In 1834 the QUEEN'S was relieved by the 40th Regiment, and
returned to its former cantonments in the Deccan.
General the Right Honourable Sir William Keppel[36], G.C.B., died
on the 11th of December, 1834, and the Colonelcy of the QUEEN'S
ROYAL was by his Majesty given to Lieutenant-General the
Right Honourable Sir James Kempt, G.C.B. and G.C.H., from the 40th
Regiment.
[Sidenote: 1837]
The Queen's Royal Regiment has continued to be employed in the
Presidency of Bombay to the end of the year 1837, the period of
the termination of this Record. It remains an efficient corps, and
the laurels which it acquired in every quarter of the globe are
preserved untarnished in the distant shores of India.
* * * * *
NOTE.--_The Compiler of this Record feels it his duty to
acknowledge the most effective assistance which he has derived from
Major Charles Head, late of the Queen's Royal Regiment, and from
the devotedness which that gentleman has evinced in searching for
the detail of all occurrences in which the honour of his late corps
was concerned._
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The marriage portion of Queen Catherine included the city of
Tangier, the Island of Bombay, and a sum equal to 300,000_l._
sterling. Tangier is a place of great antiquity, and was formerly
one of the most splendid cities in Africa. It is stated by
Procopius Cæsariensis to have been founded by the Phœnicians; it
was known by the name of _Tingis_, or _Tinja_, and was taken by the
Romans under Sertorius. It was afterwards captured by the Vandals,
and was retaken by the celebrated Belisarius, who restored it to
Justinian. On the invasion of the Saracens it was surrendered to
them by Count Julian. In the fifteenth century it was the scene of
several desperate engagements between the Moors and Portuguese; and
in 1437 Prince Ferdinand was defeated before the city, and his army
subjected to an ignominious capitulation. In 1471 it was taken by
Alfonso V., king of Portugal. After the death of Sebastian, it fell
into the hands of Spain; but upon the restoration of the Braganza
family to the throne of Portugal, in 1640, it was once more annexed
to that monarchy.
[2] A memorandum on the subject of Regimental Colours is given in
the Appendix, and marked E.
[3] Copy of a letter addressed by King Charles II.:--
'To the Earl of Peterborough.
'Dated Whitehall, y_{e} 21^{st} of 10^{ber} 1661.
'My Lord Peterborough:--I am very well satisfied of your care
and dilligence in the employment your are in, for which I thank
you very heartily. And assure yourself I have soe just a sense
of this and all your other services, as you shall find upon all
occasions how much I esteem and value all those who serve me
faithfully. I have noe more to adde at present only to desire
you to lett those honest men knowe who are along with you, y^t
they shall allwayes be in my particular care and protection, as
persons y^t venture themselves in my service. And so wishing you
a good voyage I remain
'Y^r very aff^{nate} friend
'CHARLES R.'
'_Bibl. Harl._, 6844.'
[4] Mercurius Publicus.
[5] These battalions were part of the royal force which fought
for Charles I. during the civil war in England. In 1657 they
entered the service of Spain; and in 1660 were placed in garrison
at Dunkirk; in 1663 they were incorporated in the Queen's Tangier
Regiment.
Dunkirk had been taken from the Spaniards by the combined armies of
England and France in 1658, and was ceded in 1659 to England. It
was sold by King Charles II. to the French, for 500,000_l._
[6] HENRY, LORD MORDAUNT, _second_ EARL _of_
PETERBOROUGH, was the son and heir of _John, first Earl
of Peterborough_, who died in 1642. He raised a regiment, at his
own expense, in behalf of King Charles I.; was wounded at the
_battle of Newbury_ on the 27th of October, 1644, and in 1648 was
concerned, with the _Earl of Holland_, in an attempt to rescue the
King from his imprisonment:--the _Earl of Holland_ was taken, and
was beheaded in February, 1649; the _Earl of Peterborough_, and
his brother _John_, (who was created _Lord Mordaunt_ and _Viscount
Avelon_ on the 10th of July, 1659,) escaped, and were voted
traitors to the Commonwealth, and their estates were sequestered.
The services of the Earl of Peterborough, in support of the royal
cause, during the civil wars, entitled him to the favour of King
Charles II. at the Restoration; and the Colonelcy of the Queen's
regiment of foot, and the governorship of Tangier, were deservedly
conferred upon a nobleman who, under the severest trials of his
fortitude and consistency, had shown himself a constant and zealous
supporter of monarchical government. He was employed in several
important situations of trust in the service of King James II.,
and on the 20th of June, 1685, he was appointed colonel of the 3rd
Regiment of Horse, (now the 2nd Dragoon Guards,) from which he was
removed at the Revolution in 1688. His lordship died on the 19th
of June, 1697, and was succeeded in his titles, &c. by his nephew,
CHARLES, _third Earl of Peterborough_, so celebrated in
the wars in Spain in the reign of Queen Anne.
[7] History of Tangier, published by authority in 1664.
[8] History of Tangier, London, 1664.
[9] Andrew Rutherford, Earl of Teviot, was of a Scotch family, and
he commanded a battalion of Scots Guards in the French service
for several years. He attained the rank of Lieutenant-General,
in France, and enjoyed considerable reputation for his military
talents. At the Restoration he accompanied King Charles II. to
England, and having been especially recommended to the notice of
his sovereign by Louis XIV., was created, in 1661, Lord Rutherford.
He was appointed, on the 22nd of May, 1661, to succeed Sir Edward
Harley as Governor of Dunkirk, which he held until the place
was sold and delivered up to the French in 1662: on the 2nd of
February, 1663, he was advanced to the dignity of _Earl of Teviot_.
He was killed in an engagement with the Moors on the 4th of May,
1664, as above stated; and dying without issue, his title became
extinct.
[10] The Earl of Middleton who was appointed Governor of Tangier,
was _John, first Earl_, so celebrated in the History of Scotland
during the civil wars, and in the early years of King Charles's
Restoration. He had been deprived, in 1663, of all his offices, and
received the governorship of Tangier as a kind of honourable exile.
Charles, second Earl of Middleton, his son, followed the fortunes
of the House of Stuart, and his estate was forfeited by Act of
Parliament, 1695.
[11] _William O'Brien_, second _Earl of Inchiquin_, served under
his father in Catalonia, and in other foreign wars, during which,
being ordered to command the troops sent to assist the Portuguese
in their revolt from Spain, he and his father, with all the family,
were taken by an Algerine corsair. In this engagement he lost his
eye by a shot. In 1675 he was appointed Captain General of His
Majesty's Forces in Africa, and Governor and Vice-Admiral of the
Royal Citadel of Tangier, and of the adjacent parts, in which
government he continued six years. In 1688 he was attainted by
King James's Parliament, and had his estate sequestered; during
which troubles he headed a considerable body of Protestants in
Munster, who, being surprised by Major-General M'Carthy, were all
disarmed. After the Revolution, he was made Governor of Jamaica and
Vice-Admiral of the seas thereof; in which island he lived sixteen
months only after his arrival. He died in January, 1691, at St.
Jago de la Vega.
[12] Sir Palmes Fairborne was son of Colonel Stafford Fairborne,
of Nottinghamshire. He served as a soldier of fortune at the siege
of Candia. There is a monument to his memory in Westminster Abbey,
with a long and elegant inscription, in verse, from the pen of
Dryden. His son, Sir Stafford Fairborne, was an Admiral in the
reigns of King William and Queen Anne.
[13] Lieutenant-Colonel Sackville was promoted to the rank of
Colonel on the 12th of June, 1685; of Brigadier-General on the
3rd of July, 1685; and of Major-General on the 7th of November,
1688. He gave up his commissions to King James II. on the 19th of
December, 1688.
[14] Narrative of the great engagement at Tangier, 1680.
[15] Colonel Piercy Kirke had served under the Duke of Monmouth in
the army of the King of France, by the special permission of his
Majesty King Charles II., granted on the 23rd of February, 1673:
he was Captain Lieutenant of the Earl of Oxford's own troop of the
Royal Regiment of Horse Guards in 1675, and was promoted from that
regiment to be Lieutenant-Colonel of the Earl of Plymouth's, or
the 2nd Tangier Regiment, (now the 4th Foot) on its being raised
in 1680, and he embarked with it for Tangier in September of that
year. Having distinguished himself in several actions with the
Moors, on the death of the Earl of Plymouth at Tangier, he was
promoted to the Colonelcy of the 2nd Tangier Regiment on the 27th
of November, 1680, and was transferred to the Queen's Regiment on
the 19th of April, 1682.
[16] The following rewards were paid to four soldiers of the Queen
Dowager's Regiment of Foot, who were wounded at the battle of
Sedgemoor: viz., James Barnes, John Rosse, James Resin, and John
Pawling; ten marks, amounting to £6 13_s._ 4_d._ to each man.--_War
Office Records._
[17] Story's Wars in Ireland.
[18] Memoirs of the Duke of Berwick.
[19] A quantity of dollars was taken by the QUEEN DOWAGER'S
REGIMENT at Vigo, and a number of them was distributed amongst
the soldiers as a reward for their gallantry. After its return to
England the regiment received 561_l._ 10_s._ prize-money. _Bibl.
Harl._ 7025.
[20] The following was the disposition of the forces under the
command of the _Duke of Ormond_, upon their arrival in England from
Spain, in November, 1702, _viz._--
Lloyd's 3rd Dragoons (detachment) _Portsmouth_.
Foot Guards, 1st, and Coldstream _Gravesend_ and
_Chatham_.
Sir H. Bellasis' 2nd Foot _Portsmouth_.
Churchill's 3rd " _Chatham_.
Seymour's 4th " _Plymouth_.
Columbine's 6th " _Portsmouth_.
Royal Fusileers 7th " _Tilbury_.
Villiers's (Marines) 31st " _Plymouth_.
Fox's (Marines) 32nd " _Portsmouth_.
Lord Shannon's _Chatham_.
[21] The Queen Dowager Catherine was born at Villa Vicosa on the
14th of November, 1638, being daughter of Don Juan XVII., then
Duke of Braganza, (afterwards King of Portugal,) and only sister
of Don Alphonso XVII., and Don Pedro, afterwards King of Portugal.
Her marriage with Charles II., King of England, was solemnised in
Portugal, the Earl of Sandwich being proxy for King Charles on
the 23rd of April, 1662. She embarked for England, and arrived at
Portsmouth on the 14th of May (O.S.), and was married to the King
by Doctor Gilbert Sheldon, the Bishop of London, on the 21st of the
same month.
[22] _David_, first _Earl of Portmore_, K.T., was son and heir
of _Sir Alexander Robertson_, Bart., of Strowan, in the county
of Perth, who assumed the name of _Colyear_, and who was Colonel
of one of the regiments of the Scots' Brigade in the service of
Holland.
_David Colyear_ engaged as a volunteer with the Dutch forces
under the Prince of Orange, in 1674, and came to England with
his Highness at the Revolution in 1688. He served, with great
reputation, in Ireland and in Flanders, and was created Baron
Portmore and Blackness in 1699. In 1703 he was created Baron
Colyear, Viscount Milsington, and Earl of Portmore. He was promoted
to the rank of General in 1710; in the same year he was appointed
Commander of the Forces in Scotland, and was allowed to sell his
colonelcy of the Queen's Regiment. He was appointed Governor of
Gibraltar in 1713, and in 1714 he succeeded the Earl of Stair as
Colonel of the Second, or Royal North British Dragoons. He died at
Gibraltar, on the 2nd of January, 1730.
[23] Sir Charles Montague was the son of Brigadier-General Edward
Montague, Colonel of the Eleventh Foot, and Governor of Hull,
nephew of George, second Earl of Halifax, and great nephew to the
celebrated minister Halifax. He had an elder brother, Edward,
killed at the battle of Fontenoy, being then Lieutenant-Colonel of
the Thirty-first Foot. Sir Charles attained the rank of Colonel in
the army on the 30th of November, 1755; Major-General on the 25th
of June, 1759; and Lieutenant-General on the 19th of January, 1761.
He died on the 1st of August, 1777.
[24] Lieut.-General Daniel Jones was promoted to the Colonelcy of
the QUEEN'S ROYAL from the Third Foot Guards, in which
regiment he had attained the rank of Captain and Lieutenant-Colonel
on the 7th of November, 1759, and Major on the 18th of April, 1770.
His commissions as a general officer were, Major-General on the
28th of August, 1777, and Lieutenant-General on the 19th of July,
1779.
[25] Major-General Alexander Stewart attained the rank of Captain
in the Thirty-seventh Foot in 1761; and was promoted to be Major
of the same regiment on the 9th of August, 1771. He was appointed
Lieutenant-Colonel of the Third Foot on the 7th of July, 1775;
Colonel in the army on the 16th of May, 1780; and Major-General on
the 28th of April, 1790. In the campaigns of 1794, in Flanders,
he commanded the First Brigade of British infantry, from which he
retired in consequence of ill health, brought on by severe fatigue
about a month previous to his death. General Stewart was of Afton,
in Wigtonshire, and Member of Parliament for Kirkcudbright.
[26] Lieutenant Charles Turner was promoted to a company in
the African Colonial Corps, on the 8th of June, 1803; to a
Majority of the same corps on the 18th of April, 1804; and to
the Lieutenant-Colonelcy of the West Indian Rangers, on the 28th
of May, 1807. He joined the army in Portugal, under Marshal Sir
William Carr Beresford, K.B., and lost his left arm in the repulse
of a sortie of the French from Badajoz, on the 10th of May, 1811,
while in command of the 17th Portuguese Infantry. He was promoted
to the rank of Major-General on the 19th of July, 1821; and was
appointed Captain General and Commander-in-Chief in Africa, on the
24th of June, 1824; he died at Sierra Leone on the 7th of March,
1826.
[27] Lieutenant Derisley was killed while on piquet before the Fort
St. Julien, Rosetta; and Ensign Allman was wounded in the action
of the 21st of March. Besides those who died whilst the regiment
was in Egypt, there were 56 left sick in that country on its
embarkation, 29 of whom fell a sacrifice to disease.
[28] See General Orders in Appendix B.
[29] See General Orders of the 18th of January and the 1st of
February, 1809, inserted in Appendix C.
[30] At the battle of Corunna, Samuel Evans, a private in the
Grenadier company of the QUEEN'S ROYAL, was carried off
among the wounded. He was landed in England, and died in the
Military Hospital at Plymouth, on the 30th of January. A _post
mortem_ examination showed that he had been _shot through the
heart_, yet had survived _sixteen days_. His heart is preserved in
the museum of the above Hospital.
[31] See General Orders of the 18th of August, 1809, in Appendix D.
[32] General James Coates was eighty-two years of age, and at
the time of his death, the fourth in seniority on the list of
Generals. He was appointed Major of the Sixty-sixth Foot, the 3rd
of October, 1766, and Lieutenant-Colonel of the Nineteenth Foot on
the 11th of September, 1775; of which regiment he continued to be
Lieutenant-Colonel, till the 20th of December, 1794, when he was
promoted to the Colonelcy of the SECOND. His commissions
as general officer bear date, Major-General, the 28th of April,
1790; Lieutenant-General, the 26th of January, 1797; and General,
the 29th of April, 1802.
[33] Lieutenant-Colonel Williams had been with the regiment in the
West Indies. It was probably in consequence of his previous sojourn
in an enervating climate that he felt, shortly after arriving in
India, symptoms of chronic disease, so alarming when encountered
in the heated regions of the tropics. A return to Europe was the
course recommended, but Colonel Williams said, that having been
honoured by his King with the command of an old distinguished
corps, which he had conducted to the shores of India, he thought
it was not for a soldier in the prime of life to abandon his post
on the first summons, and preferred making trial of an elevated
climate on the Neilgherry-hills, in hopes of rejoining his friends
and comrades, with whose fortunes he wished to identify his own.
The change of abode was found to prolong his life, but did not
remove the complaint; and when a reluctant consent was given
to depart for England, it was too late: the hand of death was
approaching him, and he died at Cannanore, on the Malabar coast,
whither he had been conveyed for embarkation.
[34] When Lieutenant-Colonel Place was ordered to Koolapore,
he was so far gone in constitution, that his medical advisers
suggested the propriety of relinquishing the attempt to proceed
on active service. "I go--if I die on the road," was the reply of
this respected officer. On this occasion, as above stated, he was
charged with the command of a light battalion, and although no
fighting took place, he gained the confidence and esteem of all
who came in contact with him. Whilst employed on this expedition,
he was appointed, by the Commander-in-Chief in India, (Lord
Combermere,) to take command of the 41st Regiment, which was also
at Koolapore. Like the former appeal, this was also one of duty
and honour; and private considerations were again disregarded.
Colonel Place had a perfect sense of his danger which at this time
was but too apparent to every observer. He assumed the command of
the 41st; and by his death, which followed in a few weeks after,
his profession was deprived of a brave soldier, and his associates
of a valuable friend. Colonel Place had seen much hard service
in command of the light company of the 77th Regiment, whilst
employed in the Peninsula war, and he had been quartered in Jamaica
as major of the same corps shortly before his appointment as
Lieutenant-Colonel to the QUEEN'S.
[35] See Memoir in Appendix marked F.
[36] The Right Honourable the late General Sir William Keppel,
G.C.B., died at Paris on the 11th of December, 1834: he served
fifty-six years in the army, having entered the service in the
year 1778. He served in North America and the West Indies, and
was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant-General in 1803; Colonel
Commandant of the 60th Foot, 24th of April, 1806; Colonel of the
67th Foot, 1811; Colonel of the 2nd or Queen's, 1828; General in
the army, 1813. Sir William Keppel was for many years Groom of the
Bedchamber and Equerry to his Majesty King George IV., who bestowed
on him the appointment of Governor of Guernsey, when it became
vacant by the death of the Earl of Pembroke, in 1827.
APPENDIX.
A. Chronological Table of the Services of the Second, or Queen's
Royal Regiment.
B. General Orders relative to the Campaign in Egypt in 1801.
C. General Orders relative to the Battle of Corunna in January, 1809.
D. General Orders relative to the Battle of Talavera in July, 1809.
E. Memorandum on the subject of Regimental Colours, 1835.
F. Memoir of Major-General Sir Henry Torrens, K.C.B., late
Adjutant-General of the Forces, and Colonel of the Queen's Royal.
A.
Chronological Table
OF
THE SERVICES OF THE SECOND, OR QUEEN'S ROYAL REGIMENT OF FOOT; THE
SUCCESSION OF ITS COLONELS; &c.
FROM THE PERIOD OF ITS FORMATION IN 1661 TO 1833.