The Duke of Kingston's Regiment of Light Horse was a volunteer cavalry regiment raised in Nottinghamshire in 1745 at his own expense, in imitation of hussars in foreign service, and disbanded in 1746.
It was raised by the 2nd Duke of Kingston, ranked as the 10th Horse, and offered for service in the Second Jacobite Rising 1745, where it fought at Culloden. Since they were newly raised and the troopers weren't regulars they behaved in a most beastly manner, especially in the pursuit after Culloden when they cut down many innocent civilians including women and children along the Inverness road, it pursued the retreating Jacobite army for three miles from the battlefield.
The men had enlisted for the duration of the fighting, and so the regiment was disbanded at Nottingham in September 1746, with the Duke of Cumberland enlisting most of the men (all but eight of the original) into the newly formed Duke of Cumberland's Regiment of Light Dragoons.
Famous quotes containing the words duke of, duke, regiment, light and/or horse:
“When the Prince of Wales [later King George IV] and the Duke of York went to visit their brother Prince William [later William IV] at Plymouth, and all three being very loose in their manners, and coarse in their language, Prince William said to his ship’s crew, “now I hope you see that I am not the greatest blackguard of my family.””
—Horace Walpole (1717–1797)
“When the Prince of Wales [later King George IV] and the Duke of York went to visit their brother Prince William [later William IV] at Plymouth, and all three being very loose in their manners, and coarse in their language, Prince William said to his ship’s crew, “now I hope you see that I am not the greatest blackguard of my family.””
—Horace Walpole (1717–1797)
“What makes a regiment of soldiers a more noble object of view than the same mass of mob? Their arms, their dresses, their banners, and the art and artificial symmetry of their position and movements.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)
“Thine eyes shall see the light of distant skies:
Yet, Cole! thy heart shall bear to Europe’s strand
A living image of our own bright land,
Such as upon thy glorious canvas lies;”
—William Cullen Bryant (1794–1878)
“The horseman on the pale horse is Pestilence. He follows the wars.”
—Ardel Wray, and Mark Robson. Explaining why he is taking pains to protect his troops from plague (1945)