Footnotes

ʻNOW THE CONSEQUENCE OF OUR VICTORY AS SMAL AS WE THOUGHT IT APPEARD TO BE VERY GREAT' – AN EYEWITNESS ACCOUNT OF THE BATTLE OF RAMILLIES, and the Duke of Marlborough's campaigns of 1705 and 1706, the latter, with its major battle and four major sieges, making it the most successful campaign of the Duke's career. The author, Dr Samuel Noyes, was a Fellow of King's College, Cambridge, and Chaplain to the Royal Scots, first Regiment of Foot, the premier infantry regiment in the British Army (and had indeed been considered for the captain-generalcy, in the event being passed over by Dr Francis Hare, tutor of Marlborough's son). Numerous entries in the journal, interlarded with vivid details of life on campaign, show Noyes to have been a regular correspondent of the Anglican establishment at the highest level ("...Saturday Aug.st the 11th We marcht al to Corbais/ When we came to our camp the Wind was so high that Officers tents were set up not without the greatest difficulty. Monday the 13th I wrote to the A. Bpps. Bps. of London & Ely, Deans of Cant: & Lincoln & Provost of Kings..."). Indeed, he has made a list of his correspondents on one of the fly-leaves: they comprise the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, the Bishops of Ely, Salisbury and London, the Provosts of Eton and King's, the Deans of Canterbury and Lincoln, and Henry Boyle. Reversed at the end of the volume are some miscellaneous lists and jottings that also bring the writer to life. For example, on the fly-leaf are lists of clothing purchased before going into camp, including £4-10s spent "For a sword"; and the address "To Mrs Kerr Widow of Lt Tho Kerr of the Royal Reg.mt to be found at Baylie Strachans house at Musselborough near Edinburgh" (Thomas Kerr, of the Royall Regiment of Foot was commissioned lieutenant, 14 May 1702).

The pocket book was lent by his descendent, Sir Herbert Noyes, to Winston Churchill when preparing vol. ii of his Marlborough: His Life and Times, where it is acknowledged (see the catalogue of the Churchill Papers). It is also described by the poet Alfred Noyes in his autobiography, where it is described as 'the battered [sic] old diary of another Anglican forebear who had served as chaplain in Marlborough's army in Flanders. Its very terse and practical entries were more concerned with night marches and military manoeuvres than with any religious views' (Two Worlds for Memory 1953, p. 194). Letters by Noyes dating from the 1704 campaign were published by S.H.F. Johnston, ʻThe Letters of Samuel Noyes, Chaplain to the Royal Scots', Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research, vol. 37 (1959), pp. 33-40 and 128-135. A fourteen-day pass issued to him as Chaplain of the Earl of Orkney's Regiment, to go to Holland for fourteen days, with his servant Edward Grubb, issued 29 March 1705, is in the British Library (Add. MSS 33273, ff. 127-128b).

For a recent assessment of the Earl of Orkney, under whom Noyes served, see the notice by Lawrence B. Smith in the ODNB: 'In an age inevitably overshadowed by the duke of Marlborough's reputation he has escaped significant recognition as a military commander. None the less, he was a remarkable subordinate general in his own right. Courageous, indomitable, and tenacious, this stoic and often almost humorously laconic Scot endured deprivations with his regiment and seldom failed to achieve the tasks assigned him; indeed, his achievements often exceeded others' wildest expectations. One of Marlborough's most able lieutenants and wing commanders, he missed not a single major battle or siege in either the Nine Years' War or the War of the Spanish Succession... His timely efforts in 1705 ensured the allied army rescued the besieged town of Liège. At Ramillies in 1706 he achieved notoriety in commanding a dangerous infantry advance through a marsh to assault fortified positions. Secretly designed as a diversionary assault on the French left, his attack was more successful than Marlborough had anticipated or intended, and, when he viewed the time right to launch the primary assault in the French centre, Orkney's troops had gained so much initiative that several couriers were required to procure his withdrawal. Tersely protesting that it 'vexed him to retire' (Cra'ster, 315), Orkney proceeded to command his forces' withdrawal in an orderly fashion under heavy enemy fire and rejoined the main assault. At the battle's conclusion he led the allied cavalry in a relentless twilight pursuit of retreating enemy forces'.