THEIR COLOURS.
The King's Colours.—1st Battn., Gules (crimson): in the centre the Star of the Order of the Garter proper, ensigned with the Imperial Crown; in base the Sphinx superscribed Egypt. 2nd Battn., Gules (crimson): in the centre a star of eight points argent within the garter, ensigned with the Imperial Crown; in base the Sphinx superscribed Egypt, in the "dexter" canton the Union. 3rd Battn., as for the 1st Battn., and for difference in the dexter canton, the Union and issuing therefrom in bend dexter a pile wavy or.
THE ROYAL SCOTS
("Pontius Pilate's Body Guard")
"A volley, my lads, and then the steel!"—Their Captain at Wepener.
The Royal Scots (1st Foot, or Lothian Regiment) are old in story. Several hundreds of years before the battle of Blenheim, which is among the first of their honours, the Royal Scots had traced their earlier glories on the roll of fame. Few European battlefields could disclaim acquaintance with them, and there are few on which they have not been responsible for terrific slaughter, and a large share in the crux of victory. Their ancestors far back fought under Gustavus Adolphus: their lineal descendents fight now under King George; and the bridge between that time and this has been held by them heroically.
It is interesting to trace their battles from the first. Long, long ago, fighting for Sweden, they captured and defended Rugenwald in Pomerania. Being wrecked on a hostile coast, with Adolphus eighty miles away, these Scots were led by Munro, with what might seem to us an absurd hope of victory. All day they waited in the caves by the sea shore, starving, wet, and cold—waited for the night, so that, under the cover of darkness, they might bring their desperate plan to fruition. Darkness fell; the moon rose, and these hungry Scots went forth to the attack. In one stroke they captured Rugenwald, and held it against repeated attempts on the part of the enemy to retake it. For nine weeks they gripped this place, and held on tooth and nail till Hepburn's men, fighting mile after mile to their relief, came up.
Hepburn's men! They were Scots, every one of them. Men who, led by Hepburn himself, captured Frankfort on the Oder. He took them to the attack waist deep through the mud and water of the moat. At the great battle of Leipzig, "the battle of the Nations," Gustavus held these men in reserve. Then, when the issue was in danger, he flung them forward. The musketry fire galled them severely, but through it all the pikemen went cheering on, and put the enemy to an inglorious rout.
Later, in 1632, Hepburn, who was somewhat a soldier of fortune, found himself on his way to aid the King of France. In 1634 he led his regiments against the Austrians and Spaniards. Here he was joined by Scots from France, and Scots from Sweden. Other Scots came up from the four quarters of the compass, as if by a gathering of the clans, and three years later there were 8,000 of them serving under the King of France. Those 8,000 are the martial sires of the present Royal Scots.
As to the heroic achievements of the Royal Scots, we may instance the battle of Wynendale. General Webb (Thackeray's favourite General of "Colonel Esmond") won that battle with an army of 8,000 men against 22,000 Frenchmen. It was his work to take supplies from Ostend to Marlborough's army in the field. Near the wood of Wynendale he detected the preponderating force of the enemy intent on intercepting his mission, but, in order to do this, they must traverse the wood. The odds were nearly three to one against Webb, but, relying on his men as much as on his own generalship, he decided to put up a fight of fights. The way of the enemy's approach was a great glade through the wood, and to right and left of this he placed detachments of his troops while he stationed the main body of his army at the point where they must debouch. Then he waited. That long wait for the oncoming host has been much described: how for a time they gazed up the long avenue through which the foe must come; how every man felt that tense expectancy, which lends to the simple sounds of nature a meaning of their own, and how 8,000 staunch hearts went back to the old folks at home with tenderness, and possible regret, before the descent of an avalanche which threatened to bereave their hearths.
But at length the enemy teemed in at the further end of the glade. On they came, warily scanning the wood, but it was not till the Royal Scots poured a volley into them that the enemy actually realized what was happening. When the smoke cleared away, confusion reigned in their ranks; they rallied, and came on with greater determination, but again they were hurled into disorder and death by the British fire. Yet a third time they attempted it, and with all the bravery of the French, but a third time they met with that penetrating fire that none but the British, with their ugly bulldog pertinacity, can stand. They failed to forge their way through the storm of lead, and at last retired in confusion, leaving one third their number of British as victors of the field.