Sergeant Charles Ewart was forty-six years old, a Scots Greys cavalryman of twenty-six years' service, when his Union Brigade rode into the French I Corps on the afternoon of June 18, 1815. The British heavy cavalry charged downhill through the wheat below the ridge of La Haie Sainte to break d'Erlon's columns as they pressed the Allied center. The Scots Greys hit the 45th Line Regiment on the left of the French attack, and in the press of horsemen against breaking infantry Ewart found himself face-to-face with the regiment's eagle-bearer. He killed the officer carrying the Imperial Eagle, then a lancer who came at him, then a foot soldier who got off a missed shot. The eagle — the bronze finial of Chaudet's design, the regimental pennon stitched with the 45th's battle honors of Jena, Eylau, Friedland, Essling, and Wagram — was his. Ordered back from the field to carry the trophy to safety, Ewart was famously bitter at missing the rest of the day. He became a celebrity in Britain, was commissioned ensign, retired to keep a pub at Salford, and now rests under a monument on the esplanade of Edinburgh Castle. The Eagle itself is preserved at the National War Museum of Scotland.

This King & Country figure shows the moment after the capture — Ewart galloping clear with the French standard held aloft, the tricolor with its golden eagle finial and battle-honor pennon streaming behind him. He wears the Scots Greys' full dress: scarlet coat with blue facings and gold lace, white breeches, black tall riding boots, and the regiment's famous bearskin cap (the heavy dragoon's distinction — most British heavy cavalry wore helmets, the Greys wore bearskins). His sabre and carbine are stowed at the saddle. The horse is a dappled grey — the breed-color discipline that gave the regiment its name and held since the seventeenth century, when only grey horses were issued to the 2nd North British Dragoons. The figure is the direct historical counterpart to the Officer Flagbearer carrying his own Imperial Eagle — Ewart's capture is the moment that role failed — and faces across the field Napoleon Bonaparte directing the French center from the ridge at La Belle Alliance, with General Gourgaud serving at the Emperor's side as aide-de-camp through the day.

Model: NA476 / King & Country / 1/30 (60mm) scale / matte finish / 1 piece set