The Duke of Wellington's Books
Though the Duke did not pretend to be a highly educated man, he had a real respect for books, and made resolute attempts to supervise the education of his son and heir. By Elizabeth Longford.
Like Shakespeare, Wellington knew little Latin and less Greek, as he himself was the first to admit when the Tories of Oxford University invited him to stand for Chancellor in 1833. He ‘knew no more of Greek and Latin than an Eton boy in the remove’, he protested. They should try to find someone suitable with a university education—his own had been completed at Angers Academy in France.
To his friend Mrs. Arbuthnot he confessed, though with a certain relish: ‘To be sure it will be curious if I, as ignorant as a post, should be elected the Chancellor of the University of Oxford! What will Lord Wellesley say?’—a reference to his extremely scholarly and somewhat jealous brother, the Marquess.
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