A History of the British Army, Vol. 1 / First Part—to the Close of the Seven Years' War

by Sir J. W. Fortescue

It is unnecessary to dwell further on the story of this campaign. The courage of William sufficed to tide Holland over the moment of supreme danger; and, the crisis once passed, Austria and Spain, alarmed at the designs of Lewis, hastened to her assistance. Charles made peace with the Dutch in 1674, and, while declining to withdraw the English troops in the French service, promised to recruit them no further. Churchill came home to be colonel of the Second Foot; and from the troops disbanded at the close of the war, were formed three English regiments for the service of the Prince of Orange. Among their officers was James Graham of Claverhouse. We shall meet with him again, and we shall see two of the regiments also return in due time, like their prototype, the Buffs, to take their place in the English infantry of the Line.

1680.
1684.

With the treaty of 1674 the wars of Charles the Second came to an end. It was not that the people of England were unwilling to fight. They were heart and soul against the French; and the Commons cheerfully voted large sums for army and fleet while the war lasted, asking only that the money might be expended on its legitimate object. But the crookedness and untrustworthiness of the King were fatal to all military enterprise, and indeed to all honest administration. Though the military force of England was far too small for the safety of her possessions abroad, Parliament never ceased to denounce the evils of standing armies, and to clamour for the disbanding of all regiments. In the days of Cromwell the burden of the red-coats had been grievous to be borne, but Oliver had at all events made England respected in Europe. Charles sought to impose a like burden, but without sympathy for England's quarrels, and without care for England's glory. He made shift, nevertheless, to keep his existing regiments throughout his reign, and in 1680 even to add another to them for the service of Tangier. In 1684 that ill-fated possession, having cost many thousands of lives and witnessed as gallant feats of arms as ever were wrought by English soldiers, was finally abandoned; though not before the English had learned one secret of Oriental warfare. In March 1663, after long endurance of incessant harassing attacks from the Moors, the Governor, who had hitherto stood on the defensive, took the initiative and launched the Royal Dragoons straight at them. So signal was the success of this first venture that it was repeated a fortnight later by the same regiment, and renewed on a grander scale after two months by a sally of the whole garrison, which after desperate fighting ended once more in victory. So much at least must be recorded of this first long lost settlement in Africa.[205] The new regiment, which had arrived too late for fighting, came home to take rank as the Fourth of the Line and to remain with us to this day.

In truth the little Army, which Parliament so bitterly hated, was busy enough from the day of the King's accession to the day of his death. In regiments or detachments it fought in Tangier, in Flanders, and in the West Indies; it did marines' duty in four great naval actions, one of them the fiercest ever fought by the English, and it suppressed an insurrection in Scotland and a rebellion in Virginia. The reign gave it a foretaste of the work that lay before it in the next two centuries, and showed good promise for the manner in which that work would be done.

1685.

Charles died on the 6th of February 1685. His brother James, who succeeded him, was a man of stronger military instincts than any English king since Henry the Eighth. He had served through four campaigns under Turenne and through two more with the Spaniards, and his narrative of his wars shows that he had studied the military profession with singular industry and intelligence of observation. Nor was he less interested in naval affairs. He had commanded an English fleet in two great actions without discredit as an Admiral, and with signal honour as a brave man. Moreover, he felt genuine pride in the prowess alike of the English sailor and the English soldier. Finally he had shown uncommon ability and diligence as an administrator. The Duke of Wellington a century and a half later spoke with the highest admiration of the system which James had established at the Office of Ordnance, and actually restored it, as Marlborough had restored it before him, when he himself became Master-General. The Admiralty again acknowledges that his hand is still felt for good in the direction of the Navy. In fact, whatever his failings, James was an able, painstaking, and conscientious public servant, and as such has no little claim to the gratitude of the nation.

So far then the succession of a diligent and competent administrator to the shrewd but incorrigibly idle Charles promised advantages that were obvious enough. But there was another side to the question. Parliament had requited James's services to the public by excluding him as an avowed Catholic from all public employment, whether civil or military; and James was a narrow-minded, a vindictive, and, like all the Stuarts, essentially a wrong-headed man. Though valuable as the head of a department, he was totally unfit to administer a kingdom; though not devoid of constancy and patience in adversity, he was swift and unsatiable in revenge; though ambitious of military fame, proud of English valour, and not without jealousy for English honour, he saw no way to the greatness which he coveted in Europe except by the overthrow of English liberty. He longed to interfere effectively abroad, but with England crushed under his heel, not free and united at his back.

So he too sold himself to France, hoping to consolidate his power by her help and to turn it in due time to her own hurt; and meanwhile he sought to strengthen himself by the maintenance of a standing Army. For this design Monmouth's insurrection of 1685 afforded sufficient excuse.[206] The opportune return of the garrison of Tangier had already added two regiments of Foot and one of Horse to the English establishment; and James seized the occasion of the outbreak to summon the six British regiments, three of them Scottish and three English, from Holland. These, though they presently returned to William's service, secured for two of their number on the invasion of England in 1688 the precedence of Fifth and Sixth of the Line. Simultaneously twelve new regiments of infantry and eight of cavalry were raised under the same pretext. Of the foot the first was an Ordnance-regiment, designed like the firelocks of the New Model to act as escort to the artillery, and was called from its armament the Regiment of Fusiliers. It is still with us as the Seventh of the Line. The remainder of the foot, some of them formed round the nucleus of independent garrison-companies, also abide with us, numbered the Eighth to the Fifteenth.[207] Of the cavalry six were regiments of horse, and are now known as the First to the Sixth Regiments of Dragoon Guards; the remaining two, which are now numbered the Third and Fourth, after having been successively dragoons and light dragoons, have finally become the two senior regiments of hussars. Add to these thirty independent companies of foot, borne for duties in garrison, and it will be seen that King James's army was increasing with formidable speed.

The King himself found genuine delight, not in the sinister spirit of an oppressor but in the laudable pride of a soldier, in reviewing his troops. In August 1685 he inspected ten battalions and twenty squadrons which were in camp at Hounslow, and wrote to his son-in-law, William of Orange, with significant satisfaction of their efficiency. In November he met Parliament, and required of it the continuance of the standing Army in lieu of the militia. The courtiers had received their cue, and pointed to the flight of the western militia before Monmouth's raw levies as proof sufficient of its untrustworthiness. The fact indeed was self evident. But Parliament was not disposed to welcome a royal speech which submitted no further measures than the maintenance of a standing army and the admission of popish officers to command therein. The memories of Oliver and of his major-generals was still vivid, and the revocation of the edict of Nantes was but a month old. Red-coats as saints had been bad; red-coats as papists would doubtless be worse. Edward Seymour, the head of that historic house, put the matter as Englishmen love to put it. The militia, he confessed, was in an unsatisfactory state, but it might be improved, and with this and the navy the country would be secure; but a standing army there must not be. Then as now, it will be observed, the House of Commons never stinted the navy, nor doubted its ability to repel invasion; and then as now it refused to remember that the British possessions are not bounded by the British Isles, and that a successful war is something more than a war of defence. But unfortunately it had but too good ground for opposing the King in this case. The debate lasted long. James had asked for £1,400,000 for the Army; the Chancellor of the Exchequer expressed his willingness to accept £1,200,000; the House voted £700,000, and even then declined to appropriate the sum to any specific purpose.

December.
1686,
June.
1686-1688.