“True: the commencement of the present regular army may be said to be the corps of life-guards established by King Charles II. at the Restoration. To these he added a regiment of horse-guards, with two regiments of foot-guards. A regiment of foot-guards was raised also in Scotland. These corps are what are usually called the British household troops; and the additions of horse and foot soldiers since made, constitute the British army as it exists at the present day.”
“The guards, then, are the oldest regiment of any soldiers we have?”
“They are. In the year 1679 the corps of life-guards were thus described:—‘The guards of horse—which the Spaniards call guardes de á caballo; the French, guardes du corps; the Germans, leibguarde; and we, life-guards, that is the guards of the King’s body—do consist of six hundred horsemen, well armed and equipped; and are, for the most part, reformed officers, and young gentlemen of very considerable families, who are there made fit for military commands. They are divided into three troops, viz. the King’s troops, distinguished by their blue ribbons and carbine belts, their red hooses and houlster caps, embroidered with his Majesty’s cypher and crown. The Queen’s troop, by green ribbons, carbine belts covered with green velvet and gold lace; also green hooses and houlster caps, embroidered with the same cypher and crown. And the duke’s troop, by yellow ribbons and carbine belts, and yellow hooses, embroidered as the others. In each of which troops are two hundred gentlemen, besides officers. There are four gentlemen who command as officers, but have no commissions, viz. sub-corporals or sub-brigadiers.’ The ranks of the life-guards are not at the present time recruited with sons of the higher classes, aspiring to commissions, but with men of good repute, generally sons of persons in a respectable sphere of life.”
“The life-guards are fine looking fellows!”
“In 1716, when George I. visited Hanover, the Prince of Wales, who was then left guardian of the kingdom, reviewed the brigade of life and horse-grenadier-guards, in Hyde Park, November 21st, when he declared them to be one of the finest bodies of men in person, appearance, and exercise that the world had ever produced. A life-guardsman, as he is seen at the Horse Guards at the present time, is indeed an imposing sight. We must not, however, be led astray by the size of men, nor by their gay regimentals. Many a foot-soldier in his coarse grey great-coat, and his knapsack on his back, has a heart in his bosom as brave as that of a life-guardsman!”
“Ay! a little man may be quite as brave as a big man.”
“I have somewhere heard the remark that ‘all great men are little men,’ but there is not much truth in it, though many great military commanders have been of small stature: Alexander the Great, and Napoleon Buonaparte among them. The body, after all, let its stature be what it may, is of little value compared to the mind. The one is the leathern scabbard, the other the finely tempered sword. The poet has well expressed himself:
‘Were I so tall to reach the pole,
Or grasp the ocean with my span,