'To Major-General Sir John Byng, K.C.B.'
SUCCESSION OF COLONELS
OF THE
THIRD, OR PRINCE OF WALES' REGIMENT
OF DRAGOON GUARDS.
Thomas Earl of Plymouth,
Appointed 15th July, 1685.
On the decease of Thomas, sixth Lord Windsor, on the 6th of December, 1642, without issue, his titles became extinct, but his estates descended to his nephew Thomas Windsor Hickman, then in the fifteenth year of his age. The rebellion breaking out immediately, this youth displayed an ardent and chivalrous spirit, with a fixed devotion to his sovereign and to monarchical government. He raised and maintained a troop of horse at his own charge, with which he joined King Charles I., and became an active and an enterprising leader amongst the loyalists, distinguishing himself in many skirmishes and sharp encounters with the rebels. At the battle of Naseby, fought on the 14th of June, 1645, he commanded a regiment of horse, and stoutly charged through and through the enemy's ranks; when the King, taking special notice of the gallantry of this youth, commanded that that regiment, with its valiant leader, should be the royal guard for that day. The King's army was, however, defeated, and his Majesty retreated to Ashby-de-la-Zouch, in Leicestershire; where, remembering the signal service of that regiment of horse, and the particular merits of Colonel Windsor Hickman, he gave command for preparing a patent for reviving the title and dignity of Lord Windsor, to the said Thomas Windsor Hickman. But, from that period, a series of disasters befalling the unfortunate monarch, nothing further transpired on that subject until the restoration of King Charles II., when his Majesty, taking into consideration the many good services performed by this Thomas Windsor Hickman throughout the whole course of that rebellion (amongst which the raising of the siege of his Majesty's garrison of High-Ercall, in Shropshire, was not the least), as also his sufferings in the Royal cause, by imprisonment, plunder, and otherwise, did, by a declaratory patent under the great seal, bearing date the 16th of June, 1660, restore unto him the title and dignity of Lord Windsor, with the same rank and precedence which were held by his maternal uncle, Thomas, late Lord Windsor.