Historical record of the Thirteenth, First Somerset, or the Prince Albert's Regiment of Light Infantry: containing an account of the formation of the regiment in 1685, and of its subsequent services to 1848.Cannon, Richard
History
Historical record of the Thirteenth, First Somerset, or the Prince Albert's Regiment of Light Infantry: containing an account of the formation of the regiment in 1685, and of its subsequent services to 1848.
Cannon, Richard
Great Britain. Army -- History; Great Britain. Army. Somerset Light Infantry
LORD MARK KERR, fourth son of Robert fourth Earl of Lothian,
entered the army on the 1st of January, 1694, and served under
King William III. in Flanders. On the 1st of January, 1706, he was
promoted to the colonelcy of a newly-raised regiment of foot, with
which he served in the expedition under the Earl of Rivers in the
same year, and when the projected descent on the coast of France
was abandoned, he proceeded to Portugal, and afterwards to Spain.
He commanded his regiment at the battle of Almanza, on the 25th of
April, 1707, which was formed between two brigades of Portuguese
cavalry which quitted the field. His regiment was engaged with
very superior numbers: it behaved with great gallantry, but it
was literally cut to pieces; his lordship was wounded in the arm,
his lieut.-colonel and major were both killed, and his regiment
lost twenty-three officers killed, wounded, and prisoners. In 1711
he was promoted to the rank of brigadier-general, and in 1712 he
was nominated colonel of the twenty-ninth regiment. He commanded
a brigade of infantry in the expedition to Spain, under Lord
(afterwards Viscount) Cobham, in 1719, and served at the capture
of Vigo. In 1725 he obtained the colonelcy of the THIRTEENTH
foot,--was promoted to the rank of major-general in 1727,--removed
to the eleventh dragoons in 1732, and advanced to the rank of
lieut.-general in 1735. In 1740 he was appointed governor of the
island of Guernsey; in 1743 he obtained the rank of general, and
in 1745 he was constituted governor of Edinburgh Castle; in 1751
he was placed on the staff of Ireland. It is recorded in the
Peerage of Scotland that--‘He was a man of marked and decided
character; with the strictest notions of honour and good-breeding,
he retained, perhaps, too punctilious an observance of etiquette,
as it gave him an air of frivolity. He was soldier-like in his
appearance; formal in his deportment; whimsical, even finical, in
his dress; but he commanded respect wherever he went, for none
dared to laugh at his singularities. Manners, which in foreign
courts, where they had been acquired, would have passed unobserved,
were considered as fantastic in his own country, and were apt to
lead his impatient spirit into rencontres too often fatal to his
antagonists. Naturally of a good temper, his frequent appeals to
the sword on trivial occasions drew on him the imputation of being
a quarrelsome man; but he was inoffensive unless provoked; and
never meddled with any one, but such as chose to meddle with him.’
He died on the 2nd of February, 1752.
JOHN MIDDLETON.
_Appointed 29th May, 1732._
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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