XTbe Earl of CartJioan 239 



one of his officers, Captain Wathen, under arrest at Cork, 

 and, despite the Captain's appeal for a court-martial, keep- 

 ing him for nine months in custody without taking any 

 steps to bring him to trial. When at last the court- 

 martial was held, Captain Wathen so completely justi- 

 fied his conduct, that he was honourably acquitted, whilst 

 Brudenell was severely censured for subjecting his 

 officers to a system of 'discipline revolting to every 

 proper and honourable feeling of a gentleman.' The result 

 was the following announcement in ' General Orders,' — 

 ' His Majesty has been pleased to order that Lieut-Col. 

 Lord Brudenell shall be removed from the command of 

 the 15th Hussars.' His latest biographer euphemistically 

 puts it, ' Brudenell had a hint to resign !^ An order of 

 removal is, I think, a pretty broad hint ! 



The public considered this order equivalent to dismissal 

 from the army. But his father was an intimate friend of 

 the King (William IV.), and, through his interest in the 

 highest quarter, procured for his son the command of the 

 I ith Hussars, then stationed in India. Brudenell joined 

 the regiment in 1836, and returned the following year 

 to find that his father had just died, and that he had con- 

 sequently succeeded to the title and a rent roll of ^40,000 

 a year. But his succession to the earldom did not 

 render him any the more popular with his brother 

 officers, though he spent ;^ 10,000 a year in making the 

 nth the smartest cavalry regiment in the service, and 

 gained for it the high distinction of calling itself, by Royal 

 permission, ' Prince Albert's Own Hussars.' 



The Earl had a most extraordinary knack of making 

 himself disagreeable to his comrades-in-arms, though 

 in ordinary society his courtesy and affability rendered 

 him a general favourite. A wager arose, when the 



