History
The regiment formed as the Princess Anne of Denmark's Regiment of Foot during a rebellion in 1685 by the illegitimate son of King Charles II against King James II.
After James was deposed during the "Glorious Revolution" that installed William and Mary as co-monarchs, the regiment's commanding officer, the Duke of Berwick, decided to join his royal father in exile. His replacement as commanding officer was Colonel John Beaumont, who had earlier been dismissed with six officers for refusing to accept a draft of Catholics.
It took part in the Siege of Carrickfergus in Ireland in 1689 and in the Battle of the Boyne the following year. Further actions, while under the command of John Churchill (later 1st Duke of Marlborough) took place that year involving the regiment during the sieges of Limerick, Cork and Kinsale.
Read more about this topic: 8th (The King's) Regiment Of Foot
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“The history of any nation follows an undulatory course. In the trough of the wave we find more or less complete anarchy; but the crest is not more or less complete Utopia, but only, at best, a tolerably humane, partially free and fairly just society that invariably carries within itself the seeds of its own decadence.”
—Aldous Huxley (1894–1963)