Cavalry Regiment del Rey
military unit
The Cavalry Regiment del Rey (Spanish: Regimiento de Caballería del Rey) is a cavalry regiment of the Spanish Army. Tracing its roots back to 1538, it is the Spanish army's oldest cavalry regiment. The regiment distinguished itself on several occasions during the Peninsular War. They are best known for their charge at the Battle of Talavera where they dealt the decisive blow against a German division under Jean François Leval.
History
The Cavalry Regiment del Rey is Spain's oldest cavalry regiment, founded in 1538 under the reign of King Charles I of Spain, and as such bore the title The King's in the Spanish Army. During the Napoleonic era it was considered as one of the best Spanish regiments and it distinguished itself during the Spanish War of Independence, frequently being commented as performing very well in those years. In 1807 the regiment was assigned to Marquis de La Romana's Division of the North and the following year was able to return to Spain to fight against the French invasion.
Peninsular War
Upon arrival in Cantabria the cavalrymen marched to Extremadura where they were to collect horses, thus avoiding the defeat that fell upon La Romana's division at Espinosa de los Monteros. In 1809 the regiment would see much action while serving in Gregorio García de la Cuesta's Army of Extremadura, as part of General Juan Henestrosa's 1st Cavalry Division. It would fight at the Battle of Talavera, where they captured four French cannons and would be highly praised in Cuesta's report.
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This entry incorporates text from “Cavalry Regiment del Rey” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.