Mixed from me. Grant was a decent choice. The production a nice idea in a year that saw probably two or three documentaries, (or was it a three part series? Either way more air time) given to Napoleon, most of which concentrated on his military, political and personal life and all they could give Wellington in the bicentenary year of Waterloo was a documentary about how bad he was to his women.

That being said, it's definitely in the style of Hibbert's personal history, trying to get at the man and it does a fair job in this, though no documentary this long was ever going to actually achieve the true human portrait of the, who is even more complex than the figure they present by the end. It was better than I thought it would be.
This Wellington begins as the hero everyone knows, and by the finish is given a sort of added dimensionality of being a sort of Jekyll and Hyde. Nevertheless I think they got a basic sketch of the man there. And though Holmes' documentary is not topped by it, documentaries about the duke don't crop up very often, and those that do caricature rather than attempt, as this one does, to see past Cruikshank and Victorian idealism.

Though they play to his faults to be more interesting. They correctly identify that the majority of the relationships he had with women were intellectual rather than physical, which not many do. And indeed they reveal but don't talk about his softer side, and the more interesting Jekyll and Hyde scenario: that he was a public man, a slave some would say to duty as he saw it, who was deeply and jealously protective of his privacy and confided only in those people he trusted. This of course lead to much of the grief with Kitty that the show focuses on. Now just because I can, I'm going to point out a few things that didn't quite meld.

It ignores the part played by the matchmaker, Mrs Sparrow who helped engineer his marriage, though admittedly with his complete approval. Acting as the go between from Wellesley to Kitty, she gave neither any idea that the other had no clue what they were getting into.

A big oops moment is made by propagating the rather tired fallacy that the Duke said the "Stable and Horse" quip about Ireland. This is now known to be the words of Daniel O'Connell, denouncing Wellington as an Irishman.

On the score of Harriet Wilson, they take some Liberty here as most biographers dismiss her as sensationalist. Her description of his wearing a red ribbon, rather confirms that she never knew him all that well or was going by a rather old memory. I have always discounted her merely on the strength that whenever she described him, even in Paris when he did his best not to appear a conquerer, he is wearing orders and decorations, something that wasn't usually prominent in his style for non official events. This is not so say that he did not play around to some extent, however the irritating thing is that this part of his life is entirely dependant on other people's often distant opinions.

I'd say it is a little uncharitable to infer that he should have returned from Spain a couple of times to see his family. When it is obvious that the whole show would've unraveled had he not been on the spot. On a positive note they didn't ill use the 'scum of the earth' quote, though they have paraphrased him and spliced together elements from the three main instances he used it.

They keep calling him Wellesley during the battle of Salamanca, but this is pedantic of me. They say Waterloo lasted 8 hours, though it was closer to 10-11 hours, and of course the Prussians engaged in the 6th hour of the fight, not right at the end, though it is true that this was when their forces became concentrated enough to really hurt Napoleon and effect the Battle decisively.

The stature by Canova, they say he acquired it in Paris, but though the circumstances escape me, I beloved it was obtained by the Prince Regent and given to him. And oh, for shame! The poor old cavalry being blamed for Peterloo, when I thought everyone knew it was the Yeomanry who did the cutting and the regular officers even tried to intervene.

I see they made allot of using his private correspondence, those of his "friends" and Kitty's diaries. However I have read all their quotes before, So I think they are fortunate that the Duke is realistically so little understood, that few documentaries are ever made about him. It is a shame they only did one episode as this was an ambitious idea, that could have been taken much further, and it can't be done in just one show. I think the 9th Duke has the right idea of him, and it was interesting to see what he had to say. I think he must have had some wonderful set too's with his sister, Jane about it.

Josh.