Palmes Fairborne
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Sir Palmes Fairborne |
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|---|---|
| Born | c. 1644 |
| Died | 27 October 1680 (aged 36) Tangier, Morocco |
| Allegiance | England |
Sir Palmes Fairborne (1644 – 27 October 1680) was an English soldier and Governor of Tangier.
Fairborne was the son of Colonel Stafford Fairborne of Newark-on-Trent. When young he fought as a soldier of fortune in Crete at the siege of Candia by the Ottoman Turks; a Turk's head was afterwards included in his arms. At the age of seventeen Fairborne was back in England.
In the autumn of 1661 he was commissioned a captain in the newly formed Tangier Regiment of Foot. The regiment mustered one thousand strong, besides officers, on Putney Heath, 14 October, and sailed to garrison Tangier, under the command of the Earl of Peterborough, in January 1662. During the next eighteen years Fairborne took a prominent part in the defence of Tangier, which was exposed to attacks from the Moors, receiving the honour of knighthood for his services. By 1664 he had risen to the rank of major. In 1667 he fought a duel with a brother officer. The account Fairborne gives of the condition of the city in his letters home is deplorable; stores and victuals ran short, and constant desertions took place. Fairborne rode on one occasion alone into the enemy's lines, and brought a deserter back in triumph on his horse (26 December 1669).
Kinghted in April 1975, in May 1676 he was made joint deputy-governor in the absence of William O'Brien, 2nd Earl of Inchiquin, and on the death (21 November) of his coadjutor, Colonel Allsop, he had the sole command for the next two years. Under Fairborne improvements took place both in the discipline of the garrison and in the construction of the mole for defence of the harbour. But pay was two years and a quarter in arrears; in December 1677 a mutiny took place. Fairborne wrenched a musket from a leading mutineer and shot him dead on the spot.
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