Admiral Rodney's Pillar

We celebrated  the Royal wedding last week, not by watching television, but by climbing to Rodney's Pillar in its imposing site on the border between Shropshire and Wales.

The meadows below the summit were full of bluebells

When we reached the pillar we were rewarded with magnificent views.

Admiral Sir George Rodney was the only successful British commander in the War of American Independence. After France and Spain joined the war on the side of the American rebels, Rodney defeated a Spanish attempt to seize Gibraltar, but then had to return home because of illness. While he was away, a French army and fleet crossed the Atlantic and trapped General Cornwallis’s forces at Yorktown, forcing his surrender to Washington in 1781 and effectively ending the fighting in America. After this success, the French fleet headed for the West Indies, with the aim of seizing Jamaica and delivering a further blow to the British Empire. But Rodney now returned, and destroyed the French fleet at the Battle of the Saintes. After this setback, the French were happy to broker a peace treaty between Britain and the Americans. Rodney was rewarded with a peerage, and the column was erected in his honour by “the gentlemen of Montgomeryshire”.

  A good way of annoying Americans is to point out that, without the intervention of the French, they’d never have won their War of Independence!