The Queen's Colour is a pledge of loyalty to the Sovereign, an emblem of the unity of all, while the second colour deals with the honour that specially appertains to each regiment—a subject of legitimate pride in the past and an incentive to prove not unworthy in the future of those who gained it such distinction.

For some recondite reason the Guards reverse the arrangement that holds in the Line regiments, as with them the Queen's Colour is crimson and bears the regimental devices and honours, while the Union Flag is the Regimental Colour. William IV., in 1832, gave the Grenadier Guards a special flag of crimson silk, bearing in its centre the royal cypher W.R., interlaced in gold, and having grouped together in the four corners the rose, thistle, and shamrock.

The Governor-General in India issued in the year 1803 a general order that all the regiments engaged in Wellington's greatest Indian victory—Assaye—should be entitled to the special distinction of a third flag, and the Royal authority confirmed the honour. This flag, borne by the 74th Highlanders, the 78th or Ross-shire Buffs, and other distinguished regiments, was of white silk, having in its centre an elephant, beneath this the regimental number, and around it a wreath. On blue bands above and below were inscribed in gold the words Assaye and Seringapatam. In the year 1830 the general use on parade of these flags was discontinued by order, and they were reserved for very special occasions.

The number of colours borne by the different regiments was formerly very irregular: sometimes it was one to a company, sometimes only one to a whole regiment, now it is two to each battalion. During the eighteenth century several regiments carried three colours, and the 5th, or Northumberland Fusiliers, continued to do so until 1833. By an unfortunate accident these were then all burnt, and when the question of granting new colours came forward, the right to carry the third was objected to, and the claim had to be surrendered. King Charles's Royal Regiment of Foot Guards lost eleven out of thirteen colours at Edgehill.

The Standards carried by the Life Guards, Horse Guards, and Dragoon Guards are of crimson silk, thirty inches by twenty-seven; and the guidons of the dragoon regiments are forty-one inches by twenty-seven, are slit in the fly and have the outer corners rounded off. The tassels and cords are of crimson silk and gold, and each flag bears the Royal or other title of the regiment in letters of gold in a circle, and beneath it the number of the regiment, all being surmounted by the crown, surrounded by a

wreath of rose, shamrock, and thistle, and the honours. Where a regiment has a particular badge, such device will be placed in the centre, and the territorial and numerical position placed outside; thus the Scots Greys (the 2nd Royal Dragoons) bear as their badge the Imperial Eagle of France, because at Waterloo this distinguished regiment captured the eagle of the French 45th Regiment, on which were inscribed the words Jena, Austerlitz, Wagram, Eylau, and Friedland.[[50]] The 3rd Dragoons have as their badge the white horse of Hanover, and, as record of good service, Salamanca, Vittoria, Toulouse, Peninsula, Cabool, Moodkee, Sobraon, Ferozeshah, Punjaub, Chillianwallah, Goojerat. The Lancers and Hussars, like the Royal Engineers, the Royal Artillery, and the Rifle Brigade, have no colours, and therefore bear their badges, devices, etc., on their appointments. Thus, for instance, King George II. ordered the 17th Light Dragoons (now the 17th Lancers) to wear the device of the skull and cross-bones, and beneath it the words "or glory" on the front of their caps and on the left breast. This device the "Death or Glory Boys" still retain, like the famous Pomeranian Horse and the Black Brunswickers, continental corps from whom the Anglo-Hanoverian monarch doubtless derived the idea.[[51]]

The presentation of colours to a regiment is always an imposing ceremony, as with prayer of consecration, martial music, and stirring address they are delivered into its custody, but the bestowal of the old colours in some honoured place of safe keeping is yet more impressive. In the one case there are the hopes and dangers of the future, while in the other the hopes have all been abundantly realised, the dangers triumphantly passed, as the tattered colours—storm tossed, torn by shot and shell—are borne in honour to their last resting place, where, strife for ever over, they rest in peace in the Sanctuary of God, a memorial to all men, until their last shreds fall to decay, of duty nobly and fully done.

Visitors to Canterbury Cathedral will scarcely fail to have noticed the flags therein suspended. The colours of the 1st Battalion of the Buffs (the East Kent Regiment) there find fitting resting place, and the last of these were added so lately as October, 1892.[[52]] On their entrance, with imposing military ceremony, into the

Cathedral, they were met by the clergy and choir, and a hymn of thanksgiving for victory and of safe return from war was sung, commencing—

"Grateful, we bring from lands afar,