The Origins of the 2nd Dragoons (Royal Scots Greys)

In going through Cannon’s “Historical Record of the Royal Regiment Of Scots Dragoons…” I was interested to pick up on how vicious the treatment of the “Covenanters” in the mid 1600’s was and that it resulted in what was basically a rebellion or a series of risings.  The Scots Greys were raised to help to enforce the various regulations that were put in place in an effort to put them down.

In 1666, one of a series of risings was put down and a large number of prisoners were taken.  To quote Cannon:  “The prisoners were subject to torture, and to various cruelties, in order to extract confessions and information; many were hanged; others transported; and the vengeful disposition displayed by Archbishop Sharp rendered him extremely obnoxious to the Presbyterians.”

Archbishop Sharp was eventually waylaid and murdered by country folk in 1679, and things deteriorated to the extent that the Duke of Monmouth was sent to Scotland to put down the rebels and re-establish law and order in the countryside.

The disturbances went on until after the accession of James II took the throne. In 1687, James removed most of the restrictions on the non-conformists finally bringing the trouble to an end only in time for the King to lose out to William & Mary in 1688

Data Relationships

The database is currently in Microsoft Access 10.  As such, the relationships between the various data tables tend to be via unique index numbers.  Consequently, by placing a regimental index number for an officer posting links the date, location and rank of an officer to their parent regiment.  This allows a researcher to identify any officers (and their archives) who served in a specific place within a specific date range.

Data table relationships

Example of Regimental Colonels Data

Around 1740, regiments were known by the name of their Colonel unless they were “Royal” Regiments.  From 1740 on, they were increasingly known by their number (an indication of their seniority or precedence).  However, this was not a hard and fast rule.  Some Colonels “owned” more than one Regiment at a time usually a Regiment of Foot and a Regiment of  Dragoons or Regiment of Horse, some times albeit rarely, they did , in fact have two Regiments of Foot at the same time as they might have acquired a more senior Regiment before disposing of their more junior one.   For these reasons, it is very important to be able to trace the lineage of any particular Regiment as it went through its Colonels.

The data below is an example of some of that held. The Index links the Col. to the modern Regiment while the RegtName column indicates the name that the Regiment was known by at the time.

Index	From	To	Style	LastName	RegtName
10	1680	1682	Sir P	Fairbourne	Fairbourne’s Reg’t
17	1680	1682	Piercy	Kirke	4th Reg’t of Horse
21	1680	1688	Thomas	Monk	Monk’s Reg’t
17	1680	1680	Earl	Plymouth	4th Reg’t of Horse
8	1681	1685	T	Dalzell	Scots Horse
4	1681	1688	Duke of	Grafton	Royal Reg’t of Foot Guards
13	1682	1684	Earl	Chesterfield	The Holland Reg’t
10	1682	1684	Piercy	Kirke	Kirke’s Reg’t
17	1682	1688	Charles	Trelawny	Queen’s Own Reg’t of Foot
5	1683	1685	Lord	Churchill	Churchill’s Horse
15	1684	1691	Hon J	Douglas	New Reg’t of Foot Guards
58	1684	1686	Earl	Granard	Granard’s Reg’t
10	1684	1686	Piercy	Kirke	Queen’s Reg’t of Foot
13	1684	1685	Earl	Mulgrave	The Holland Reg’t