The King had raised and equipped a fine army for the purpose of making it subservient to his insidious designs; but the troops proved faithful to the interests of their country and religion, and an association of officers was secretly formed at the camp on Hounslow Heath, in favour of the Prince of Orange, who was preparing an army to invade England and to rescue the kingdom from the power of the Papists. Information having been received of the designs of the Prince of Orange, HAMILTON'S CUIRASSIERS were ordered to Ipswich, where the Earl of Arran's regiment (now Fourth Dragoon Guards), and the Queen's (now Third) Dragoons, commanded by Colonel Alexander Cannon, were assembled under the orders of Major-General Sir John Lanier, to preserve Landguard Fort, and to prevent the Prince landing there; and two regiments of horse and one of dragoons were stationed at Colchester to support this force, if necessary. Sir John Lanier is stated by King James, in his memoirs, to have been one of the associated officers, and to have resolved to seize on the Earl of Arran, and Colonels Hamilton and Cannon, and to have joined the Prince with the three regiments; but this arrangement, in which King James states, in his memoirs, most of the officers had agreed to co-operate, was rendered void by his Highness landing at Torbay. HAMILTON'S CUIRASSIERS were afterwards ordered to march to the metropolis, and from thence to Salisbury; but a general defection appearing in the army, the King fled to France; the Prince of Orange ordered the regiment to march to Fenny Stratford, and its Colonel, the Honourable Richard Hamilton, was confined in the Tower of London, for holding a commission for which he was disqualified by law, he being a Papist. On the 31st of December, 1688, the Prince of Orange conferred the Colonelcy of the regiment on the Lieutenant-Colonel, John Coy; and during the eight succeeding years it bore the title of COY'S HORSE, or CUIRASSIERS. All the Papists having been dismissed, the regiment received a draft of one hundred men and horses from the Marquis of Miremont's regiment of horse,--a corps which had been recently raised, and was now disbanded. [Sidenote: 1689] These events were followed by the accession of William and Mary, the Prince and Princess of Orange, to the throne; and the first duty in which the regiment was called upon to engage under the new dynasty, was the patrolling of the public roads to prevent highway robberies, which, owing to the commotions recently experienced in society, had become very frequent. It also furnished a detachment to protect the King's herd of deer in the Forest of Dean against the depredations of organized bands of deer-stealers.