‘4th Regiment of Dragoons’ (engraving)

‘4th Regiment of Dragoons’. Engraving from, ‘A Representation of the Cloathing of His Majesty's Houshold and of all the Forces upon the Establishments of Great Britain 1742’, a volume of 104 coloured engravings, published 1742 circa. Like many other cavalry regiments formed in 1685, this unit was created by merging several existing troops of cavalry. It was established to shore up James II's powerbase in London less than a month after the defeat of the Monmouth Rebellion, but three years later it went over from James to William III. It fought for William at the Boyne and in the Low Countries and rose from the 6th to the 5th Regiment of Horse in 1691. The regiment was placed on the Irish Establishment in 1699 and remained there for over a hundred years, other than a brief period spent raiding the French coast in 1795.