The History of the 2nd Dragoons: "Royal Scots Greys"Almack, Edward
History
The History of the 2nd Dragoons: "Royal Scots Greys"
Almack, Edward
Great Britain. Army. Dragoons, 2nd (Royal Scots Greys)
At her own wish she was now allowed to join the Greys, and continued
so until after the peace of Ryswick. On the renewal of war in 1701
she went back to Holland and re-enlisted in the Greys. She fought at
Niuwegen, Venloo, Bonn, and in most of the engagements of the campaign,
till at the battle of Donauwerth she received a ball in the hip,
which caused a temporary retirement into hospital. The ball was never
extracted, but Christian was again under arms in time to share in the
spoil after Blenheim. While forming one of a guard to some prisoners
taken in that battle, she again saw her husband after a separation of
thirteen years. She lost no time in revealing her identity to him; but
so enamoured was she of camp life that she extracted a promise from
Welsh that he would pass himself off as her brother. After Ramillies
she, of course, had to cease to be a trooper, but she still continued
to live in camp, and accompanied her husband as his acknowledged wife.
In 1709 Richard Welsh was killed at Malplaquet. Christian herself found
his body, and her lamentations were so extravagant as to excite the
open commiseration of a Captain Ross, whence it is said she gained the
sobriquet of Mother Ross, by which she was known for the rest of her
days. Although grieving so that for a whole week she refused to touch
food, she married Hugh Jones, a grenadier, within three months. In 1710
Jones was killed at the siege of Saint-Venant. In 1712 she returned to
England, was presented to Queen Anne, and awarded a life pension of a
shilling a day. She afterwards went to Dublin and married a soldier
named Davies. She died on July 7th, 1739, and, at her own request, her
body was interred among the pensioners in Chelsea burying ground, and
three grand volleys were fired over her grave.
After this great victory at Ramillies, on Whit Sunday, May 23rd, 1705,
the Greys were occupied in covering the successful sieges of several
fortified towns in Flanders, and in the autumn the British troops went
into quarters in Flanders, excepting the Royal Scots Greys and Irish
Dragoons, who proceeded to Holland.
Early in the spring of 1707 the Greys went to Spanish Brabant, and
encamped near the banks of the little river Sienne. In this year the
Acts of Parliament were passed for the Union of the crowns of England
and Scotland, and from that time the Greys were designated "The Royal
Regiment of North British Dragoons."
The army was assembled at Brussels, and afterwards encamped near
Weldert. The year passed off very quietly; but Richard Cannon found
some record of a sharp fight between twenty-five troopers of the Greys
sent out to cut forage and thirty French musketeers, the result alleged
being fourteen Frenchmen killed and the rest taken.
On July 11th, 1708, the Greys were engaged in the important battle of
Oudenarde, and this battle, with the story of the events preceding it,
is full of interest, but would be out of place in this record of one
particular regiment.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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