This is the Napoleonic Eagle captured at the Battle of Waterloo by Ensign Ewart.

The eagle is usually kept in Edinburgh Castle but I photographed it in its temporary home at the Museum of Scotland, Chambers Street, Edinburgh. You can see my faint reflection in the glass of the museum case

I must confess to feeling some unease at viewing and photographing these memorials to colonial wars such as the ones on Stirling and Edinburgh Castle esplanades.

This one is in Station Square, Inverness, facing on to Academy Street and seems to commemorate both the Anglo-Egyptian and the Mahdist Wars. The front is marked for Tel-el-Kebir.

These two sides are marked with Khartoum, Egypt and Ginniss:-

As well as Tel-el-Kebir we have Atbara and Khosheh:-

The Memorial has a sphinx squatting at the soldier’s foot.

Further to my post about the War Memorials on Edinburgh Castle Esplanade one of which was for the men of the Scottish horse the last time I was in Dunkeld I noticed this memorial on one of the walls in the town square:-

Again it commemorates the South African War (Second Boer War.)

As well as the Ensign Ewart Memorial there are four other memorials to British (make that Scottish) regimental involvements in various wars. Three of them can be seen on the right and one on the left in this view of the castle from the esplanade.

The first was erected in 1861 to the memory of the 256 men from all ranks of the 78th Highlanders (78th Regiment of Foot) who died during the Indian Mutiny. Pity about the traffic cone in the foreground!

The second was erected in memory of the men of the Scottish Horse who died in the South African War (the Second Boer War.)

The thinnest one is to the memory to the men of the 72nd Highlanders who died in the Afghan War 1878-80. That was the Second Anglo-Afghan War. (Despite “Never Invade Afghanistan” being Harold MacMillan’s first rule of politics there have now been no fewer than four Anglo-Afghan Wars.)

The Memorial on the south wall of the castle Esplanade is to the Gordon Highlanders who died in the Second Boer War, the South African War, 1899-1902.

This detail shows a fine stag’s head.

The entrance to the castle itself is flanked by statues to Scotland’s two great warrior heroes, Bruce and Wallace,and surmounted by the Royal Emblem (the Lion Rampant) and motto, Nemo Me Impune Lacessit.

200 years ago today the last battle of the Napoleonic Wars was fought at Waterloo. Famously remembered as a “close-run thing” (though the quote is apparently “It has been a damned nice thing — the nearest run thing you ever saw in your life,”) it was a bloody nightmare. A total of around 48,000 men were killed inside 10 hours.

Last month I visited Edinburgh Castle. Among the memorials on its esplanade is this one, erected in 1938, to Ensign Charles Ewart, of the Royal North British Dragoons (more commonly known as the Scots Greys,) who captured the Imperial Eagle of the French 45^th infantry regiment during the battle.

The Eagle itself is normally on display in the relevant Regimental Museum in the castle grounds but it wasn’t on the day I visited. I think it’s on loan to the National Museum of Scotland at the moment. I did find, though, this Memorial to the men of the Scots Greys who died in the Great War.

Also, inside the Castle’s Great Hall, there is a painting, executed by Richard Ansdell some thirty years or so after the event, of the moment of the Eagle’s capture. Titled “The Fight for the Standard” the picture is huge – 13 ft by 11 ft. It is somewhat triumphal in tone and perhaps ridiculously sentimental given the likely conditions of the actual battle.

Picture from Eric Gaba at Wikimedia Commons.

Perhaps a more famous painting of the Battle of Waterloo is “Scotland Forever!” by Elizabeth Thomson, Lady Butler.

The original is in Leeds Art Gallery but a reproduction is in the Regimental Museum.

These photos were taken about a month or so ago.

This is a panorama of Edinburgh from the Botanic Gardens with Arthur’s Seat prominent towards the left and the Castle to the right.

This heron was in the Water of Leith as we walked back from the Botanics. It may or may not be the same one we have seen before.

This is one of Antony Gormley‘s sculptures. It is embedded into the tarmac in the middle of the pedestrian entrance from Belford Road into the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art.