Regiment of Horse

The Regiment of Horse was a cavalry unit active in Scotland in the late seventeenth century, which played an important role in the events of that period.

The regiment had its origin in three Independent Troops of Horse established on 23 September 1678, each with four officers and sixty men. The first troop to be issued with its royal warrant was commanded by the veteran Cavalier James Ogilvy, 2nd Earl of Airlie and his nephew Adam Urquhart of Meldrum, who had previously been the officers of the Lord Chancellor's Troop of the Life Guard, disbanded two years earlier. The second troop was led by two young noblemen, James Home, 5th Earl of Home and the Master of Ross. The third commission went to Captain John Graham of Claverhouse, a man of less exalted rank, but a highly regarded officer of the Dutch Life Guards, who had gained the powerful patronage of the king's brother, the Duke of York.

Although Scotland had lent military assistance to both sides in the ongoing Franco-Dutch War, the Independent Troops seem to have been raised for garrison duty in Scotland, to guard against the perceived threat of the Covenanters - committed Presbyterians who rejected any government that did not obey their religious principles, but were perhaps further radicalized by state repression. In 1679, they formed a small army and defeated an outnumbered Claverhouse at the Battle of Drumclog, but the Independent Troops played a key role in the repulse of their assault on Glasgow.

Subsequently, tensions emerged between the Independent Troops and Lieutenant-General Tam Dayell, the senior professional soldier in Scotland, who became commander in chief before the year's end. It seems that Dayell did not get on well with Airlie or Graham, and tactically, he seems to have favoured the dragoons, companies of mounted infantry armed with muskets and polearms, clad in plain hodden grey uniforms.

In 1681, Dayell had the dragoon companies combined as a regiment under his own command, the famous Scots Greys, in response, Captain Graham seems to have proposed to his patron the Duke of York that the Independent Troops of Horse should be similarly re-organized into a unified regiment.

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