Waterloo, showing the house where Lord FitzRoy Somerset's arm was amputated after the battle, on the evening of June 18th 1815

At approximately 7 o'clock in the evening during the battle of Waterloo, Lord FitzRoy Somerset was hit by a French marksman from the roof of La Haye-Sainte. The musket ball smashed his right elbow beyond repair and it had to be amputated. He is reputed to have said after the surgeon discarded his severed arm: 'bring my arm back. There's a ring my wife gave me on the finger'; this may well have been that given to her by her uncle the Duke of Wellington, who himself had taken it from the collection of Tipu Sultan after the battle of Seringapatam in 1799 (see lot 10).