In the depth of the winter an incursion into the enemy's cantonments was resolved upon; and the regiment having joined the forces selected for that service, advanced, on the 31st of December, into the county of Kerry. On arriving near Brewsterfield, the van-guard, consisting of a troop of this regiment and one of Eppinger's Dragoons, encountered a party of 160 of the enemy's cavalry. Coy's Horse and the dragoons instantly drew their swords, and advanced to charge their opponents, who fled in a panic. Continuing its route, the detachment took a number of prisoners, also drove seven troops of Irish horse and twenty-one of dragoons from Tralee, and afterwards returned to its quarters.
When the army took the field in the summer of 1691, Coy's Horse were left in dispersed quarters in the county of Cork to overawe the disaffected, and to check the depredations of the bands of Papists, whose proceedings were very injurious to the Protestants; the regiment was, consequently, not at the battle of Aghrim, but it afterwards joined the army near Limerick, and was employed in the siege of that place.
On the 16th of September, a squadron of the regiment, with a strong party of dragoons and infantry, crossed the Shannon by a pontoon bridge before break of day, surprised and defeated a body of the enemy, and captured a standard; also surprised the troops in the camp near the town, and forced them to make a precipitate flight to the mountains. On the 24th of the same month, a cessation of hostilities took place, which ended in a treaty, and the authority of King James was extinguished in Ireland.
1692
1693
The regiment, having thus performed its part in reducing Ireland to submission to the authority of King William, embarked at Belfast in the beginning of 1692, and after its arrival in England it was quartered at Huntingdon, Chester, and St. Ives; from whence it proceeded to the vicinity of London, and, for a short time, assisted the Life Guards in performing the escort duty for the royal family. It was, however, allowed but a short period of home service before it was called upon to take the field against a foreign enemy.
King William was engaged in a war to restrain the ambitious designs of Louis XIV. of France, who sought to become the dictator of Europe and the destroyer of the reformed religion. After the severe loss sustained by the confederates at the battle of Landen, in 1693, the British monarch gave orders for Colonel Coy to proceed with his regiment of horse to the Netherlands, and to join the army in that country.
1694
On its arrival in Flanders, the regiment was placed in quarters at Ghent; from whence it marched to Tirlemont, and, joining the army commanded by King William in person, took part in the operations of the long and toilsome campaign of 1694, but was not engaged in any action of importance.
1695
In the following year the regiment formed part of the covering army during the siege of the strong and important fortress of Namur, which was superintended by King William in person. Two magnificent armies confronted each other, and manœuvred, the one to prevent, and the other to ensure, the capture of this strong fortress; and it was eventually taken by the forces commanded by His Britannic Majesty. About a month after the surrender of the castle of Namur, the regiment marched into quarters at Ghent.