The following incident occured during the Siege of Arras, 1654 and was recorded by the future James II whilst serving with other Royalist troops in the French army against the Spanish.
Apparently it was the custom of the Spanish to use the Horse to re-supply outposts of the army with ammunition, each trooper carying a bag of 50 pounds of powder. It was a very sucessful way of re-supplying and the French had difficulty intercepting this operation.
Until one night, when visiting the sentinels, James saw a sudden burst of flame.
"The next morning wee were fully satisfied concerning it, that an entire Regiment of horse, consisting of Six score..all of them Officers as well as souldiers having behind them a bagg of powder, besides about fourscore horses laden with hand grenades."
A few battered survivors "and a paire of kittle drums which belonged to that Regiment" were rounded up and brought into the French camp. No one could tell what had happened but some time later in Flanders, James asked a lieutenant whose face was burnt how he had recieved his wound and he told him that he had been at the rear of a horse regiment at Arras when "he saw one of the Troopers with a pipe of tobacco lighted in his mouth; wherupon he rode up to him, and taking it gently from him, threw it away, after which he beat him with his sword.
The Soldier, being drunke, pull'd out his pistol and presented it to his breast; upon which the Lieutenant threw himself from his horse apprehending what might happen, and the Trooper at the same instant firing at him, it lighted on the bag behind the Lieutenant's horse, which taking fire, blew it up, and so, from one successively to the other who was next, it spred through the whole Regiment."
From Memoirs of James II: His Campaigns As The Duke Of York, edited by Lytton Sells.
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