Colonel Gilbert Kerr’s Regiment of Horse
Active | 1647 to 1648 |
1649 to 1650 | |
Country | Scotland |
Allegiance | Covenanter |
Conflicts | Second Civil War |
Third Civil War | |
Type | Horse |
Colonel | Gilbert Kerr |
Alexander Ramsey | |
Area Raised | Dumfries |
Flag Colour | |
Flag Design | |
Field Armies | Munro 1648? |
Leslie 1650 | |
Kerr 1650 |
Led by Major Alexander Ramsey during 1648
Covenanter horse of the Scots New Model Army, later fighting at Dunbar then joining the Western Association
Service History
1647
- January: Kerr's troop forms part of the Scots New Model Army
1648
- May: Kerr supports the Kirk party so the troop is assigned to Ramsey by the Engagers
- Kerr joins the Whiggamores
- September: Battle of Stirling?
- September: Disbanded after the Treaty of Stirling
1649
- February: Kerr commissioned to raise a regiment of 240 horse from Dumfriesshire
- March: Lt Col Strachan's troop sent to suppress mutiny at Stirling
- April to May: Move from Ross to Balvenie
- May: Skirmish at Balvenie, defeating Pluscardine's Royalists
- June: Quartered in Ross, Cromarty and Inverness, then Fife, Angus and the Mearns
- July: At Coupar Angus
- Quarter in northern Scotland
1650
- Quartered in Brahan, Chanonry and Ross
- April: Strachan's troop at Ross
- April: Skirmish at Carbisdale, defeating Montrose (Strachan t)
- June: Kerr and Strachan ordered to Lanark, Craigdarroch to Stirlingshire
- June - July: Strachan and his troop depart to form his own Regiment of Horse
- September: Battle of Dunbar
- September: Kerr leads the Western Association army
- October: Quartered at Paisley
- November: At Carmunock
- December: Battle of Hamilton Kerr and the Western Association army defeated by Lambert, Kerr wounded and captured
- Survivors join Strachan but he soon surrenders to the English
Notes
A history of the unit is shown in Edward M. Furgol’s A Regimental History of the Covenanting Armies 1639-1651 Edinburgh, 1990. ISBN 0 85976 194 0
Likely originally raised from Lieutenant General John Middleton’s Regiment of Horse, in which Kerr had served as Lt Col.
Flags & Equipment
Under the Western Association wore buff coats.
Notable Officers
Gilbert Kerr
Otherwise Carr, and known as 'Gibby', he commanded the troop as a Lieutenant Colonel in 1647, lately of Middleton's horse.
Alexander Ramsey
Replaced Kerr and commanded as a Major under the Engagers during 1648.
Archibald Strachan
Strachan was Lt Col under Kerr from 1649 to mid 1650, when he was given his own regiment
Strength
- 1647: A single troop, originally of 80 men, reduced to 75
- 1648: Ramsey instructed to increase the unit to a regiment of 180
- February 1649: 240 horse to be raised
- July 1649: 3 troops; Kerr 60, Strachan 60, Craigdarroch 54
- August 1649: 146 more recruits ordered from Dumfriesshire
- July 1650: 146 recruits ordered from Dumfriesshire
- September 1650: Kerr recruits his regiment up to 400 horse in the Western Association after Dunbar