Welsh Journals

Each Captain was to raise a Troop of 50 men, Lord Milford's to be known as the Dungleddy Troop and recruited from the neighbourhood of Picton and Haverfordwest. John Campbell, to be raised to the Peerage as Lord Cawdor in 1796, was to form the Castlemartin Troop from the district around Stackpole. The uniform was to consist of boots and white breeches; a blue coatee with buff collar, cuffs and lapels, and a leather helmet with a bearskin crest and a turban of mole- skin. This helmet was to be edged with white metal, bearing the words 'Pembroke Yeomanry'. They were to be armed with swords and pistols, with an additional twelve carbines a Troop. From the condition that they must provide their own riding horses, it would appear that the recruits were to be persons of some substance and responsibility. It was in the winter of 1796 that the Castlemartin Troop was first called upon for service, parading on market days in the Pembroke district after disturbances caused by the shortage of bread. Early in the morning of February 23rd, 1797, they rode to Haverfordwest, crossing the Haven by ferry, and that evening were at Fishguard with the 750 men commanded by Lord Cawdor who had been mustered to oppose the 1,400 Frenchmen under William Tate, safely landed at Carreg Wastad Point the night before. This expedition, originally intended as a minor diversion in an ambitious invasion plan that came to nothing when the 15,000 men of Louis Lazare Hoche had failed to land at Bantry Bay, and the 5,000 more under Quantin had abandoned their voyage to Newcastle off Dunkirk, ended ingloriously. Tate, dis- illusioned as to the quality of his troops and the temper of the Welsh, misled by Lord Cawdor's firmness and a belief that the scarlet whittles of distant Welshwomen were the red coats of the Regulars into assuming a British superiority that did not exist, surrendered upon Goodwick Sands on the morning of the 24th February. Yet the landing of the French had demonstrated the value of Yeomanry Cavalry within 3 years of its inception. A threat had been countered by the resolute action of local men, to be acknowledged many years later by the award of the Battle Honour 'Fishguard' to the Yeomanry by Queen Victoria in 1853. This remains the only Battle Honour to be held by any unit of the British Army for facing an enemy within the British Isles. Throughout the long period of war that followed, the threat of invasion remained until Lord Nelson's victory off Trafalgar in 1805 destroyed the means. In 1803 there were eight Troops of Yeomanry in Pembrokeshire, mustering 498 men, and including the five Troops of the Independent Pembrokeshire Yeomanry Cavalry commanded by Sir Hugh Owen of Orielton. They performed vidette duty on the coasts, and provided the mounted orderlies to fire the warning beacons on the Presely Hills should the French land again. With the death of Sir Hugh Owen in 1809, his regiment gradually ceased to exist. The Castlemartin Yeomanry had raised two Troops which remained, the Dungleddy Yeomanry added the Picton Troop in 1819. Both Troops were called out in May, 1820, for two days to suppress riots in Haver-