The Tangier Horse

A troop of horse (Captain Lord Peterborough, Lieutenant Robert Leech, and Cornet John, later Sir John, Mordaunt, 3 corporals, 3 trumpeters, and 100 rankers) formed part of the initial expeditionary force dispatched to take possession of Tangier. It mustered on Putney Heath, 14 October 1661. Sailing from the Downs on 15 January 1662, Tangier was reached within just fourteen days. In the meantime, a squadron of 140 cavalry from Tangier's Portuguese garrison had been heavily defeated by al-Ghailan's soldiers on 12 January.Footnote ¹ About eighty survivors paraded before Lord Peterborough on 10 February but unanimously declined his invitation to enrol in English service. They were disbanded during May and their horses confiscated to provide mounts for two additional troops of Tangier Horse (Captains John Fitzgerald and Edward Witham), each consisting of forty men drafted from among the four infantry battalions. Thereafter, to save money, the cavalry was steadily reduced: there were two 50-man troops (Governor Lord Belasyse and Sir Tobias Bridge) after 7 June 1664; a single 66-man troop (Witham) in January 1666; and a half-troop of only 30 men (Lieutenant Alexander MacKenny), known as ‘the town horse’, after 16 March 1668. Subsequently, governors complained frequently about the dearth of horsemen, insisting that more were required for reconnaissance, to uncover ambushes, and chase intruders. However, the Tangier Committee preferred a preponderance of infantry as cavalry was very expensive to subsist and awkward to manage; suitable mounts were difficult to obtain because the garrison was denied access to African markets and Spain remained unco-operative; while British agencies exported mainly older beasts which, should they survive the voyage, fared badly in the climate.

Nevertheless, the 1680 emergency demanded rapid augmentation. The standard, and quickest, procedure was to draft from within the English standing army. Major Theophilus Oglethorpe (1650–1702) of the 3rd Troop of the Life Guards took command of an ad hoc squadron comprising sixty-five Life Guards, under Oglethorpe, and sixty-three Royal Horse Guards, led by Edwin Sandys, one of their senior captains.Footnote ² They rendezvoused at Portsmouth and immediately boarded ship. However, the government suddenly woke up to the fact that the deepening Exclusion Crisis required the retention in England of all loyal, trained soldiers, especially cavalry, and the movement order was cancelled. Instead, six new troops were raised in England from 13 July, each consisting of a captain, lieutenant, cornet, quartermaster, three corporals, two trumpeters, and fifty troopers.Footnote ³ The captains were Brigadier Sir John Lanier, officer commanding; Thomas Butler, 6th earl of Ossory (1634–1680), governor designate;Footnote ⁴ Robert Pulteney; Thomas Langston; Charles Nedby; and John Coy. The three latter swiftly filled their rolls and had received embarkation orders before the end of July:Footnote ⁵ Langston was the ranking captain assisted by Francis de la Rue as cavalry adjutant, 31 May 1680.Footnote ⁶ They left Tower Wharf by barge, transferred at Greenwich into a pair of yachts, and made a rapid passage to Portsmouth. Carrying just their pistols, Oglethorpe's men disembarked and sailed back to London in the yachts, leaving aboard the transports all their horses, horse furniture, carbines, and armour, which Langston purchased.Footnote ⁷ On reaching Tangier, 3 September, Langston's command joined Captain Alexander MacKenny's half-troop to create a body of some 200 English horsemen, equivalent to a reinforced squadron. Subsequent casualties among the troopers were very light – only two had died by October 1683 and seventeen by February 1684 – but equine attrition was severe and over half the men were dismounted at the time of the evacuation.

An alternative, and much cheaper, solution to the cavalry shortage occurred simultaneously. Anxious to distance himself from France, early in 1680 Charles II sought a rapprochement with Madrid and a defensive treaty of ‘perpetual peace’ was signed at Windsor on 10 June 1680 by the Spanish ambassador, Don Pedro de Ronquillo (1630–1691). Accordingly, King Charles II of Spain (1661–1700) allowed Sir Palmes Fairborne access to Spanish remounts and placed at his disposal four troops of regular horse (172 men and 28 officers) drafted from the Catalan cavalry regiment of Francisco Téllez-Girón, then quartered in Andalucia. Two troops were led personally by the squadron commander, Don Salvador de Montforte, and one each by Don Maurique de Moreno and Don Fernando Pignatelli, 6th duke of Osuna (1678–1716). They were conveyed from Tarifa to Tangier by Admiral Herbert's vessels.Footnote ⁸ Their timely and distinguished service rendered Lanier's, Billingsley's, and Pulteney's incomplete troops, which had remained in England, surplus to requirements and they were disbanded on 24 September 1680. The Spanish horse was released in early June 1681.

Anticipating a disputed succession when the Roman Catholic duke of York ascended the throne, Charles II decided to employ the repatriated Tangier garrison to augment the English and Irish standing armies. Distribution instructions were sent to Lord Dartmouth on 2 July 1683: the Royal Scots would return to Ireland; the men of the King's Battalion would fill vacancies throughout the English regular infantry units; the 1st and 2nd Tangier Regiments would be reduced to eleven companies apiece before joining the English establishment; while the soldiers of the Tangier Horse would suffer relegation in status and pay through incorporation into a new corps, the Royal Regiment of Dragoons. The two, senior troops of this new regiment – Colonel John, Lord Churchill of Eyemouth, and Lieutenant Colonel Edward Hyde, Viscount Cornbury (1661–1723) – were embodied on 19 November. Between 21 and 24 November, Langston, who had been in England since 1682 for treatment to a serious leg wound, Nedby, Coy, and MacKenny, were appointed troop captains, despite the latter three continuing to do duty in Tangier; Francis de la Rue, John Williams, Samuel Dunn, and Francis Langston, who had returned to England in December 1682, were made lieutenants; and William Staniford, Thomas Pownall, and Hugh Wyndham, despite the amputation of an arm following the action on 27 October 1680, became cornets. Adjutant Henry Hawker received a commission as quartermaster and provost marshal, 25 June 1684. Supervised by Captain Robert Hodges (Royal Scots), the Tangier Horse was shipped home aboard the merchantman, Charles. The Royal Dragoons were first mustered on 1 January 1684, the Tangier contingent joining on 1 May.Footnote ⁹

1st Tangier Regiment

Recruiting for the Tangier Regiment of Foot (Colonel Lord Peterborough), comprising 1,000 disbanded New Model veterans, began on 6 September 1661. It mustered on Putney Heath, 14 October. A second regiment of similar size under Colonel Sir Robert Harley (1626–1673), and two 500-man battalions (Colonels John Fitzgerald and Lewis Farrell) were raised from among old Cromwellian and Irish soldiers in garrison at Dunkirk and Mardyke. These four units, plus the Tangier Horse, reached North Africa on 29 January 1662. Soon after, the rout of Major George Fiennes Clinton's detachment, 3 May 1662, and subsequent secondary actions necessitated a thorough reorganization of the garrison. In April 1664, Teviot halved the infantry establishment by combining Peterborough's and Harley's into the Governor's, or English, Regiment (15 companies) while Fitzgerald's and Farrell's were amalgamated to form the Lieutenant Governor's, or Irish Regiment (5 companies). In the wake of the defeat at the Battle of the Jew's River, 3 May 1664, further restructuring on 7 June produced two, nine-company battalions. In January 1668, the Irish Regiment was dissolved and its personnel engrossed into the English Regiment to create a single, twelve-company unit. This establishment remained constant until the arrival of the earl of Plymouth's infantry regiment on 18 December 1680, after which the Governor's was redesignated the 1st Tangier Regiment and Plymouth's became the 2nd Tangier Regiment. Through the inclusion of the five independent infantry companies raised in England in 1679 and 1680, by October 1683 the 1st Tangier Regiment had grown to sixteen companies, articulated in two battalions. On return to England in 1684, it was reduced to eleven companies: the four supernumerary units (Captains George Talbot, John Burgess, James Gay, and Francis Chantrell) joined the Irish army while Captain Zouch Tate's weak company was disbanded and its men distributed to complete the regiment. Entitled the Queen's Regiment of Foot, 1684, and the Queen Dowager's, 1685–1688, it was named subsequently after its serving colonel. In 1751, when British infantry battalions were numbered, it took precedence as the 2nd Foot, or the Queen's Royal Regiment.Footnote ¹⁰

2nd Tangier Regiment

This new regiment of reinforcements (Colonel Earl of Plymouth) contained 16 companies, each of 75 men, articulated in two battalions. Eight companies were raised in and around London by the lieutenant colonel, Percy Kirke; six were drafted directly from the Portsmouth garrison; and two were levied from the Plymouth garrison by the major, Charles Trelawny. Embodied on 13 July 1680, it arrived in Tangier Bay on 18 December in very poor condition: during a protracted wait aboard ship in Plymouth harbour, the authorities had been obliged to guard the transports after numbers of ‘recruits’ had attempted to desert by jumping overboard and more than fifty men and several officers had succumbed to sickness during the voyage. In addition, before his regiment's arrival, Lord Plymouth had died in Tangier from dysentery on 17 October 1680 and Kirke had become acting commander. He was commissioned colonel, 11 November 1680, and succeeded by Charles Trelawny, 23 April 1682. Thereafter, the unit was generally referred to as the 2nd Tangier Regiment. On return to England in 1684, it was trimmed to eleven companies – the five supernumerary units (Captains William Culliford/Daniel Dering, Charles Collier, Robert Purcell, Anthony Rodney, and John Jeffreys) were incorporated into the Irish Army – and entitled the Duchess of York's Foot. Known as the Queen's Regiment of Foot, 1685–1688, it was named subsequently after its serving colonel. Trelawny was replaced by Charles Orby (c.1640–1716), 1 December 1688, but regained the battalion on 31 December remaining in post until 11 January 1692. His brother, Henry, then assumed the colonelcy. After the introduction of regimental numbering in 1751, it became the 4th, or King's Own Regiment of Foot.Footnote ¹¹

Royal Scots

This Scottish regiment, raised in 1625 to fight with the army of Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden (1594–1632) in Poland and Germany, briefly returned home in 1633 before entering French service two years later. It was commanded successively by Sir John Hepburn (c.1598–1636); his brother, Sir George Hepburn (d.1637); Lord James Douglas (1617–1645); and Archibald Douglas, earl of Angus (c.1609–1655), who resigned in 1653 in favour of his younger half-brother, Lord George Douglas (1635–1692), 1st earl of Dumbarton from 1675. He was supplanted by Frederick Herman von Schomberg, 1st duke of Schomberg (1615–1690), 31 December 1688. A large regiment containing 8,000 men during the 1640s and 3,432 in 1672, it was trimmed to 1,050 (twenty-one 50-man companies) on entering the English establishment in 1678. Initially, it was quartered in East Anglia to provide reinforcements/replacements for the expedition to Flanders. Over the winter its vacancies were supplied by soldiers disbanded from the infantry battalion of Lord James Douglas, Dumbarton's younger brother, before sailing for Ireland in April 1679. Four of the nine Protestant companies were dispatched to Tangier in March 1680 followed, in July, by the twelve Roman Catholic companies. They were organized into two battalions under Major James Halkett, the detachment commander, and Captain Archibald Douglas (1643–1729). Continuing in Tangier until the evacuation in February 1684, the regiment then rejoined the remaining five Protestant companies in Ireland. From May 1684, it was called the Royal (Scots) Regiment of Foot, more commonly shortened to the Royal Scots. When British infantry battalions were numbered in 1751, it became the 1st Regiment of Foot, the senior line infantry unit in the English army ranking immediately behind the Foot Guards.Footnote ¹²

The King's Battalion

First mustered on 31 May 1680, the King's Battalion reached Tangier on 2 July, accompanied by the earl of Plymouth; Charles, Lord Mordaunt, later 3rd earl of Peterborough (1658–1735); Richard, 1st Baron Lumley (1650–1721); and Lieutenant Colonel Percy Kirke. Also present was John Sheffield, 3rd earl of Mulgrave (1647–1721), colonel of the Holland Regiment of Foot, who, ‘having viewed the city and the garrison’, developed an instant distaste for Tangier and stayed only a few days before boarding the transports returning to England where he landed on 25 July. Lieutenant Colonel Edward Sackville (1st Foot Guards) led the battalion until ‘ill-health’ obliged retirement in the spring of 1681. His successor should have been Major Thomas Tollemache but, as soon as the serious fighting had finished, he volunteered to carry dispatches to England and quit the town on 29 October. Command thus passed to the ranking captain, George Bowes (1st Foot Guards).

It contained five 120-man companies. Two, led by Sackville and Bowes, were drafted from the 1st Foot Guards and one, under Tollemache, from the 2nd Foot Guards. The fourth company (Captain James Fortrey and subalterns from the Duke of York's Regiment) and the fifth (Captain Philip Kirke plus subalterns from the Holland Regiment) theoretically comprised 100 soldiers from the Portsmouth garrison; 80 from the Plymouth garrison; 30 out of the three independent companies in the Tower of London; and 30 from the garrison of the Isle of Wight. The adjutant was Thomas Hussey.Footnote ¹³ However, to minimize disruption within the English standing army, this recruiting scheme was ignored and most of the levies were found among the numerous unemployed veterans recently disbanded from the forces raised for Flanders and Scotland during 1678 and 1679: indeed, Captain Kirke was expressly instructed to find all his soldiers from this source. Just 274 men and 18 officers remained on 18 February 1684 when the battalion was evacuated aboard HMS Tyger (5th rate, 46 guns). Despite plans to form the survivors into a ‘body of grenadiers’ to augment the two regiments of English foot guards, they supplied vacancies throughout the standing army.Footnote ¹⁴

Six Companies

An independent infantry company for Tangier, commanded by Captain Henry Jayne, or Jane (ensign in the 1st Foot Guards, 26 July 1685), was raised in March 1679 from among the recently disbanded expeditionary force sent to Flanders in 1678. Its departure was much delayed and, following a prolonged stay on board ship in harbour, the unserviceable remnants were demobilized.

The duke of Monmouth's two-battalion foot regiment was created in England between February and November 1678, raised principally from the Royal English Regiment following its return from France. Disbanded during the spring of 1679, commissions were issued on 12 June to re-embody a single battalion for the Bothwell Bridge campaign in Scotland but the emergency subsided more quickly than anticipated and all commissions were cancelled. Instead, in July 1679 four independent infantry companies for Tangier were levied from among Monmouth's demobilized veterans by Captains George Wingfield, Thomas Barbour, William Mathews, and Charles Wingfield. Barbour's ‘recruits’ were ‘lodged’ in the Tower of London prior to embarkation. Under the overall command of George Wingfield, this half-battalion reached Tangier in August 1679 where it was incorporated into the 1st Tangier Regiment.

A sixth company was enrolled by Captain Henry Rowe on 28 April 1680 and this, too, was absorbed by the 1st Tangier Regiment.Footnote ¹⁵

Militia

Troops in the pay of the Portuguese government captured Tangier in 1471. As the situation stabilized and the danger of reconquest diminished, they were gradually withdrawn and the colonists made responsible for their own defence. By the seventeenth century, it had become the convention that Lisbon funded the building and repair of fixed fortifications but provided additional military assistance only in extremis, as in 1657 when al-Ghailan launched a serious assault obliging Governor Fernando de Meneses, 2nd count of Ericeira (1614–1699), to seek help. Ordinarily, Tangier relied upon a citizen militia consisting of 300 cavalry, 24 of whom formed a semi-permanent elite corps, 8 patrolling the hinterland nightly, and five 200-man infantry companies. From a population of less than 5,000, two-thirds comprising women and children, by January 1662 nearly all able-bodied males were enrolled. Following basic training, militiamen pursued their civilian occupations until an emergency arose when the foot manned the walls and served the defensive artillery while the cavalry exploited opportunities for counter-attack. Command was exercised by a governor, sergeant major, two aide majors or adjutants, plus troop and company officers. They operated according to the ‘Rebate’, a defensive system common to the several Portuguese fortresses in North Africa, which prioritized the protection of hinterlands and specific safe areas via a combination of ramparts, outworks, trenches or ‘lines’, observation towers, and sentries. Intelligence gathering, usually conducted by long-distance patrols and mounted spies, was strongly advocated.

Initially, from 1662 the English occupants of Tangier adopted the principal elements of the ‘Rebate’ strategy, except that standing forces replaced the Portuguese militia, until the debilitating defeats of Major George Fiennes Clinton, 3 May 1662, and the earl of Teviot at the Battle of the Jew's River, 3 May 1664, permanently undermined the garrison's strength and morale. Two years later, the pressures created by inadequate funding from Whitehall and difficulties in recruiting within the British Isles led Lieutenant Governor Henry Norwood to suggest the creation of a militia à la Portuguese. However, even though the scheme would have been substantially cheaper than augmenting the garrison, the number of civilians had fallen so dramatically since 1662 that the project appeared unfeasible. Nevertheless, recurrent shortages of money obliged the Tangier Committee to reconsider and in November 1675 ‘a militia of freemen’, answerable to the municipal corporation rather than the governor, was sanctioned. Although this replicated the status and political position of the militia in England, an arrangement whereby a military component within a front-line station is not wholly subject to the commander-in-chief's direct authority equals operational illiteracy and some necessary, key adjustments were made in 1677. Henceforward, the mayor nominated all militia officers from among the ranks of Tangier's common councillors and aldermen, before approval and formal appointment by the governor. The rank and file comprised both workers engaged on building the mole and townsmen but there were insufficient to realize a substantial corps and the militia remained notional rather than effective, numbering just 261 officers and men in 1678: 173 burghers, 88 ‘molemen’, and, surprisingly, 17 Portuguese priests.Footnote ¹⁶