This year the Brandenbourg contingent was greatly behindhand, because until the French troops wintering on the Moselle and the Rhine should take the field, the Duchy of Luxembourg (Ill. LII) would be left open to their incursions by the departure of the Brandenburgers from their winter-quarters in the Duchies of Clèves and Luxembourg. The rendezvous was between Vilvorde and Brussels; but the retention of the Brandenburgers in their own territories, and the tardiness of some of the other German contingents, prevented the Allies from undertaking any enterprise on the enemy's frontier.

There was among the French generals a Marquis de Boufflers, whose aptitude for sudden expeditions and surprises was such that it amounted to a genius. This officer, who throughout the winter had been exercising his peculiar talent, was now selected to execute a surprise of the fortress of Mons, the works of which were in an unfinished state. Mons was, with Ath, the connecting link of the Allied frontier between the Scheldt and the Sambre: the Earl of Marlborough alone seems to have rightly estimated the value of such a link, and he urged in vain that measures should be taken to prevent Mons being surprised.

The two great essentials of military preparation were not neglected by de Boufflers; secrecy was supplemented by completeness. Formed at Versailles, the design had been communicated only to M. de Boufflers and to the Intendants or Officers of the Commissariat in the frontier districts. The Intendant of Hainault had collected on the frontier between the Sambre and the Meuse forage sufficient to last seven thousand cavalry for three weeks: in Picardie the magazines contained forage for forty thousand horses for the same period. The Artillery and siege train had been concentrated at Douai

less carefully compiled. The following, however, are among the principal authorities consulted:

De Beaurain.
D'Auvergne.

De Villars.

Berwick.

London Gazette.

Establishment Lists.

De Bonneval.

De Feuquiere.

De Quincy.

Story.

Coxe, Memoirs of the Duke of Marlborough.

Besides those quoted in other notes.

and the places on the Scheldt. The Intendants had completed all arrangements for supplies of food and munitions, and had provided twenty-one thousand peasant pioneers or navvies. The rivers Scarpe, Scheldt, and Haisne would form a facile means of communication, and the Allies possessed no garrisons on the French side to cut off their convoys.

The distribution of the French army for the enterprise was ordered to be as follows:

All things then being in readiness, a simultaneous movement was made along the frontier, as if merely to break up the winter quarters and assemble the army. The troops in quarters nearest to Mons marched straight on that fortress; those cantoned towards the sea joined d'Humières, whose force was designed to keep in check the Allied garrisons between the Lys and the sea; and at the same time M. d'Harcourt assembled a body of three thousand cavalry near Trèves, which had the effect of detaining the Brandenburgers from swelling the army at Brussels. With such secrecy and promptitude was all this done that de Boufflers invested Mons before the Allies had any notice of his design. The swarm of pioneers were set vigorously to work at the lines of circumvallation: the weather was fine, and therefore favourable to the besiegers. The Allies, from the comparative fewness of their numbers, could do no more than cover Brussels should it be threatened after the capture of Mons: William therefore continued to assemble his army, and occupied the troops meantime in entrenching the town of Halle which lies between Mons and the capital.

After a very weak defence Mons capitulated on the 31st of March. The French lost only ninety-two men in the siege. The garrison, which amounted to nearly six thousand, probably opined that ultimate surrender was unavoidable; for a strong force covered the siege, which was itself directed by MM. de

Vauban and de Megrigny the two principal engineers of France. It should however have held out longer, seeing that every day's delay was of advantage to the Allies in their then circumstances.

The position of the Maréchal d'Humières's corps on the Lys had deterred the garrisons of Ghent and Bruges from re-inforcing the Allied main army, but other re-inforcements had come in gradually during the time of the siege of Mons, and among them some English regiments.

The British contingent during this campaign was not large by reason of the employment of so many regiments in Ireland; and as to the War Office administration, it was such that in May the Artillery and Ordnance stores had not yet left the Downs,182 and scarcely any of the Commissariat Transport had been shipped; the cavalry were deficient in horses, and recruiting for the infantry was only just beginning. The following corps were serving in Flanders in April, in which month several of them arrived from home:

Ramsay

Do. 3rd do.

First Foot Guards, 2nd Bn.

Second do. 1st Bn.

and a Battalion Dutch Guards.

Colonel.

Earl of Scarborough.
Earl of Marlborough
Warcup.

Bridgeman.
Jas. Douglas.

1st Foot "Royals" (Ill. LIII), 2 Bns.... Sir Robert Douglas.
21st "Scots Fusileers"

"Cameronians"

26th,,
Mackay's regt.

Ramsay's

7th Foot, "Royal Fusileers"

O'Ffarrell.

Earl of Angus.

Mackay.
Ramsay.

Earl of Marlborough.
Earl of Bath.

Hodges.
Fitzpatrick.

The TWENTY-SIXTH CAMERONIANS derived its name from the religious sect from which it was originally recruited.

The Cameronians, sometimes called the Hill-men from their places of worship,133 were a party that segregated from the main body of the Scotch Presbyterians about the year 1680; they were first called Cameronians after Richard Cameron, one of

432 Letter, Whitehall, 18 April and 9 May, 1691, Blathwayt Secry. of War, to Clarke; Clarke MSS.

433 There is a full account of this sect in Crighton's Life and Diary of Lt. Colonel Blackader who belonged to the regiment from its first formation.

their itinerant preachers, who was killed at Airs-Moss. Their main principle was liberty of worship without license of any sort, whether from Kings or Bishops. For many years they were much persecuted as opponents of the King's authority, and were compelled to secrete themselves, being excommunicated and outlawed by the civil and religious authorities.

On the Revolution of 1688, the Cameronians prayed King William for redress of their grievances, and they openly by public prayers and such-like means, espoused his cause as being opposed to that of "Popery and Tyranny." 484 They even offered to take up arms on William's behalf; and accordingly, upon their offer being accepted, they "did make up the Earl "of Angus's regiment of eight hundred men, all in one day, "without beat of drum or expenses of levy-money."

434

On the 14th of May, 1689, the Regiment mustered13 one thousand two hundred strong, under their Colonel the Earl of Angus a lad under twenty years of age and only son of the Marquis of Douglas. It was expressly stipulated by the regiment that it should have a Minister of its own persuasion, and an Elder to each Company. The Cameronians retain the distinctive badge of a Scotch regiment to this day.

There had been in the service of the States for upwards of a century prior to William's accession to the crown of England, several independent Companies originally composed of Scotchmen.435 These companies were highly thought of in Holland: in 1578 they fought at Reminant in their shirt sleeves and contributed not a little to the victory; and they had been engaged in all the wars waged under the Princes of Orange. They were at length embodied into three regiments, which, under Colonels Balfour, Mackay, and Ramsay, accompanied William the Third on his expedition to England in 1688, and which had since done good service in Scotland and Ireland. These regiments were lent to the States-General of Holland in 1701, and after suffering very shameful neglect at the hands of the British Government on the rupture between England and Holland in 1781, they were recalled in 1793 and subsequently

434 Memorial of the sufferings &c. of the Presbyterians in Scotland, particularly of those nick-named Cameronians.

Royal Warrt. 18 Decr., 1689, confirmed the establishment of the Regiment. Scotch Acts of Parliament authorise the raising of the Regts., 1,200 strong on 19 April, 1689.

435 An Historical account of the British Regiments employed in the formation and defence of the Dutch Republic particularly of the Scotch Brigade: Lond. 1795.

shared the glories of the "Peninsula " campaigns under the title of the NINETY-FOURTH REGIMENT. As however this distinguished and ancient Corps was disbanded in 1818 I shall not speak of these Scotch regiments as the Ninety-fourth, but shall mention them in the same way as other Corps that have died out. Nevertheless, with this clue the curious will still be able to trace for themselves the history of the Old Ninetyfourth.

The British General officers were the Earl of Marlborough in chief command of the Contingent, and Lieutenant General Kirke of Tangier notoriety. The Contingent numbered about ten thousand men. Besides the British, there were Dutch, Spanish, and German troops; the strength of the whole army being Nineteen thousand Horse and Dragoons and Thirty-one thousand infantry. Prince Waldeck commanded the Dutch; and under him were Field-Marshals the Prince of NassauSaarbruck and the Prince of Nassau-Friedland, and General Count Solmes. Prince Vaudemont was the Spanish commander. At a meeting of the Allied Powers it had been decided that King William should take the command of the whole army.

On the surrender of Mons the Allies occupied a camp at Anderlecht close to Brussels. This camp was situate on a peninsula formed by two tributaries of the Senne (Ill. LIV), one of which ran immediately in rear of the position while the other circled round the front: the front was also protected by several ravines through which the stream flowed.

The next move in the campaign rested with the French, for the Allies could not quit the neighbourhood of Brussels so long as a French army remained in the vicinity of Mons. The French King, who had himself been present at the late siege, bore a grudge against the citizens of Liége for having disappointed him of their expected neutrality during the war, and the check now held upon the Allied army by the possession of Mons afforded an opportunity of gratifying Louis's desire for vengeance. Besides Liége was a principal depôt for arms and munitions, and if a bombardment should not frighten the inhabitants into submission, it would at least damage the Allies by destroying magazines and their contents. The plan was that de Boufflers should undertake the bombardment, while de Luxembourg should deter the Allied army from interference by threatening Brussels.

With this object de Luxembourg assembled an army near