James, Earl of Barrymore.
Appointed 15th March, 1702.
James, fourth Earl of Barrymore, embraced the interests of the Prince of Orange at the Revolution in 1688, and was nominated lieut.-colonel in the army on the 31st of December, 1688. He subsequently held the commission of captain in the seventeenth foot, and purchased the colonelcy of the Thirteenth regiment in March, 1702. He was promoted to the rank of brigadier-general in 1706, and to that of major-general in 1708. He served in Portugal in the war of the Spanish succession, and led his regiment to the charge, at the battle of the Caya, on the 7th of May, 1709, with great gallantry, overthrowing all opposition, and recapturing the Portuguese guns; but not being supported by the Portuguese horse of the left wing, his regiment became insulated, and he was taken prisoner. In 1710 he was promoted to the rank of lieut.-general; and in 1713 he was sworn a member of the Privy Council. He was elected a member of the British Parliament for the Borough of Stockbridge in 1713, and afterwards for Wigan in Lancashire. He retired from his regiment in 1715. His decease occurred on the 5th of January, 1747, at Castlelyons, where a magnificent marble monument was erected to his memory.
Stanhope Cotton.
Appointed 8th July, 1715.
This officer served with reputation in the wars of Queen Anne, as captain, major, and lieut.-colonel of foot; he was several years in Bowles’s regiment, which was disbanded at the peace of Utrecht; and he was rewarded with the rank of colonel, and the appointment of lieut.-governor of Gibraltar. In 1715 he obtained the colonelcy of the Thirteenth foot, then in garrison at Gibraltar, and under his care that regiment was celebrated for its efficiency and orderly conduct. He died on the 7th of December, 1725.
Lord Mark Kerr.
Appointed 25th December, 1725.
Lord Mark Kerr, fourth son of Robert fourth Earl of Lothian, entered the army on the 1st of January, 1694, and served under King William III. in Flanders. On the 1st of January, 1706, he was promoted to the colonelcy of a newly-raised regiment of foot, with which he served in the expedition under the Earl of Rivers in the same year, and when the projected descent on the coast of France was abandoned, he proceeded to Portugal, and afterwards to Spain. He commanded his regiment at the battle of Almanza, on the 25th of April, 1707, which was formed between two brigades of Portuguese cavalry which quitted the field. His regiment was engaged with very superior numbers: it behaved with great gallantry, but it was literally cut to pieces; his lordship was wounded in the arm, his lieut.-colonel and major were both killed, and his regiment lost twenty-three officers killed, wounded, and prisoners. In 1711 he was promoted to the rank of brigadier-general, and in 1712 he was nominated colonel of the twenty-ninth regiment. He commanded a brigade of infantry in the expedition to Spain, under Lord (afterwards Viscount) Cobham, in 1719, and served at the capture of Vigo. In 1725 he obtained the colonelcy of the Thirteenth foot,—was promoted to the rank of major-general in 1727,—removed to the eleventh dragoons in 1732, and advanced to the rank of lieut.-general in 1735. In 1740 he was appointed governor of the island of Guernsey; in 1743 he obtained the rank of general, and in 1745 he was constituted governor of Edinburgh Castle; in 1751 he was placed on the staff of Ireland. It is recorded in the Peerage of Scotland that—‘He was a man of marked and decided character; with the strictest notions of honour and good-breeding, he retained, perhaps, too punctilious an observance of etiquette, as it gave him an air of frivolity. He was soldier-like in his appearance; formal in his deportment; whimsical, even finical, in his dress; but he commanded respect wherever he went, for none dared to laugh at his singularities. Manners, which in foreign courts, where they had been acquired, would have passed unobserved, were considered as fantastic in his own country, and were apt to lead his impatient spirit into rencontres too often fatal to his antagonists. Naturally of a good temper, his frequent appeals to the sword on trivial occasions drew on him the imputation of being a quarrelsome man; but he was inoffensive unless provoked; and never meddled with any one, but such as chose to meddle with him.’ He died on the 2nd of February, 1752.