1687
The King, being surrounded by Roman Catholic priests, soon gave indication of his designs against the reformed religion; the Earl of Shrewsbury, who was a stanch Protestant, resigned his commission, and afterwards proceeded to Holland and joined the Prince of Orange, to whom the nation began to look for deliverance from popish tyranny. His Majesty appointed, in January, 1687, Marmaduke Lord Langdale, to the Colonelcy of the regiment, who was succeeded in the following month by the Honourable Richard Hamilton, a Roman Catholic officer, from the Colonelcy of a regiment of dragoons in Ireland.
1688
From this period until that great national event, the Revolution in 1688, few circumstances occurred, in which Hamilton's regiment was particularly concerned, worthy of being recorded in this memoir. It was encamped on Hounslow Heath in the summer of 1687, and also in that of 1688; and its Colonel being a Papist, the attempt made by the King to introduce officers and soldiers of that religion into the army, would, doubtless, meet with no obstruction in this corps. The majority of the officers and men were, however, firmly attached to the Protestant cause.
The King had raised and equipped a fine army for the purpose of making it subservient to his insidious designs; but the troops proved faithful to the interests of their country and religion, and an association of officers was secretly formed at the camp on Hounslow Heath, in favour of the Prince of Orange, who was preparing an army to invade England and to rescue the kingdom from the power of the Papists.
Information having been received of the designs of the Prince of Orange, Hamilton's Cuirassiers were ordered to Ipswich, where the Earl of Arran's regiment (now Fourth Dragoon Guards), and the Queen's (now Third) Dragoons, commanded by Colonel Alexander Cannon, were assembled under the orders of Major-General Sir John Lanier, to preserve Landguard Fort, and to prevent the Prince landing there; and two regiments of horse and one of dragoons were stationed at Colchester to support this force, if necessary. Sir John Lanier is stated by King James, in his memoirs, to have been one of the associated officers, and to have resolved to seize on the Earl of Arran, and Colonels Hamilton and Cannon, and to have joined the Prince with the three regiments; but this arrangement, in which King James states, in his memoirs, most of the officers had agreed to co-operate, was rendered void by his Highness landing at Torbay.
Hamilton's Cuirassiers were afterwards ordered to march to the metropolis, and from thence to Salisbury; but a general defection appearing in the army, the King fled to France; the Prince of Orange ordered the regiment to march to Fenny Stratford, and its Colonel, the Honourable Richard Hamilton, was confined in the Tower of London, for holding a commission for which he was disqualified by law, he being a Papist.
On the 31st of December, 1688, the Prince of Orange conferred the Colonelcy of the regiment on the Lieutenant-Colonel, John Coy; and during the eight succeeding years it bore the title of Coy's Horse, or Cuirassiers.
All the Papists having been dismissed, the regiment received a draft of one hundred men and horses from the Marquis of Miremont's regiment of horse,—a corps which had been recently raised, and was now disbanded.
1689