Colonel Lord Forbes being a spirited young nobleman of the Protestant religion, Earl Tyrconnel paid some deference to his Lordship, to avoid an open collision with so chivalrous an officer; and more Protestants were retained in Lord Forbes's regiment than in any other Irish corps.
1688
In the summer of 1688, the regiment was again encamped on the Curragh of Kildare. Meanwhile the proceedings of the Court in favour of Papacy and arbitrary government, had alarmed the kingdom, and a number of noblemen and gentlemen had invited the Prince of Orange to come to England with an army to support the Protestant interest. On this occasion Lord Forbes's regiment was ordered to proceed to England:[9] it landed at Chester, marched to London, and was quartered in the borough of Southwark.
The Prince of Orange having passed Dover with a powerful armament, the regiment was ordered to march to Salisbury, where it joined King James's army a few days after the Prince had landed at Torbay, and marched to Exeter. The English army, which amounted to thirty thousand men, had not been remodelled as the Irish forces had been, but consisted principally of Protestant officers and soldiers, who refused to fight in the cause of Papacy and arbitrary government, and many of them joined the Prince of Orange. Under these circumstances, the King ordered the army to withdraw towards London, and Lord Forbes's regiment marched to Colnbrook, where it was quartered when King James attempted to escape to France Lord Forbes waited on the Prince of Orange, who directed him to disband the Roman Catholic officers and soldiers, and to keep the Protestants to their colours: upwards of five hundred officers and soldiers were dismissed, and about two hundred Protestants, of all ranks, remained with the colours.
In a few days after this event, a report was circulated that the Irish soldiers had commenced murdering the country people and setting fire to the villages in the south of England. This proved false; but on the first circulation of the report, Major Sir John Edgeworth, who commanded the regiment in the absence of Colonel Lord Forbes, who was with the Prince of Orange in London (the Lieut.-Colonel, Lord Brittas, being a Papist, had left the regiment), assembled the men at his quarters, and formed them on parade in the court of Lord Oslington's house, which was walled in. "The country people, hearing that an Irish regiment was there, came flocking from all parts to knock us on the head; but Sir John bid them, at their peril, not to approach, and told them we were not Irish Papists, but true Church of England men; and seeing among the crowd a gentleman, called to him, and desired he would send to the minister of the parish to read prayers to us, and if the minister did not convince them we were all of the Church of England, we would submit to their mercy. The minister was soon sent for, and to prayers we went, repeating the responses of the Liturgy so well and so exactly, that the minister declared to the mob he never before heard the responses of the Church of England prayers repeated so distinctly and with so much devotion, upon which the mob gave a huzza, and cried 'Long live the Prince of Orange!' and so returned home."[10]
Soon afterwards the regiment marched to Hertfordshire, and the Protestant officers of Hamilton's Irish regiment were added to its numbers. The Irish Roman Catholic soldiers were sent prisoners to the Isle of Wight, and afterwards transferred to the service of the Emperor of Germany.
Lord Forbes retiring from the service at this period, the Prince of Orange conferred the colonelcy of the regiment on Major Sir John Edgeworth, by commission dated the 31st of December, 1688: at the same time measures were adopted to recruit its diminished numbers.
1689
In the beginning of April, 1689, the regiment marched to Chester, where it was stationed several weeks.