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Raising
The regiment was raised for the English Army in Gloucester by Colonel Henry Cornewall as Henry Cornewall's Regiment of Foot at the request of James II in 1685 as part of the response to the Monmouth Rebellion. Cornewall resigned his post following the Glorious Revolution and command went to Colonel Oliver Nicholas in November 1688. In December 1688, Nicholas was also removed due to his personal Jacobite sympathies and command passed to John Cunningham. In April 1689 the regiment, under Cunningham’s command, embarked at Liverpool for Derry for service in the Williamite War in Ireland. Cunningham led a failed attempt to relieve the besieged city of Derry. The regiment briefly returned to England, but in May 1689 Cunningham was replaced by William Stewart, under whom the regiment took part in a successful relief of Derry in summer 1689. The regiment also saw action at the Battle of the Boyne in July 1690, the Siege of Limerick in August 1690 and the Siege of Athlone in June 1691. It went on to fight at the Battle of Aughrim in July 1691 and the Siege of Limerick in August 1691. On 31 August 1782, the regiment was linked with Norfolk as part of attempts to improve recruitment to the army as a whole and it became the 9th (East Norfolk) Regiment of Foot. In January 1788, the regiment embarked for the West Indies and took part in the capture of the island of Tobago and in the attack on Martinique. It went on to capture Saint Lucia and Guadeloupe before returning to England in autumn 1796. In 1799 the King approved the Regiment's use of Britannia as its symbol. The next period of active service was the unsuccessful Anglo-Russian invasion of Holland under the Duke of York when the regiment took part in the Battle of Bergen in September 1799 and the Battle of Alkmaar in October 1799. It also took part in the Ferrol Expedition in August 1800 under Sir James Pulteney. In November 1805, shortly after the Battle of Trafalgar, the Regiment suffered a significant misfortune: as the 1st battalion returned from Ireland a storm wrecked the troop transport Ariadne on the northern French coast and some 262 men were taken prisoner. The Times reported that some 300 men had been captured, including 11 officers (two of them colonels). There were also 20 women and 12 children aboard. Crew and passengers were saved and conducted to Calais.
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In June 1808, the regiment sail for Portugal for service in the Peninsular War. It saw action at the Battle of Roliça and the Battle of Vimeiro in August 1808. Following the retreat from Corunna, the regiment buried Sir John Moore (commander of the British forces in the Iberian peninsula) and left Spanish soil. The regiment then took part in the disastrous Walcheren expedition to the Low Countries in summer 1809.
The regiment returned to the Peninsula in March 1810 and fought under Wellington at Battle of Bussaco, Portugal in September 1810, the Battle of Sabugal in April 1811 and the Battle of Fuentes de Oñoro in May 1811. It also saw action at the Siege of Ciudad Rodrigo in January 1812, the Siege of Badajoz in March 1812 and the Battle of Salamanca in July 1812. It saw further combat at the Siege of Burgos in September 1812, the Battle of Vitoria in June 1813 and the Siege of San Sebastián in September 1813. The regiment pursued the French Army into France and fought them at the Battle of Nivelle in November 1813 and the Battle of the Nive in December 1813.
The regiment was sent to Canada with most of Wellington's veteran units to prevent the threatened invasion by the United States, and so arrived in Europe too late for the Battle of Waterloo. The 1st Battalion participated in the Army of Occupation in France, whilst the 2nd Battalion was disbanded at the end of 1815.
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