"Firing into the Brown" #81 - Camber Bastion, Orkney's and stuff...

"So Carnehan weeds out the pick of his men, and sets the two of the Army to show them drill and at the end of two weeks the men can manoeuvre about as well as Volunteers. So he marches with the Chief to a great big plain on the top of a mountain, and the Chiefs men rushes into a village and takes it; we three Martinis firing into the brown of the enemy".

Kipling "The Man Who Would Be King"

Time for another update..

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Whilst getting the pictures for the post on the King George (or Quay) Gate the other week I happened to notice this on the side of a very new shed like building on the estate between where the Quay and King James Gates would have been..

...and then I noticed this on the side ..

..by way of orientation - the bastion would have been here - the year dates it to the de Gomme fortifications..  the positions of the two gates are highlighted..

..this picture following is from that post on the King George/Quay Gate..  the bastion would have been just out of picture on the left..

The Inner Camber - the King James Gate location is off to the left behind the row of houses/flats in the distance - best guess the two pointy roofed one's.. the front face of the King George or Quay Gate would have been behind me..

...and then I found this in the British Museum Online Gallery

"A VIEW of the NEW MAGAZINE on ye CAMBER at PORTSMOUTH as taken from ye POINT GATE Ano 1716"

Two things about that picture... first, the "Point" gate they refer to in the inscription would have been the King James Gate, the engraving pre-dates the King George (or Quay) Gate by about 18 years, but the Elizabethan sally port/arch would have been up there near the fences top left (behind the boat), and second, the monogram that kicked off this little rabbit hole can be seen next to the square opening in the camber outer face.. 😊

So..  built in 1687, it was basically a triangular limestone gun platform which projected into the Camber - by the early 1700s the garrison magazine was built in to the landward end of the bastion (I think that's the large square building in the engraving) but that became redundant by the middle of the 1700s when it was relocated further out of the city (I suspect the citizens of Pompey would have been quite happy about that - it would have made a big bang if it had gone off! 😁).

By 1865 the bastion was in use as the garrisons out-pensioners* establishment (which would have saved it from the general demolishment of the walls going on at the time) but was then redeveloped as a military hospital which remained in use until the early 1900s. The bastion was eventually demolished in about 1935 which may explain why we still have those monograms..

History's all around us.. 😀

* now here's a thing I didn't know.. historically, all British Army pensions were administered by the Royal Hospital Chelsea, any veterans in receipt of this payment were known as Out-Pensioners but those accepted for admission to the actual Royal Hospital surrendered this payment and were known as In-Pensioners.

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George Hamilton, 1st Earl of Orkney - Colonel
of the regiment from 1692 to 1737!

Another in the occasional "regiments of renown" series featuring the histories of various regiments painted in haste at the beginning of a project but which were not documented here for posterity.. so we come to British infantry regiment "Lord Orkney’s Regiment of Foot", part of my War of the Spanish Succession collection

There is a very (very) good potted history of this regiment on the Kronoskaf WSS site (link below) so there's little point in me repeating the (huge amount of) good work completed there (and there really is, it's one of the most comprehensive regimental histories I've seen on this excellent site), but by way of a framework to hang some 'rabbit holes' on (and I do love a rabbit hole😏) the regiment was first raised for French service*  by a Royal Warrant dated March 1633 awarded to Sir John Hepburn, who was their first colonel. They were known in French as “Regiment d’Hebron” and at one time numbered almost 8,000 men!

*(Charles had married Henrietta Maria, a princess of the French Royal family, in 1625, and the marriage treaty that was signed with it meant a fair few British military resources were then loaned to the French King to be used in his wars against the Spanish)

The formation date certainly makes this one of, if not the, oldest regiments of the line in the British Army. It then existed in its own right (as the 1st Foot after the organisation of 1751) right up until 2006, when it amalgamated with a number of other Scottish regiments to form the Royal Regiment of Scotland - which may explain why their nickname in the British Army is "Pontius Pilates Guard" 😁

Seniority is more complicated (as you'd expect it's a fairly touchy subject!) but I think they would be ranked as the most senior of the foot regiments of the British army, just behind the Guard regiments who differentiate, and are senior, by the fact they are.. errr.. Guards.. 😏

Cutting to the chase... during the War of the Spanish Succession it's fair to say they had a busy war, not the least, serving in all four of the major engagements..

Sir John Hepburn

• 1701, one  of the first thirteen British battalions (or rather in there case two, as uniquely the regiment sent both battalions to the war - most regiments would have kept one back as a training cadre and source for reinforcements) William III sends to assist the Dutch Republic in support of the Treaty of The Hague
• 1702
• siege of Kaiserwerth and then the regiment along with the Foot Guards and other British units formed the rear guard during a French relief attempt
• siege of Venlo
• one battalion of the regiment was detached for the siege of Stevensweert
• siege of Liège
• 1703
• first battalion of the regiment brigaded with the Foot Guards and the regiments of Stewart, Howe, Ingoldsby, and Marlborough, under Brigadier -General Withers 
• second battalion and the regiments of North and Grey, Derby, Row, and Ferguson, under Brigadier-General the Earl of Derby. 
• 1704
• part of Marlborough's march to the Danube,
• Battle of the Schellenberg where they charged three times before storming the Bavarian entrenchments.
• siege of Ingoldstadt
• Battle of Blenheim
• siege of Landau. 
• 1705
• recruits from Scotland
• first battalion siege of Huy
• part of the force to attack the fortified lines of the French
• 1706
• Battle of Ramillies where it was initially deployed near the right of the first line, on the heights of Foulz
• sieges and captures of Dendermonde, Ostend and Menin. 
• one battalion of the regiment was detached for the siege of Ath

• 1707 
• first battalion was brigaded with the Foot Guards, Godfrey's Foot and Sabine's Foot under Brigadier-General Meredith
• second battalion was brigaded with Webb's Foot, Ingoldsby's Foot, Tatton's Foot and Temple's Foot under the command of Brigadier-General Sir Richard Temple.
• 1708
• following the threat of a possible French invasion of Britain the regiment with several others was ordered to return to England. Following the failed invasion attempt the regiment was sent back to Flanders.
• Battle of Oudenarde, where it formed part of the division commanded by the Duke of Argyle.
• siege of Lille
• part of the force which advanced to relieve the French siege of Bruxelles
• siege of Ghent where a detachment of the regiment formed part of the forlorn-hope

• 1709
• more recruits from Scotland
• siege of Tournai
• battle of Malplaquet, in the division commanded by General Count Lottum, engaged in the assault of the entrenchments in the wood of Taisnière.
• siege and capture of Mons
• 1710,
• siege Douai
• siege of Béthune
• siege of Aire
• 1711 
• siege of Bouchain
• 1712 
• siege of Quesnoy
• preparatory to a general treaty of peace, the agreed to deliver the city of Dunkerque into the hands of the British as a pledge of his sincerity The regiment was part of the garrison and remained in the city nearly two years.

• 1713, a treaty of peace having been concluded at Utrecht, the British troops were ordered to return from Flanders.
• 1714 went into garrison at Portsmouth (I'm guessing Gosport? No evidence to suggest it was actually in Portsmouth itself) and Plymouth.

These are Dixon's and painted and based by me some time pre-2006, probably one of the first regiments I painted - the flag is new as of this post [clicky - thanks again for your work David!] as the old one was decidedly battle damaged.. 😏

I chose to depict them with blue facings (which I think they were got at the end of the 17th C) but most pictures/references for the period still show them in the older grey/white facings..

R.J. Marrion’s illustration of a man of Orkney’s Regiment of Foot (from the Charles Grant book cover).

Further Sources:

• Royal Foot - Project WSS
• George Hamilton, 1st Earl of Orkney - Wikipedia

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"Laters", as the young people are want to say...