According to the Duke of Wellington himself, the success of the allies at the Battle of Waterloo turned on an amazingly slight contingency, namely, the closing of a gate or door of wood in the wall of a building. This fact was conclusively brought out when, years after the battle, an English clergyman, Rev. Mr. Narcross of Framlingham, died and left in his will the sum of five hundred pounds simply "to the bravest man in England." The executors of the estate were completely nonplussed. Who was the bravest man in England? Doubtless many would have come forward gladly to claim the distinction and the legacy, but who was worthy of them? In their trouble, the executors applied to the Duke of Wellington for an answer to the question. The Iron Duke was not a man to be beaten by any question whatsoever, least of all by a military one. He went back a little in his recollections--until he came to the battle of Waterloo. Then he wrote to the executors of the Framlingham parson that that battle was the greatest that had been fought in recent times. "The success of it," he went on to say, "turned upon the closing of the gates of Hugomont; these gates were closed in the most courageous manner, at the very nick of time, by Sir James Macdonnel; and he is the man to whom you should pay the five hundred pounds." Thereupon the executors went to Sir James with the money; but he said to them: "I cannot claim all the credit of closing the gates of Hugomont. My sergeant, John Graham, seeing with me the importance of the step, rushed forward to help me; and by your leave I will share the legacy with him." The request was granted, and the fact was to this extent judicially established that Sir James Macdonnel and John Graham had closed the gates of Hugomont Castle, thereby settling the issue of the battle and the fate of Europe. Let us see what events hinged upon this act, and how they depended on it. The army with which the great Napoleon faced the miscellaneous assortment of British, Prussians, Hanoverians, Dutch and Belgians at Waterloo was smaller than that of the Allies, but vastly more efficient as a whole. Most of the troops of the Allies were raw, and some of them were poor stuff indeed. Napoleon's soldiers were hardened, practiced, brave and splendidly commanded.