Colonel William Hargrave was promoted on the 1st of January, 1731, from the Seventh Royal Fusiliers to the Colonelcy of the THIRTY-FIRST regiment, in succession to Colonel the Honorable Charles Cathcart, who was removed to the Eighth dragoons.
1737
On the 27th of January, 1737, Colonel William Handasyd was promoted from the Fifteenth foot to the Colonelcy of the THIRTY-FIRST regiment, in succession to Colonel William Hargrave, who was removed to the Ninth foot.
1739
In the year 1739 the THIRTY-FIRST regiment was removed from Ireland to Great Britain.
1740
In the two previous years the British merchants had made great complaints against the Spanish depredations in America, and on the 23rd of October, 1739, war was proclaimed against Spain by Great Britain; and the events which occurred in Germany in the following year occasioned the contest that is designated the “War of the Austrian Succession,” in which most of the European powers became engaged, and which disturbed the long interval of comparative peace that had succeeded the Treaty of Utrecht.[11]
These events were occasioned by the decease of Charles VI., Emperor of Germany, on the 20th of October, 1740. The Emperor was the last Prince of the House of Austria, and he was succeeded in his hereditary dominions by his eldest daughter, the Archduchess Maria Theresa, who married, in 1736, the Duke Francis Stephen, of Lorraine. The Duke, in the following year, became Grand-Duke of Tuscany. Immediately on her father’s decease, Maria Theresa was proclaimed Queen of Hungary and Bohemia, Princess of Transylvania, Archduchess of Austria, and universal successor to all the dominions of the House of Austria, pursuant to the “Pragmatic Sanction;”[12] and she declared her husband co-regent in the government of her dominions.
Although the possessions of Austria were guaranteed to the Archduchess Maria Theresa by the German Edict known in history as the “Pragmatic Sanction,” to which nearly all the powers of Europe had been parties, yet the succession of the Archduchess to her father’s Austrian hereditary territories was disputed by several claimants; and among others by Charles Albert, Elector of Bavaria, who was afterwards elected Emperor of Germany. The King of Prussia also revived a dormant claim to Silesia, which he invaded in November; the Prussian monarch offered Maria Theresa sufficient money to resist all her enemies, on condition of ceding Silesia to him, but the proposition was indignantly rejected.