one or two other regiments, the officers were deserted by the troops, and left exposed to the rebel forces.
Colonel Ligonier’s connection with this battle from first to last was of a nature to deserve the reader’s sympathy. Being ill of a pleurisy, for which he was bled and blistered on the 14th January, he would, nevertheless, contrary to advice, march with the army to Falkirk on the 16th, and command the brigade of dragoons at the attack of the rebel army’s two lines. He broke the first line, and did great execution; when Lieutenant-Colonel Whitney and several other officers were killed in the midst of the rebels, Colonel Jordan and others were wounded, and the squadron was repulsed by the enemy’s second line. Colonel Ligonier rallied them, and made the rear-guard of the army to Linlithgow, where he arrived at one in the morning, his clothes being wet through. He was in consequence attacked with quinsey, of which he died on the 25th of the same month. The following is the inscription on his monument in Westminster Abbey:—
“A Rege et Victoria.
“Sacred to
Francis Ligonier, Esq., Colonel of Dragoons, a native of France, descended from a very honourable family there; but a zealous Protestant and subject of England, sacrificing himself in its defence against a Popish pretender at the battle of Falkirk, in 1745 [1746, new style]. A distemper could not confine him to his bed when his duty called him to the field, where he chose to meet death rather than in the arms of his friends. But his disease proved more victorious than the enemy; he expired soon after the battle. When under all the agonies of sickness and pain, he exerted a spirit of vigour and heroism.
“To the memory of such a brave and beloved brother this monument is placed by Sir John Ligonier, Knight of the Bath, General of Horse in the British Army, with just grief and brotherly affection.”
II. Field-marshal the Earl Ligonier,
Knight of the Bath, and Privy Councillor.
Jean Louis de Ligonier was born at Castres[1] on the 7th November 1680; he came to England in the year 1697. On the declaration of war in 1702, he accompanied the British army to Flanders as a volunteer, and immediately, by prodigious bravery, attracted the attention of the Duke of Marlborough. On the 23rd October 1702, he and another volunteer, the Honourable Allan Wentworth, brother of Lord Raby, were the two first who mounted the breach at the storming of the citadel of Liege. Wentworth was killed at the side of John Ligonier.
In February 1703 he was permitted to purchase a company in Lord North’s regiment. Mr Jacob, however, is mistaken in saying that he was only sixteen years of age, he was in his twenty-third year, according to Haag, whose very specific date for his birthday we have given above; or if we are guided by his monument, he was twenty-five years of age in 1703. Permission to enter the regular service as a captain implies mature age. In July 13th he fought at Schellenberg, and on August 13th (n.s.) at Blenheim. The latter “glorious victory” cost Lord North an arm, and the lives of all the captains of his regiment, except Ligonier. At the siege of Menin, in August 1706, Ligonier served as a captain of the English Grenadiers, who made themselves masters of the counterscarp after hard fighting. He was raised to the rank of major, and appointed major of brigade. He took part in all Marlborough’s great battles. At Malplaquet he must have specially distinguished himself, the name “Taisniere” being inscribed on his monument after “Malplaquet.” The allusion may be gathered from the following incident narrated by Boyer:—
- ↑ An unhappy marriage, contracted by his nephew, occasioned the publication of a worthless brochure entitled, “The Generous Husband,” London, 1771. As there may be some truth in the following paragraph, I insert it in this note:— “The late Lord Lelius [John Ligonier] was born in France of a noble family, not less illustrious for their many domestic virtues and inflexible regard for public liberty, than for their noble extraction and extensive possessions. His father was born in the south of that kingdom, where, having taken up arms in defence of the civil and ecclesiastical liberties of his oppressed fellow-Protestanis, but being overborne by numbers and superior strength, he was made prisoner, brought to trial, and condemned. This was on account of the revocation of the Edict of Nantes and the other oppressive persecuting measures pursued by that tyrant, Louis XIV., against his unoffending Protestant subjects. To these operations of bigotry, superstition, and injustice, we owe the services of a Schomberg, a Galway, and Ligonier.”
