On 18th June 1815, two armies battled in muddy Belgian fields. The Duke of Wellington with the allied British army and Napoleon with the seemingly unstoppable Imperial Guard.

Outnumbered, the British forces fought fiercely for their country. Their victory at the Battle of Waterloo represents one of the bloodiest battles in British military history and also one of our most celebrated strategic victories.

The 3rd Earl of Harewood, Henry Lascelles, was an Ensign, a junior rank of commissioned officer, in the 2nd Battalion Grenadier Guards and he found himself at the historic battle. Although we don’t know much about his involvement, we know he was injured on 18th June 1815 and that he received a medal for his part in the events of that day.

Almost a century later Europe was plunged into the next brutal chapter of conflict with the outbreak of World War One. It was in France, on the 18th June 1915, that the 6th Earl of Harewood, Henry Lascelles, was wounded in battle. A truly amazing coincidence that members of the same family should be injured exactly 100 years apart in two of the most significant wars ever fought in Europe! Henry Lascelles later married to the King’s only daughter, Princess Mary, in 1922 bringing Harewood into the Royal household. They moved to Harewood House in 1929 where they lived for many years raising their family in Yorkshire.

The 7th Earl of Harewood, George Lascelles, was the next member of the family to be drawn into a European war. World War Two saw the highest loss of life in any conflict.

On the 18th June 1944, George Lascelles was injured and captured in France. The irony was not lost on him; in his autobiography, The Tongs and the Bones he wrote: