The regiment of foot was ordered to consist of sixteen companies of sixty-five private men each, besides officers and non-commissioned officers; and the colonelcy was conferred on CHARLES FITZ-CHARLES, EARL OF PLYMOUTH, a daring aspirant to military fame, who had already distinguished himself against the Moors in the character of a volunteer, and was serving at TANGIER at the time the regiment was raised.
The royal authority for raising this regiment was given on the 13th of July, 1680, and the sixteen companies of which it was composed, were raised by the following officers; Lieut.-Colonel Piercy Kirke,[6] Major Charles Trelawny, and Captains Zachariah Tiffin, Henry Trelawny, Edward Hastings, Charles Fox, Edward Griffin, John Strode, Edward Saville, Roger Pope, Walter Fitzgerard, John Grimes, Robert Ansley, Arthur Cheffors, and John Southcote, and the captain-lieutenant of the colonel's company. Eight companies were raised in London and in its vicinity under the immediate superintendence of Lieut.-Colonel Kirke, and had their general rendezvous in Clerkenwell; and the other eight companies were raised in the west of England, with their general rendezvous at Plymouth, under the superintendence of Major Trelawny.
The corps thus raised obtained the title of the SECOND TANGIER REGIMENT,[7] and after serving the British crown in various parts of the world, through the eventful period of one hundred and fifty-eight years, it continues a distinguished corps, and bears the designation of the FOURTH, OR THE KING'S OWN, REGIMENT OF FOOT. Although the particulars of its origin and formation have been distinctly given, yet it was in some measure connected with another corps, of whose services a few words are introduced into this record.
On the breaking out of the war between England and Holland in the early part of 1672, a regiment of foot was raised, of which JAMES DUKE OF MONMOUTH was appointed colonel. This regiment was sent to France, and taken into the pay of Louis XIV.; it served during the campaigns of 1672 and 1673, under the Duke of Monmouth, in the Netherlands, and during the four succeeding years it served with the French army in Alsace and on the Rhine, together with Douglas's or Dumbarton's regiment, now first royals, Churchill's, and Hamilton's. In these campaigns MONMOUTH'S regiment distinguished itself on several occasions under Marshals Turenne, De Crequi, and Luxemburg. In 1678 it was ordered to return to England, and after the peace of Nimeguen it was disbanded.