Battle Honours.—Blenheim, Ramillies, Oudenarde, Malplaquet, Salamanca, Vittoria, Toulouse, Peninsula, Balaclava, Sevastopol, S. Africa 1899-1902, Defence of Ladysmith.
Uniform.—Scarlet, dark green facings, red and white plume.
THE CARABINIERS
("Tichborne's Own.")
"It is your sex that makes us go forth to fight….
It is your sex who cherish our memories."
Nelson.
There is not a woman in our vast Empire who has not good cause to regard with admiration and gratitude those noble protectors and terrible avengers of the honour of their sex—the Carabiniers. During the Indian Mutiny—but first a brief word as to their history.
It dates from the time of Monmouth's rebellion, when they were raised by Lord Lumley to support King James. Owing to the fact, however, that Lord Lumley was no supporter of the king's tyrannies, the regiment seceded, and later, when the Prince of Orange landed, threw in their lot with him whole-heartedly. Their title, "The Carabiniers," was bestowed upon them in recognition of the great part they played in the battle of the Boyne, for William had in mind the famous carabiniers of Louis XIV.
In the list of the glories of the Carabiniers is Aughrim. Macaulay says about this occasion: "St. Ruth laughed when he saw the Carabiniers and the Blues struggling through a morass under a fire which, at every moment, laid some gallant hat and feather on the earth." "What did they mean?" he asked, and then he swore it was a pity to see such fine fellows marching to certain destruction. Nevertheless, at the issue of that business, it was he, and his troops, that reaped the destruction.
It was some little time later that the Carabiniers saved the situation for King William at Landen, by an obstinate stand against his pursuers, while he crossed the bridge. As Corporal Trim in "Tristram Shandy" says; "If it had not been for the regiments of Wyndham, (i.e., the Carabiniers) Lumley and Galway, which covered the retreat over the bridge at Neerspecken, the king himself could scarcely have gained it."