author
Lady Magdalene De Lancey
1793–1822
Remembered for a moving firsthand account of Waterloo, she turned personal tragedy into one of the most intimate narratives to come out of the Napoleonic Wars. Her writing brings the human cost of battle into sharp focus through the story of nursing her mortally wounded husband.
1 Audiobook
About the author
Born Magdalene Hall in Scotland in 1793, she is best known as Lady Magdalene De Lancey, the author of A Week at Waterloo in 1815. She was on the campaign in 1815 when her husband, Colonel Sir William Howe De Lancey, was badly wounded at the Battle of Waterloo, and her account of the days that followed became her lasting claim to fame.
What makes her work stand out is its closeness and restraint. Rather than describing grand strategy or military glory, she wrote about fear, exhaustion, devotion, and grief, offering a rare view of Waterloo from the edge of the battlefield and the sickroom.
She later remarried, but her life was short: she died in 1822 at the age of 29. Even so, her brief memoir has endured, valued both as a personal testimony and as a vivid reminder that history is often felt most deeply in private moments.