Henry Jones of Oxfordshire

Henry Jones of Asthall Manor (died 1673), Oxfordshire was an officer in the New Model Army during the Interregnum. He transferred to the new small Royalist army of Charles II, serving as a Life Guard until he was dismissed after becoming a Roman Catholic. With King Charles's blessing he raised an English regiment of horse (cavalry) known as English Regiment of Light Horse in France for the French Army of Louis XIV. He was killed in action at the siege of Maastricht.

Henry Jones was the son of Rice Jones (died probably by 1644) and his wife Jane daughter of Giles Bray of Harrington.

Jones was a captain in, or possibly was major of, John Humphrey's regiment of foot in Barbados and Jamaica in 1655 and 1656. He was lucky to survive service in the West Indies.

Jones and another officer, Colonel Drummond, accompanied Lord Fauconberg (a son-in-law of the Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell). Jones volunteered to join Sir William Lockhart's Brigade which fought alongside the French army at the siege of Dunkirk and at the Battle of the Dunes on 4 June 1658.

At the Battle of the Dunes Jones was attached to Lockhart's New Model Army regiment. The regiment was under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Roger Fenwick when it attacked veteran Spanish soldiers ensconced on top of 150 feet (46 m) dune (sand-hill). The sides of the dune were so steep that attacking English had to scramble up on hands and knees. The English, after two volleys and push of pike, drove the Spanish from the crest of the dune and then pursued them down the far side. They were then in turn attacked by Anglo-Spanish cavalry who were unable to break the English formation and were themselves then driven off by French cavalry. By then all the regimental officers were either dead, or wounded. Jones himself had been, shot through the shoulder and wounded in two other places, but this did not deter him from seizing a loose French cavalry horse and joining the French cavalry in the counter-attack on the Anglo-Spanish cavalry. However Jones pursued the enemy too far and was captured.

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