Our cavalry is very superior in quality to any the French have, and the right spirit has been infused into them by the example and instruction of their ... leaders....”  At Benavente one of Napoleon’s best cavalry leaders, General Lefebvre Desnoettes, was taken prisoner.  Corunna was Paget’s last service in the Peninsula.  His liaison with the wife of Henry Wellesley, afterwards Lord Cowley, made it impossible at that time for him to serve with Wellington, whose cavalry, on many occasions during the succeeding campaigns, felt the want of the true cavalry leader to direct them.  His only war service from 1809 to 1815 was in the disastrous Walcheren expedition (1809) in which he commanded a division.  During these years he occupied himself with his parliamentary duties as member for Milborne Port, which he represented almost continuously up to his father’s death in 1812, when he took his seat in the House of Lords as earl of Uxbridge.  In 1810 he was divorced and married Mrs Wellesley, who had about the same time been divorced from her husband.  Lady Paget was soon afterwards married to the duke of Argyll.  In 1815 Lord Uxbridge received command of the British cavalry in Flanders.  At a moment of danger such as that of Napoleon’s return from Elba, the services of the best cavalry general in the British army could not be neglected.  Wellington placed the greatest confidence in him, and on the eve of Waterloo extended his command so as to include the whole of the allied cavalry and horse artillery.  He covered the retirement of the allies from Quatre Bras to Waterloo on the 17th of June, and on the 18th gained the crowning distinction of his military career in leading the great cavalry charge of the British centre, which checked and in part routed D’Erlon’s corps d’armee (see WATERLOO CAMPAIGN).  Freely exposing his own life throughout, the earl received, by one of the last cannon shots fired, a severe wound in the leg, necessitating amputation.  Five days later the prince regent created him marquess of Anglesey in recognition of his brilliant services, which were regarded universally as second only to those of the duke himself.  He was made a G.C.B. and he was also decorated by many of the allied sovereigns.

[v.02 p.0017]

In 1818 the marquess was made a knight of the Garter, in 1819 he became full general, and at the coronation of George IV. he acted as lord high steward of England.  His support of the proceedings against Queen Caroline made him for a time unpopular, and when he was on one occasion beset by a crowd, who compelled him to shout “The Queen,” he added the wish, “May all your wives be like her.”  At the close of April 1827 he became a member of the Canning administration, taking the post of master-general of the ordnance, previously held by Wellington.  He was at the same time sworn a member of the privy council.  Under the Wellington administration he accepted the appointment of lord-lieutenant of Ireland (March 1828),