University Of Oklahoma Press All for the king's shilling: the british soldier under wellington, 1808-1814, paperback/edward j. coss

The British troops who fought so successfully under the Duke of Wellington during his Peninsular Campaign against Napoleon have long been branded by the dukes own words--scum of the earth--and assumed to have been societys neer-do-wells or criminals who enlisted to escape justice.

Now Edward J.

Coss shows to the contrary that most of these redcoats were respectable laborers and tradesmen and that it was mainly their working-class status that prompted the dukes derision.