Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 15.djvu/360

 throughout the Gurkha and Nepalese campaigns in 1814 and 1815 under Generals Nicholls and Ochterlony, and was present at the battles of the Timlee Pass and of Kulinga, and at the assaults of Jountgarh and Srinagar, at which latter place he was again wounded. In the admirable campaign of the Marquis of Hastings against the Pindárís in 1818, the 35th Bengal native infantry was attached to the brigade which was sent to Bikaneer in the extreme east of Rajputana, in order to hem in the freebooters and drive them back into Central India, where Lord Hastings was ready to crush them. Douglas was next engaged in the Merwárá campaign of 1820 against the savage Mers, and was promoted captain on 24 May 1821. In 1826 he was present at Lord Combermere's successful siege of Bhurtpore and took part in the assault, for which he received a medal and clasp. He was promoted major on 17 Jan. 1829 and lieutenant-colonel on 2 April 1834, and commanded his regiment throughout the Afghan war, during which he made his reputation. His regiment was one of those which, under Sir Claud Wade, forced the Khyber Pass, and co-operated with Sir John Keane's army from Bombay in the storming of Ghazní and the capture of Cabul in 1838. For his services during the campaign he received a medal, was made a C.B., and selected by Shah Shuja as one of the officers to receive his newly formed Duráni order. After Cabul was taken Douglas's regiment was one of those left to garrison the city, and remained there until October 1841, when, on the arrival of reinforcements, it was ordered with the 13th light infantry to return to India under the command of Sir Robert Sale. Hardly had this brigade started when the Afghans rose in rebellion and Sale had to fight his way to Jellalabad, into which city he threw himself. In the famous defence of that city Monteath, who from his rank was second in command, greatly distinguished himself; of the romantic friendship between Douglas's regiment, the 35th Bengal native infantry, and her majesty's 13th regiment a touching incident is related in Gleig's ‘Sale's Brigade in Afghanistan’ (p. 158). On 16 April 1842 the gallant garrison of Jellalabad was relieved by General Pollock, and in the campaign which followed Monteath held command of a brigade. At the close of the campaign Monteath was promoted colonel for his gallant conduct and appointed an aide-de-camp to the queen on 4 Oct. 1842. On 7 Sept. 1845 he was appointed colonel of his old regiment, and soon after left India. In 1851 he succeeded to the estate of Douglas Support under the entail of the Duchess of Douglas, and took the name of Douglas in addition to his own, He never returned to India, but was promoted in due course to be major-general on 20 June 1854, lieutenant-general on 18 March 1856, and general on 9 April 1865. In March 1865 he was made a K.C.B. in recognition of his long services during the early years of the century. He died at Stonebyres in Lanarkshire in October 1868.

[Times, 24 Oct. 1868; East India Military Directories; Gleig's Sale's Brigade in Afghanistan; Low's Life of Sir George Pollock.] 

DOUGLAS, WILLIAM, ‘the Hardy’ (d. 1298), the younger of two sons of Sir William de Douglas, surnamed ‘Longleg,’ is first noticed on record in 1256 as holding lands in Warndon from his father, though then quite young and under guardians. Another of his father's English manors was Faudon in Northumberland, in defending which in 1267 against an attack of the men of Redesdale he was so severely wounded that, according to the terms of the complaint, his assailants all but cut off his head. He seems next to have joined the ranks of the crusaders and been knighted. About 1288 he became lord of Douglas on his father's death, which had been preceded by that of his elder brother Hugh. By this time he had married, some say a daughter of William de Keith, but others, and with better authority, Elizabeth, daughter of Alexander, high steward of Scotland. She bore to him at least one son, who became the famous ‘Good’ Sir James Douglas, but she did not long survive, and to supply her place Douglas seized and carried off to one of his strongholds a young English widow, who had come to Scotland to see after some of her late husband's lands there, out of which she was to receive part of her terce. This was Eleanor de Lovain, daughter of Matthew, lord Lovain, who had married William de Ferrers, lord of Groby, Leicestershire, brother of the last Earl of Derby of the name of Ferrers. She was residing with a kinswoman at her manor of Tranent in Haddingtonshire, which Douglas one day stormed with an armed force, and took away the lady, whom he afterwards married. As by English custom she was a royal ward, this outrage roused the wrath of Edward I, who, claiming at this time to be lord paramount of Scotland, ordered the arrest of Douglas and the confiscation of his lands. The Scottish regents, however, one of whom was James, high steward of Scotland, the brother of Douglas's first wife, declined to obey the mandate, but the English domains of the defiant baron were seized,