In 1879, Butler came within two votes of becoming the first woman to be elected as an Associate Member of the Royal Academy (apart from two founder Members, Mary Moser and Angelica Kauffman; ultimately, the first female Associate Member was Annie Swynnerton, elected in 1922, and the first full Member was Laura Knight in 1936). The painting has highly popular and was reproduced many times and is considered an iconic representation of the battle itself and heroism more generally. Lady Butler was one of Britain’s leading history painters – and she specialised in battles. In 1880, she painted The Defence of Rorke’s Drift during the Zulu war. She was not uncritical of either empire or war. Her painting Remnants of an Army depicts the last survivor of the British retreat from Kabul in 1842. The title comes from the battle cry of the soldiers who called “Now, my boys, Scotland forever!” as they charged. Butler had never observed a battle; however, she did watch her husband’s regiment during training maneuver, and she positioned herself in front of charging horses to study their movement.

The Union brigade consisted of one English, one Irish and one Scottish regiment of cavalry, the Scots in question being the 2nd or Royal North British regiment of Dragoons, the Royal Scots Greys. As a regiment they had not fired a shot in anger for years, having been kept at home on ceremonial duties while Wellington fought his way through Spain. Many had seen action with other regiments before transferring, but Waterloo was the Greys’ last chance of Napoleonic glory – and they seized it.Rohit Bal is ‘critical, on ventilator’, says treating doctor: ‘He has a heart condition and some infection’ Elizabeth Thompson raised six children and continued to paint. She was widowed in 1910 and died in 1933, shortly before her 87th birthday. Battle of Waterloo Iain Gale has been studying Waterloo for more than 40 years. His book on the Scots Greys at Waterloo, Scotland Forever!, was published by Birlinn in 2015. He has previously written an acclaimed account of the battle, Four Days in June. Iain regularly takes tours to the battlefields of Waterloo.

After her marriage in 1877 to Sir William Francis Butler (1838–1910), an officer of the British Army, from Ireland, Butler traveled the far reaches of the Empire with her husband. Butler wrote that after the Exhibition, she awoke to find herself famous. In 1879, Butler came within two votes of becoming the first woman to be elected as an Associate Member of the Royal Academy.The painting is the subject of the first episode of Malcolm Gladwell's 2016 podcast, Revisionist History, in an episode entitled "The Lady Vanishes". Her fame increased as the paintings toured Europe, along with photographs of Elizabeth. She gained even more notice because people found out that she was both young and pretty, something normally not associated with painters of battle scenes. It also helped that during this time, there was a huge swell of Victorian pride and romanticism for the growing British Empire. [2] [3] [4] While Lady Butler's topics reflected such romanticism, her paintings were generally realistic in detail, with aspects such as confusion, mud and exhaustion being accurately portrayed. Her works tend to focus on British troops shown in action, or shortly after it, but avoiding scenes of hand-to-hand combat. The troops are often shown as their opponents might have seen them, but relatively few of the opponents themselves are shown.

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The lead rider is arguably either Lt Col James Hamilton who led the first charge but was killed in the second smaller charge, or Captain Edward Cheney who had his horse shot from under him five times in the battle, once on each charge, who was promoted to Brevet Colonel in the field due to the death of both Hamilton and Sir William Ponsonby, and led the 3rd, 4th and 5th charge. The painting is not intended to be a portrait of either. The painting was exhibited at the Egyptian Hall in Piccadilly in 1881. It is now housed at the Leeds Art Gallery, having been one of its earliest acquisitions, a gift from Colonel Thomas Walter Harding (1843–1927) in 1888. [2] It was also an inspiration for the depiction of the same charge in the film Waterloo. [ citation needed] The title comes from the battle cry of the soldiers—the Greys called "Now, my boys, Scotland forever!" as they charged. [4]