The Great Duke, as many called him (though to his troops he was "Old Nosey" or "The Beau") lived for many years after Waterloo, with which he is chiefly identified, and was even briefly Prime Minister of England - with limited success. An autocrat by nature, Wellington belonged to the conservative chapter of European politics provoked by the French Revolution and its aftermath, though he was always too pragmatic and level-headed to become an out-and-out reactionary.
Purely as a fighting commander he has probably been overrated, and he was very lucky to be a co-victor (along with Blucher) at Waterloo, but he was one of the ablest military planners and organisers in European history. Christopher Hibbert charts his unsatisfactory marriage and his personal loneliness in later life, as well as the brusque, disciplined energy and powers of judgment which made Wellington (originally Arthur Wellesley) into a European figure by early middle age.