress, but after he had settled a quarrel with another pupil by an organised fist-fight, his father removed him from the school. (Fist fights were tolerated at Harrow: it was the fact of Brudenell's receiving punishment for unauthorised absence while having a broken bone in his hand attended to by a London surgeon that had annoyed the earl.)〔David (1997: 21)〕 He was subsequently educated at home. Here, as the only son among seven sisters, he developed into something of a spoilt child, accustomed to getting his own way. This is seen as a cause of his arrogance and stubbornness in later life.〔 Brudenell was a fine rider and, inspired by the decisive role of cavalry at the battle of Waterloo, his wish was to purchase a commission in a fashionable regiment and serve as an army officer. His father, however, mindful of preserving the family pedigree from risk of battle, would not allow this. Instead in November 1815 he was sent up to Christ Church, Oxford;〔 as an aristocrat he was automatically granted admission without examination. He left in his third year—aristocrats with no academic bent were released after only two years—but notwithstanding his showing some aptitude, he did not take a degree.〔David (1997: 29) "He stayed for his third year and was 'submitted for examination in the Easter term of 1818'...in the event he did not take ()". Woodham-Smith, p.8, says he was two years at university, as does Sweetman in ODNB.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「James Brudenell, 7th Earl of Cardigan」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|