During the summer ten companies of the regiment were ordered to proceed from Portsmouth to Taunton in Somersetshire, to attend the Lord Chief Justice Jeffreys, who was appointed by King James II. to try the prisoners taken at the battle of Sedgemoor, and a number of other persons who were charged either with being concerned in the rebellion, or with countenancing or aiding the ill-fated duke and his adherents. The narrative of the proceedings of the Lord Chief Justice, and of the painful duties which the troops who attended on him had to perform, forms one of the black pages of the history of this country; and the remorseless and sanguinary character of the judge has occasioned him to be held up to deserved execration. Colonel Kirke and his regiment have also been charged with acts of cruelty, although the accounts may have been exaggerated; but the conduct of the ten companies of the Queen's Regiment escaped censure, as their services appear to have been limited to the guarding of prisoners, and the preserving of order at executions, which were so numerous that these were termed the BLOODY ASSIZES.
1686
1687
The Queen's Regiment remained in extensive cantonments in the western counties until the spring of 1686, when it was ordered to march to Plymouth, where it passed the succeeding twelve months. It was withdrawn from Devonshire in March, 1687, and was stationed a short time at Salisbury and Wilton, from whence it marched to Hounslow in June of the same year, and pitched its tents on the heath. After having been twice reviewed by King James II., the regiment struck its tents on the 5th of August, and marched to Bristol, Bath, and Keynsham.
1688
In the spring of 1688, the regiment proceeded to Portsmouth, and passed the summer months in that garrison; but in September it was ordered to march to London.
The short period during which King James II. had occupied the throne, had been pregnant with events of a most alarming character to the nation, and every evil which the people had feared would follow the accession of a popish prince to sovereign power, appeared on the eve of transpiring. The rebellion of the Duke of Monmouth had furnished the King with a pretext for augmenting the regular army, which he continued on a high establishment, and increased, from time to time, without the consent of parliament. The troops were embodied by the authority of the crown only, and were paid, either from the civil list, or by diverting moneys, intended for other objects, to that purpose; and the King even appeared to have formed the design of governing without parliaments, of rendering himself absolute, and of subverting the reformed religion. His Majesty's principal dependence for the success of his unconstitutional projects was placed in the devotedness of his troops; but his conduct disgusted the military as well as his other subjects; and the cheers of the soldiers on Hounslow Heath at the acquittal of the bishops, whom the King had imprisoned and brought to trial for opposing his measures, proved that he had entirely lost their sympathy, and could no longer trust to them for support.
The King's proceedings having filled the nation with alarm and consternation, the Prince of Orange, who was the King's nephew and son-in-law, and a zealous advocate for the Protestant interest, was solicited to come to England with a body of troops to assist the nobility and gentry in opposing the proceedings of the court. At the same time, many of the superior officers of the English army, who were most zealous for the welfare of the kingdom and the preservation of the reformed religion, seeing the danger to which the constitution in church and state was exposed, formed themselves into a secret association, and engaged not to fight in the cause of papacy and arbitrary power, but to further the objects of the Prince of Orange; and Brigadier-General Charles Trelawny, Colonel of the Queen's regiment of foot, was one of the members of this association.
When the Prince of Orange had landed at Torbay (5th of November) the regiment proceeded by forced marches to Salisbury, and afterwards to Warminster, which was the most advanced post of the King's army, and was occupied by the third troop of life guards, the Queen's, and Major-General Werden's regiments of horse, the Queen's regiment of dragoons, with two battalions of the royals, and the Queen Dowager's and Queen Consort's regiments of foot,[11] commanded by Major-General Kirke and Brigadier-Generals Trelawny and Maine.
The King arrived at Salisbury on the 20th of November, and on the 21st reviewed his forces stationed in and near that city; and a number of officers and soldiers having already deserted to the Prince of Orange, His Majesty addressed the troops on the subject, and gave liberty to all who were unwilling to serve him, to depart without molestation. This appeal to their loyalty was followed with such shouts and assurances of attachment, that the King's confidence, which had been much shaken, was in a great measure restored. On the following day His Majesty designed to have visited the advanced post at Warminster, but was prevented by a bleeding at the nose, to which he was constitutionally subject. The Duke of Berwick states in his memoirs,—"The King intended to go from Salisbury in my coach to visit the quarter commanded by Major-General Kirke; but was prevented by a prodigious bleeding of the nose, which seized him on a sudden, and it is said, that a scheme was laid and measures taken by Churchill and Kirke, to deliver up the King to the Prince of Orange; but this accident frustrated the design." Brigadier-General Trelawny is also charged with participating in this design; but no direct proof on the subject has been adduced by any historian.