Protestant Exiles from France/Volume 2 - Book Third - Chapter 14 - Section I
I. Colonel Francis Ligonier.
Francois Auguste de Ligonnier came to England in 1710, and received a cornet’s commision in the 2nd Dragoons. He passed through the various steps of promotion “with that honour, courage, and magnanimity which are so distinguishingly the characteristics of his family,” till we find him Lieutenant-Colonel of the 8th Light Dragoons at the battle of Dettingen. At the head of his regiment he did wonders, and was wounded in the thigh. He was promoted to the Colonelcy of the 48th Foot on the 25th of April 1745; probably there was no vacant cavalry regiment at that date. The death of the lamented Colonel Gardiner at Prestonpans, on the 21st of September, created a vacancy in the 13th Light Dragoons. That regiment was given to Colonel Ligonier on the 1st of October, the king observing, “I will give them a colonel that will make them fight.” The 48th was not handed over to another colonel till April 6th, 1746, so that on the 17th January there fought at the battle of Falkirk both Ligonier’s foot and Ligonier’s dragoons.
General Hawley directed the battle without sufficient consideration, and ordered a charge of cavalry at an improper time, and on unfavourable ground. Colonel Ligonier, who had the command of all the cavalry, had no choice but to attempt to obey an impracticable order, with a violent storm of wind and rain blowing full in the face of the troops. Lord Cobham’s dragoons, which were part of the brigade of cavalry under our colonel’s command, behaved well, and so did his own infantry regiment, which was in Brigadier Cholmondeley’s brigade. Except in these and 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.”