1685
The want of confidence alluded to, as existing at this epoch between the Court and Parliament of England, did not terminate with the death of King Charles II., which event occurred on the 6th of February, 1685. His successor King James II. had scarcely ascended his throne, when the army was called upon to protect him from the designs of disaffected subjects, headed by the Duke of Monmouth, who had landed from Holland, and raised the standard of rebellion in the west of England. On this occasion the Queen's Regiment formed part of the forces assembled under the Earl of Feversham, and it is reported, that at the decisive battle of Sedgemoor, where Monmouth and his party were defeated, and his cause irretrievably ruined, 'the two Tangier regiments, Kirke's and Trelawny's, did good service[16].' Colonel Kirke was promoted to the rank of Brigadier-General on the 11th of May, 1685, and afterwards appointed to command at Bridgewater.
Here we would willingly close the detail of this unfortunate affair; but there have been too frequent allusions to Kirke, and also to his regiment, by various historians, as connected with subsequent proceedings in Monmouth's rebellion to justify such a course. Lord Chief Justice Jeffreys was appointed by King James to conduct a special commission, and to pass judgment on the misguided people who had aided the ill-fated Duke and his adherents: Kirke with his regiment was ordered to escort the judges in their circuit; numerous are the acts of barbarity which history has handed down as perpetrated by Jeffreys and Kirke in what were termed the 'bloody assizes,' and we are told that no less than 261 persons were executed. The remorseless character said to have been evinced by Kirke on the occasion was supposed to be the result of the long and sanguinary wars he had been engaged in with the barbarians in Africa; but Savage, in his history of Taunton, states, that 'on Kirke being afterwards upbraided for his conduct by General Foulks, he excused himself, and said he had an express order from the King and his General, and that his commission went further.' Kirke is represented as 'a loose and bold soldier of fortune;' and there cannot be a doubt but he made himself a willing agent to his ermined and sanguinary coadjutor; but we are inclined to believe his vices have been greatly exaggerated. The most outrageous acts attributed to Kirke were said to have been perpetrated in the neighbourhood of Taunton; and a piece of ground, west of the castle, where he and his force were cantoned, was called 'Tangier,' in allusion to the services of his regiment. Had the conduct of Colonel Kirke approached the violence attributed to him, it is not very probable that in the short space of four years it would have been so lost sight of as to admit a demonstration of joy similar to the following, noticed by the historian of Taunton already quoted: 'The people of Taunton, in commemoration of his (Kirke's) relieving Derry, when besieged by James II. in 1689, devoted an evening to the drinking of his health in public, the expenses of which may be now seen in an old church book.' Zeal for party, or misstatement, are at all times liable to disfigure the pages of history; and if the case of Kirke is not admitted as exemplifying this fact, a very short statement will show that the character of his regiment has been unjustly implicated in these outrages. Dr. Toulmin and other writers remark, that the name of 'lambs' was given by Colonel Kirke to his soldiers, who were most ready to execute his cruel orders; but the truth is, that the regiment, as already shown, had the device of a Lamb on its colours and appointments from its first formation, and continues to bear it to this day. From this circumstance they were called 'The Lambs' long before the period alluded to, and without any connexion with its services in the West of England at this unhappy period.
1686
After the decease of King Charles II. this regiment was styled 'The Queen Dowager's Regiment of Foot.' During the two years which followed Monmouth's rebellion, the Queen Dowager's Regiment formed part of a body of 12,000 troops assembled in camps for exercise on Hounslow Heath. King James made great efforts to ingratiate himself with this army: his success, as well as his object, on the occasion, will be inferred from the following remark given by Bishop Burnet—'That which abated the King's joy in seeing so brave an army about him, was, that it was visible, and on so many occasions, that his soldiers had as great an aversion to his religion as his other subjects had expressed.' An anecdote related of Colonel Kirke is further illustrative of the times:—when asked respecting a change of religion, he is stated briefly to have replied, 'he was pre-engaged; for he had promised the Emperor of Morocco, if ever he changed his religion, he would turn Mahomedan.'
FIRST TANGIER REGIMENT OF FOOT, MDCLXXXVII.; NOW SECOND (THE QUEEN'S ROYAL) REGIMENT OF FOOT.
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1688
An attempt to displace Protestants from various situations, civil and military, and to substitute Catholics, as well as to force popish recruits into the army, and other causes, at length brought on the Revolution; and at this important crisis we find the Queen Dowager's Regiment faithful to the best interests of its country. The Prince of Orange (afterwards William III.) made good his landing at Torbay early in November, 1688, and marched to Exeter. The advanced position of King James's army was at Warminster, and comprised two battalions of Dumbarton's Regiment (the Royals) and Kirke's (the Queen's), a troop of Life Guards, and the Queen Consort's Regiment of Horse, now the First Dragoon Guards. The whole was commanded by Brigadier-General Kirke, who, on some frivolous pretence, refused to march to Devizes, for which he was placed in arrest, and ordered to London. The King, deserted by many of his followers, and even by a portion of his own family, adopted the resolution of retreating towards London, and caused his forces to retire behind the Thames to Staines and its neighbourhood; and ultimately, his Majesty vacating his throne, without any government being nominated, left the troops at liberty to use their own discretion. Little opposition was made to the advance of the Prince of Orange, who was soon joined by Kirke, and the latter was received by his new monarch with particular distinction.