Post
by Graf Bretlach » Fri May 20, 2016 12:42 am
A few comments
The Scots Guards - one battalion went to Flanders in 1689, the second one shortly after, neither battalion was in Ireland in 1690.
James Douglas, the colonel was a Lt-General at this point, so (as is common at this period) the last place you tend to find them is with their regiment, in fact he played an active part in the Irish campaign, as opposed to his Regiment which did not.
very simple explanation for the mistake, not only was Douglas Lt-General, Colonel and captain of the Scots guards but also Colonel and captain of a newly raised regiment (his take home pay must have been good) this regiment was commissioned by William III in 1689, raised in Warwickshire and actively served in Ireland throughout, originally William, Earl of Kingston was Colonel but at some point before August 1690 was replaced by Douglas (Kingston dying of apoplexy in September) the regiment and officers got a good report, although some of the men were missing certain items through some dodgy commissary in Chester before leaving for Ireland. suffered badly at the first siege of Limerick.
I have been looking for Douglas's commission for an exact date, maybe tomorrow.
The only Regimental list for the Boyne should be George Story's history available on Google books, unfortunately some 19/20th century authors tend to rearrange the list into later naming conventions (and introduce errors) and remove the names of all foreign regiments and generally mess things up. Fortescue was always good for this. (I'm not blaming the author of the work under discussion in this thread)
just been reading some interesting confusion over some (of many) the Hamiltons, how do you manage when they have exactly the same names, both active in Ireland, both colonels of Williamite regiments, both Governors. . . who am I talking about?