Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington after "half a lifetime together, they had come to understand each other at the end". He had found consolation for his unhappy marriage in his warm friendship with the diarist Harriet Arbuthnot, wife of his colleague Charles Arbuthnot. Harriet's death in the cholera epidemic of 1834 was almost as great a blow to Wellington as it was to her husband. The two widowers spent their last years together at Apsley House. Wellington died at Walmer Castle in Deal on 14 September 1852. This was his residence as Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports. Walmer Castle was said to have been
Cinque Ports (1703 ship) Juan Fernández in solitude for four years and four months, before being rescued by Woodes Rogers in 1709. His experience was one of the likely sources of inspiration for the character Robinson Crusoe in the novel by Daniel Defoe. Selkirk's suspicions were soon justified, as "Cinque Ports" foundered near Malpelo Island from the coast of what is now Colombia, with Stradling and the surviving members of his crew being taken prisoner by the Spanish. An eyewitness account of the last voyage of "Cinque Ports" was published by William Funnell, an officer on board "St George", who went on to circumnavigate