Colonel James Rooke, Procer

Colonel James Rooke (Battalion of Carabobo, 1st Red Husares, Cazadores Britanicos)

Dublin 1770 - Belencito (Colombia) 07-28-1819

Retired officer of the British Army, served as a volunteer soldier on the side of the Republican Army (patriots) that resulted in the Independence of Venezuela and Colombia. He was the illegitimate son of a British General, and step-grandson of Lady Mary Tudor (Mary Tudor (1673-1726). Daughter of Charles II of England and Moll Davis, wife of Edward RADCLYFFE, 2nd Earl of Derwentwater; Henry GRAHAM, of Levens and James ROOKE, Major Mother of James RADCLYFFE, 3rd Earl of Derwentwater; Francis RADCLYFFE; Charles Radclyffe, "5th Earl of Derwentwater"; Mary Tudor RADCLYFFE; Robert Wilson RADCLYFFE and Margaret Frances Disney ROOKE, the last one being his mother). He adopted his maternal grandfather's surname, even though his father was also an officer, serving as a general in the British Army. In 1791 he enlisted in the Army as a petty officer, and by 1798 he was a Major in H.M.R. 16th Light Dragoons Regiment. He got married this same year, 3 years later his son George was born. In 1802 he took leave of absence (or retired) from the army, and his interests in horse- beting and other gambling activities that were beyond his financial means drove him to bankruptcy. This led him to go to Paris. In 1803, during the Napoleonic Wars, he was imprisoned; he stayed for about 10 years in Verdun, from where he was able to escape captivity and join the forces of Lord Wellington, Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duque of Wellington, in Spain. Here he stayed until the end of the campaign as a member of the chief of staff's of R.H.G. Wellesley's Calvary Regiments and Horse's Guards. In 1814, his wife died, and as soon as hostilities were renewed with France, during March 1815, he enlisted again and and was admitted as aide- d' camp (A.D.C) of Prince of Orange (William Foston, 1794-1876), with whom he was at the Battle of Waterloo, where he received a minor wound. In 1816, having definitely retired from the British army, he traveled to the Island of San Cristobal, to look for his sister (Alicia MacNaughten) in the British Antilles, who was married to the Governor of St. Kitts, Sir George Probyn (b. ? -1855). Here he married again, and was subdued by the Wars of Emancipation of the Spanish Colonies, particularly Venezuela, of which he had heard so much about. He arrived in Angostura during July 1817, and was admitted as a Lieutenant Colonel (he was probably the second-irish officer to arrive to enlist in the wars in Venezuela, after Gregor Mac Gregor (1811)). He enrolled for the Campaña del Centro (1818) under the ranks of General Jose Antonio Paez, and served shoulder-to-shoulder with the Supreme Commander in Chief of all the Joint Republican Forces, his Excellency the Liberator, General Simon Bolivar. Then he returned to Angostura where, on October 1818, he was given top command of the newly established Red Husars (Husares Rojos, Primeros Husares de Venezuela). On August 28th, 1818 (48) he was promoted to the ranks of Colonel by the Liberator himself, and sent to serve under General Jose Tadeo Monagas, in eastern Venezuela's theater of operations. He was 1st officer of a distinguished British Calvary Legion until the end of December of that same year. He was then sent to Apure (the first few months of 1819), where he probably was first hand witness to the Homeric feats in battle of General Jose Antonio Paez, at the battle of Queseras del Medio (02-04-1819), which was the threshold of the major battles to come. He was assigned henceforth under the command of the great cyclops. Then came the Campaña Libertadora de Nueva Granada (May 19th - August 8th, 1819), but he unfortunately did not see the end of it. In an epic journey where they crossed Venezuela in an end-run East to West, he ended up with Simon Bolivar crossing the Andes at Pisba, and fought at the battle of Gameza (July 11th), and Pantano de Vargas (Vargas Swamp Battle) on July 25th, 1819. In this, his last battle, he was badly wounded by a bullet that pierced his upper left arm. He survived the battle for three more days, his arm having to be amputated on the risk of developing gangrene. He died on July 28th, 1819 in the small neighbouring town of Belencito, Department of Antioquia, Colombia.

Ref: Irish Soldiers in South America, (1818-1830), Eric Lambert, https://www.jstor.org/stable/30087890?read-now=1&seq=1#page_scan_ta...

text by P.L. Baldo D. April 22nd, 2019