On 11 April, the day of the English coronation, the Convention finally declared that James was no longer King of Scotland, and offered the crown jointly to William and Mary.

[1] In March 1689, three Scottish regiments in the service of William arrived in Edinburgh, and the ad hoc forces raised to protect the convention were dismissed.

However, the following month, a regiment was raised near Douglas by James, Earl of Angus, drawn from among the Cameronians, and placed under the service of William III.

William responded to this by taking a number of regiments, including the Cameronians, onto the strength of the Dutch establishment, where they would not need to be supported by Parliament.

A second force followed in early 1702, which included the Cameronians, and both groups joined a large allied army under the command of the Duke of Marlborough, when war was declared in May.

[10] The regiment then fought at the Battle of Blenheim in July, where it saw additional duty the following night guarding some of the thirteen thousand men taken prisoner.

[16] The regiment fought at a number of sieges during the later part of the year, including at Ath, where a party of Cameronians managed to break into the fortress walls four days before it surrendered.

[18] In 1708 the regiment was briefly placed on notice to return to Great Britain, which was threatened with invasion, but was stood down after the French fleet was dispersed without making a landing.

However, they regularly took small losses in minor skirmishes, and eventually lost a total of fifty-one men killed and a hundred and ninety-two wounded in the siege.

[26] They left Ghent unusually early the next year, in late March, and moved quickly into French territory to hold an advanced position before falling back in April to join the main force as it assembled.

[27] Throughout the summer they followed Marlborough through northern France, and were a part of the attacking army at the Siege of Bouchain in August, before returning to winter quarters.

[37] They did not see field combat during the siege of Gibraltar, as the activity on both sides was mostly a matter of long-distance bombardment rather than direct attacks; nine men were killed or died of wounds, and twenty-nine were injured.

[39] On the outbreak of hostilities in the American War of Independence, in 1775, the 26th Foot were stationed in Lower Canada along with the 7th Royal Fusiliers; the two regiments were loosely scattered among frontier posts, and both were at a very low strength, mustering around seven hundred men between them.

[42] An expedition by 150 men under Allen to capture Montreal was defeated on 25 September by thirty-six Cameronians – the entire regular garrison of the city – and a local militia force.

Slowed by adverse winds and fog, and with their passage challenged by an American artillery battery and gunboat, the ships surrendered and the troops were taken prisoner; the regimental colours were wrapped around a cannonball and dropped in the river so they would not be captured.

The regiment moved back and forth between Montreal and Quebec over the following years, absorbing a large draft of men from the 4th Foot in 1797 in order to bring it up to the new strength of ten companies.

[55] The regiment was granted permission to carry the battle honour "Egypt" on its colours, along with an image of the Sphinx,[56] and twenty-five of its officers were awarded gold medals by Sultan Selim III.

[64] It then was shipped to Spain in October 1808 for service in the Peninsular War,[65] where it fought at the Battle of Corunna in January 1809,[66][67] and then moved to the Netherlands for the Walcheren Campaign.

However, the regiment's discipline suffered heavily from the move; in Gibraltar, they had had little interaction with the Spanish-speaking local population, whilst here they could freely socialise in the town.

[80] On 21 August 1834, the regiment was ordered to prepare for active service immediately, as a result of a dispute with a local prince, and after some delays marched for Marwar on 1 October.

This march proved much easier than the opposite journey six years previously, and the regiment arrived at Fort William in good order on 17 January 1838.

[83] The regiment embarked at Calcutta on 24 March 1840 with a strength of nine hundred men, bound for Singapore, where it would rendezvous with an expeditionary force being prepared for service in China.

The force slowly moved up-river, taking Canton on 24 May and with the 26th beating off a Chinese counter-attack on 30 May, before withdrawing to Hong Kong after another provisional treaty was signed.

[88] Whilst resting at Hong Kong, the 26th made an expedition against Amoy in August, before being moved up the coast to Ningbo at the end of December aboard HMS Jupiter, equipped with newly modified percussion muskets.

[93] The regiment sailed from Hong Kong on 20 December, and on its arrival at Singapore on New Year's Eve was informed that it was being sent to England rather than returning to its station in Bengal.

It did, however, continue its voyage to Calcutta, where it waited a few weeks before sailing for England in late February 1843, with a full strength of over a thousand men, forty-four of whom died of disease en route.

[94] Part-way to England, it had the unusual distinction of being the first British Army unit to formally visit Napoleon's tomb on Saint Helena, when one of the ships carrying the regimental headquarters called there.

[95] Through July and August the regiment took on garrison duties in the south-east of England as it reassembled after the voyage, and then moved north in September to Edinburgh Castle, where it was to be posted.

[97] A detachment was sent to Dundee two weeks later, due to local unrest, but returned home without needing to be deployed; this was the only active duty the regiment saw on its posting in Scotland.

[99] The regiment was still understrength after the Chinese expedition, and as the recruiting in Scotland had been mixed, a large number of "very inferior" men were brought in shortly after the move to Manchester.