after the departure of James, and while the throne was still vacant, named by William Colonel of the First Regiment of Foot Guards. The Revolution had scarcely been consummated, when signs of disaffection began to appear in that regiment, the most important, both because of its peculiar duties and because of its numerical strength, of all the regiments in the army. It was thought that the Colonel had not put this bad spirit down with a sufficiently firm hand. He was known not to be perfectly satisfied with the new arrangement; he had voted for a Regency; and it was rumoured, perhaps without reason, that he had dealings with Saint Germains. The honourable and lucrative command to which he had just been appointed was taken from him.[1] Though severely mortified, he behaved like a man of sense and spirit. Bent on proving that he had been wrongfully suspected, and animated by an honourable ambition to distinguish himself in his profession, he obtained permission to serve as a volunteer under Marlborough in Ireland.
At length, on the eighteenth of September, the wind changed. The fleet stood out to sea, and on the twenty-first appeared before the harbour of Cork. The troops landed, and were speedily joined by the Duke of Wirtemberg, with several regiments, Dutch, Danish, and French, detached from the army which had lately besieged Limerick. The Duke immediately put forward a claim which, if the English general had not been a man of excellent judgment and temper, might have been fatal to the expedition. His Highness contended that, as a prince of a sovereign house, he was entitled to command in chief. Marlborough calmly and politely showed that the pretence was unreasonable. A dispute followed, in which it is said that the German behaved with rudeness, and the Englishman with that gentle firmness to which, more perhaps than even to his great abilities, he owed his success in life. At length a Huguenot officer suggested a compromise. Marlborough consented to waive part of his rights, and to allow precedence to the Duke on the alternate days. The first morning on which Marlborough had the command, he gave the word "Wirtemberg." The
- ↑ Van Citters to the States General, March 19/29, 1689.
