The Battle of Dettingen From 1715 until 1742, The King’s Own Regiment of Dragoons soldiered at home, engaging in nothing more exciting than anti-smuggling duty. The uneasy peace in Europe was broken when the Emperor of Austria died and “The War of Austrian Succession” broke out with Britain and Austria once again fighting France. This time there was one major battle and one clear result. King George II was to assume command of his army a week before the battle…

The Battle of Sheriffmuir 1715 When the regiment had finished recruiting in England, it was dispatched north to Scotland. There, it formed part of the English garrison, intimidating the Scottish population in an attempt to repress any attempts at a Jacobite rising. When George I ascended to the English throne in 1714, the regiment’s title was once again altered, and that same year became The King’s Own Regiment of Dragoons. Shortly after his ascension, a major Jacobite uprising occurred; the…

The Battle of Almanza In April 1706, the Queen’s Dragoons moved south from Yorkshire to Hampshire in order to conduct some training. Two hundred and forty of them were soon to go into action. The Queen’s Dragoons were led by their new Colonel, Lord George Carpenter, Lieutenant-Colonel Lawrence, ten other officers, four troop quartermasters, a surgeon, a gunsmith and his mate, fifteen N.C.O.s, seven drummers, ten hautboys and 190 privates. They were to join a force of eight thousand commanded…

War of Spanish Succession 1701-14 Almenara 27 June 1710 The Regiment, then known as Pepper’s Dragoons, played a vital role in the Allied cavalry’s defeat of the Spanish horse at the Battle of Almenara. Both sides had drawn up their cavalry facing each other with their infantry struggling to catch up and reach the field of battle. Out of twenty-six squadrons of Allied cavalry, sixteen charged across the valley into two lines of Spanish, numbering forty-two squadrons in all, putting…

The Battle of Steinkirk 1692 Early in 1692 Fitzhardinge’s Dragoons went to Flanders and fought their first full-scale battle against the French. Fitzhardinge’s crossed to Flanders in the first weeks of 1692, the only Dragoons in the large expeditionary force. The Scottish campaign had only provided skirmishing work, and the regiment had yet to meet well-disciplined troops in full battle. Thus it was that Fitzhardinge rode into battle against the French for the first time in their long history. Riding…

8th King’s Royal Irish Hussars In 1693 Colonel Conyngham, under the authority of The King, raised a regiment of dragoons in Ireland. Early active service of the 8th Hussars, known then as Pepper’s Dragoons,  was during the War of Spanish Succession, at Almenara, where on the 27th of June 1710 they defeated a Spanish Cavalry Corps and to add insult to injury, stole their crossbelts and killed them with their own swords. They were afterwards known as the “Crossbelt Dragoons”,…