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) Cinque Ports (1703 ship) Cinque Ports was an English ship whose sailing master was Alexander Selkirk, generally accepted as a model for the fictional Robinson Crusoe. The ship was part of a 1703 expedition commanded by William Dampier, who captained an accompanying ship, the 26-gun "St George" with a complement of 120 men. When the War of the Spanish Succession broke out in 1701, English privateers were recruited to act against French and Spanish interests. Despite a court-martial for cruelty to one of his crew in an earlier voyage, Dampier was granted command of the two-ship expedition which departed England