Charge! Hurrah! Hurrah!

For James Thomas Brudenell, 7th Earl of Cardigan, leading the Light Brigade at Balaclava was but one incident in a life of sensation and notoriety. Donald Thomas’s biography, originally published in 1977, and based on new material when originally published, shows this most controversial Victorian against a panorama of regimental intrigue and aristocratic luxury.Dismissed from the army for ‘revolting’ conduct, charged with attempted murder, it took the glory and the folly of Balaclava to turn ‘this plague-spot of the British army’ into ‘the most popular soldier in England’. For all his misbehaviour, Cardigan remains warm-blooded, generous, impulsive and courageous, as well as obstinate, proud and sometimes ridiculous.