page_title: Henry Belasyse (died 1717)
section_title: Career
hierarchical_section_title: Henry Belasyse (died 1717) / Career
caption_attribution_description: Nederlands: Ingekleurde Dubbelplatige prent
context_page_description: Sir Henry Belasyse, also spelt Bellasis, was an English military officer and Member of Parliament. An effective soldier who held a number of senior commands, he was held responsible for the looting that followed the Battle of Cádiz in 1702 which severely damaged the Habsburg cause in the War of the Spanish Succession. He was dismissed from the army in 1703 and while later reinstated, never held active command again
  He sat as Member of Parliament for a number of constituencies and was Governor of Berwick-upon-Tweed from 1713-1715. He died in London on 14 December 1717.
context_section_description: The Scots Brigade was a mercenary unit in the service of the Dutch Republic, whose origins went back to the 1580s; despite the name, by 1672 this normally contained three Scots and three English regiments. The latter were withdrawn when England allied with France in the 1672-1678 Franco-Dutch War but restored after the 1674 Treaty of Westminster ended their involvement. By 1674, the remaining regiments had lost much of their national identity and a deliberate policy was adopted to re-establish them as English and Scottish units. Henry raised a company for one of the restored English regiments, which eventually became the 6th Foot or the Royal Warwickshire Regiment.
  Fighting between the Dutch and French continued; Henry fought at Cassel in 1677 and shortly after he replaced Thomas Ashley as Colonel of the regiment. He was wounded at Saint-Denis in 1678, the final battle in the Franco-Dutch War and knighted at some point between 1678 and 1681. William sent the Brigade to England in 1685 to help James II suppress the Monmouth Rebellion, although it returned in August without seeing action. In early 1688, James demanded the repatriation of the entire Brigade; William refused to comply but used the opportunity to remove officers of doubtful loyalty. For reasons that are unclear, Sir Henry returned to England in April and replaced as Colonel by Philip Babington. 
  These events may have been connected, as Sir Henry had family links to the Stuart regime; in 1686, Lord John Belasyse was appointed to the Privy Council of England, despite the Test Act that officially barred Catholics from public office. In June 1688, his Protestant third wife Lady Anne refuted allegations that James' heir James Francis Edward Stuart was smuggled into Mary of Modena's bedchamber. However, Robert Benson, the first husband of Sir Henry's wife Dorothy, had been a close associate of Lord Danbury, moderate Tory and signatory of the Invitation to William, asking him to assume the English throne.
  William landed at Torbay on 5 November 1688 and on 22nd, Sir Henry was part of a force under Danby that secured York, the most important city in Northern England, then Hull, its largest port. The outcome was his promotion to Brigadier General in April 1689; in September, he became Colonel of a Regiment of Foot, originally raised by the Duke of Norfolk. In this period, regiments were treated as the personal property of their Colonel, changed names when transferred and disbanded as soon as possible.  
  As 'Belasyse's Regiment of Foot,' the unit took part in the 1689-1691 Williamite War in Ireland under Frederick Schomberg and fought at The Boyne (1690), Aughrim (1691) and the Siege of Limerick in August 1691. When the town of Galway surrendered on 26 July, Sir Henry was appointed military governor and awarded estates in County Kerry confiscated from their previous Jacobite owners. He was also elected in 1692 as MP for Galway Borough in the Parliament of Ireland, although he was on active service in Flanders during his tenure.
  When on leave in London in early 1691, Sir Henry was badly injured in a duel with Colonel Richard Leveson, allegedly over an incident in Ireland. While duelling was common in this period, Marlborough described Sir Henry as 'not loved but has good sense and is a good officer.' Prince George of Hesse-Darmstadt, who also served in Ireland, later referred to him as 'mediocre and avaricious' but Sir Henry was consistently promoted by William, who was generally reluctant to have English officers in senior commands, regarding them as less trustworthy or competent than the Dutch or Germans.
  With the war in Ireland at an end, Henry was given command of a brigade in Flanders; at the Battle of Landen in 1693, he and Thomas Tollemache managed to extract the defeated Allied infantry in good order. In October 1694, he was promoted to Lieutenant-General and his brigade was part of Vaudémont's screening force during the 1695 Allied siege of Namur. The French commander Villeroy achieved superiority over Vaudémont of 90,000 men to 37,000 but their attack on 14 Jul
caption: Battle of Saint-Denis (1678); Henry was wounded during this inconclusive battle
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