Scotland Forever. The Royal Scots Greys Charge At Waterloo. Painting By Lady Elizabeth Butler. From The World's Greatest Paintings, Published By Odhams Press, London, 1934. Poster Print (20 x 10)

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At a time when Scotland seems on a road that leads ultimately out of the union, it’s worth remembering that Waterloo did much to create the British patriotism that is now disintegrating. “Scotland Forever!” was these riders’ battle cry, but they were not calling for independence. Rather they were proudly articulating a Scottish identity within the British army. Their courage at Waterloo helped seal the image of Scottish military toughness within the mythology of the British Empire. Lady Butler painted Scotland Forever! in 1881, at the height of empire. The connection between kilts and courage would be a cliche of British imperialism right through to the 1968 film Carry On Up the Khyber. Rohit Bal is ‘critical, on ventilator’, says treating doctor: ‘He has a heart condition and some infection’

Lady Butler was widowed in 1910, but continued to live at Bansha until 1922, when she took up residence with the youngest of her six children, Eileen, Viscountess Gormanston, at Gormanston Castle, County Meath. She died there shortly before her 87th birthday and was interred at nearby Stamullen graveyard. [2] [3] [4] To the Front: French Cavalry Leaving a Breton City on the Declaration of War (1888–89 – Private Collection) During the First World War both the Germans and the British used this image in their propaganda material.Butler was included in the 2018 exhibit Women in Paris 1850–1900, [7] whilst the 2023 play Modest covered her life from Roll Call to her rejection as an Associate of the Royal Academy. [8] Paintings [ edit ] Scotland Forever!, 1881, Leeds Art Gallery The Return from Inkerman (1877), Ferens Art Gallery, Kingston upon Hull Remnants of an Army (1879), Tate Britain, showing the supposed only British survivor of the 1842 retreat from Kabul Balaclava, 1876, Manchester Art Gallery On her husband’s retirement from the army, they moved to County Tipperary, Ireland. During the Irish Civil War, a collection of watercolors she had created from their time in Palestine was moved for safekeeping. 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). This glorious vision of British martial manhood was painted by a woman, Lady Elizabeth Butler, born Elizabeth “Mimi” Thompson, and it is called Scotland Forever! Waterloo was a decisive engagement and Napoleon’s last. According to Wellington, the battle was “the nearest-run thing you ever saw in your life.”

Scotland forever!’– this was the cry of the Royal Scots Greys as they charged Napoleon’s troops at Waterloo – a decisive moment in an epic battle in which Scottish heroism played a crucial role.Born at the Villa Claremont in Lausanne, Switzerland, Butler was the daughter of Thomas James Thompson (1812–1881) and his second wife, Christiana Weller (1825–1910). Her sister was the noted essayist and poet Alice Meynell. Elizabeth began receiving art instruction in 1862, while growing up in Italy. In 1866, she entered the Female School of Art in South Kensington in London. She began exhibiting her artwork, usually watercolours, as a student. In 1867, one watercolour, Bavarian Artillery Going into Action, was shown at the Dudley Gallery, one of the galleries preferred by women artists. The same year, she exhibited an oil painting, Horses in Sunshine, at the Society of Female Artists. However, at Waterloo, the regiment had brown horses like the other heavy cavalry regiments, and the name “greys” is derived from the grey uniforms the regiment wore in the early 18th century. 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. Scotland Forever! is an 1881 oil painting by Lady Butler depicting the start of the charge of the Royal Scots Greys, a British cavalry regiment that charged alongside the British heavy cavalry at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815. The painting has been reproduced many times and is considered an iconic representation of the battle itself, and of heroism more generally.