History of the Scottish Regiments in the British Army

by Archibald K. Murray

“She’s o’er the border, and awa’ wi’ Jock o’ Hazeldean.”

Happily the Twenty-fifth owns a much more recent connection with the Scottish border, when the feuds which had disgraced earlier years, by the wrongs and cruelties they occasioned, were healed, and the failings of the past are forgotten amid the excellencies and the glories of the present. The regiment was raised in the City of Edinburgh by the Earl of Leven, in 1688, from among the noblemen and gentlemen who had come over from the Continent as the adherents of William, Prince of Orange. The advent of the House of Orange, apart from the religious and political liberty it conferred and assumed to guarantee, had been further hailed by an emancipated people as restoring to the bosom of their dear native land, and to the home of their fathers, those “lost and brave,” who, for conscience’ sake, had endured a long and painful exile. Consistent with that fidelity which has ever been a conspicuous jewel in Scottish character, once that the Reformed faith found an entrance and an abiding-place in the heart of the Scotsman, nor priest, nor king, nor pope could drive it out, quench the light of truth, or shake the steadfastness of the Covenanter. Hence the number of Scottish exiles was very many, and, in consequence, the return of the refugees was an event of no common interest in the Scottish metropolis, diffusing a very general joy throughout the land. Their first duty fulfilled of thanks and gratitude to God for their deliverance, their next duty to their country impelled them to tender the service of their swords to the king. Accordingly, their offer being accepted, the embodiment of the Twenty-fifth King’s Own Borderers was the result, which in four hours attained a strength of near a thousand men. Whilst the Scottish estates hesitated to acknowledge the sovereignty of William and Mary, and the Duke of Gordon held possession of the Castle of Edinburgh for King James, the Twenty-fifth was quartered in the Parliament House. But it was not until Viscount Dundee, descending into the Lowlands at the head of the disaffected clans, seriously disturbing the peace of the land, that the regiment was called into action. Advancing with the royal army to Killiecrankie, the Borderers bore a conspicuous and honourable part in the contest which ensued. Major-General Mackay, in his despatch to the Duke of Hamilton, stated, “There was no regiment or troop with me but behaved like the vilest cowards in nature, except Hastings’ and Lord Leven’s, whom I must praise at such a degree, as I cannot but blame others.” The regiments thus commended were the present Thirteenth and Twenty-fifth Foot. Although borne back by the impetuosity of the Highlanders, and although the day was lost to the king, still the result—especially the death of Dundee—proved the ruin of the Jacobites—the beginning of the end, each successive struggle which convulsed the nation more effectually serving to destroy the hopes of the House of Stuart.

PASS OF KILLIECRANKIE

In 1691 the regiment embarked for Ireland, and was present, with much credit, at the sieges of Ballymore, Athlone, Galway, and Limerick, and at the battle of Aughrim. These several successes having accomplished the deliverance of that island from the yoke of James, the regiment with other troops was sent to England, whence it embarked with the British army for the Netherlands, to check the progress of the French. Under the command of King William, the allies made a determined stand at Steenkirk and again at Landen, but on both occasions failed to make any decided impression upon the masses of the enemy commanded by Marshal de Luxembourg, who continued to advance in spite of the most gallant opposition. At the siege of Namur, by the explosion of a mine, the regiment lost twenty officers and 500 men. The gallant conduct of the allies at this celebrated siege is thus eulogised:

The British were esteemed most bold; The Bavarians most firm; and The Brandenburghers most successful;

whilst the French, out of a garrison originally 15,000 strong, had lost in the defence about two-thirds of their number. The engineering skill of these great masters of the art—Coehorn and Vauban, exerted to the utmost on their respective sides—has preserved no more magnificent testimony to their several abilities than is found recorded in the assault and defence. The resolution and ability of Marshal Boufflers, the French Governor, in so gloriously maintaining the defence, is not to be overlooked, but merited a better success. Sterne’s facetious story of “Tristram Shandy”—how questionable so-ever its discretion in our times, yet replete with much that is beautiful, quaint, and true—has borrowed from the ranks of our Borderers its most noted and popular characters, “Uncle Toby,” who was wounded in the groin at this siege of Namur, and his faithful body-servant, “Corporal Trim,” who, two years previously, had been wounded at the battle of Landen; both, by the pen of the author, being life pictures of the veterans of Chelsea. It was during this war that the bayonet, which had been invented by the French, instead of being fixed inside the muzzle of the musket, was first used by the French fixed round the outside of the muzzle, thus enabling the soldier to charge and deliver fire promptly. Grose, in his “Military Antiquities,” thus records the introduction of this improvement:—

“In an engagement, during one of the campaigns of King William III. in Flanders, there were three French regiments whose bayonets were made to fix after the present fashion (1690), a contrivance then unknown in the British army; one of them advanced with fixed bayonets against Leven’s (now the Twenty-fifth) regiment, when Lieutenant-Colonel Maxwell, who commanded it, ordered his men to ‘screw bayonets’ into their muzzles, thinking the enemy meant to decide the affair point to point; but to his great surprise, when they came within a proper distance, the French threw in a heavy fire, which for a moment staggered his men, who nevertheless recovered themselves, charged, and drove the enemy out of the line.”

On the peace of Ryswick being concluded in 1697, our Borderers, returning home, were quartered in the disturbed districts of the North of Scotland. Nothing of importance falls to be narrated of the regiment until the Rebellion of the Earl of Mar, in 1715, called it to take the field. It was present at the unfortunate battle of Sheriffmuir. The desertion of the Hon. Captain Arthur Elphinstone to the rebel army, however it might have been regretted as casting a shadow over the loyalty of the Twenty-fifth, that doubt has been dispelled, and the lie contradicted, by the exemplary fidelity of the regiment on all occasions. Captain Elphinstone, as Lord Balmarino, in 1746, paid the penalty of his error by his execution on Tower Hill.

During the Spanish War of 1719, the regiment was engaged in a successful expedition against various towns on the north-western sea-board of the Peninsula. For several years thereafter it was variously stationed in Ireland, and, in 1727, removed to Gibraltar, where, with other corps, it successfully defended that important fortress against every attempt of the Spaniards to reduce and regain it. The war of the Austrian Succession, which began in 1742, occasioning the assembling of a British and allied army in the Netherlands, our Borderers were sent thither to reinforce the troops which had already won the bloody victory of Dettingen. The regiment shared the glories and sustained the dangers of Fontenoy, which elicited from Marshal Saxe, the conquering general, the following graphic and generous testimony to the worth of the foe he had overthrown:—