1440
When King Henry V. of England, after having gained the memorable victory at Agincourt, on the 25th of October, 1415, and captured many of the principal towns and castles of France, was acknowledged as heir to the French throne by Charles VI., the Scots Guards appear to have quitted the court, and to have taken part with the Dauphin (afterwards Charles VII.), in his resistance to the new arrangement which deprived him of the succession to the crown. At the same time 7000 men were sent from Scotland, under the command of John Earl of Buchan, to assist the Dauphin, and these auxiliaries having evinced signal gallantry on several occasions, especially at the battle of Baugé, on the 22nd March, 1421, when the Duke of Clarence and above a thousand English were killed, King Charles VII. selected from among them one hundred "Men at Arms," and one hundred "Archers," whom he constituted a corps of Guards for the protection of the Royal Person, which corps was subsequently designated the "Gendarmes Ecossoises:" at the same time, the Scots Commander, the Earl of Buchan, was appointed Constable of France. The Scots continued with the French army, and signalized themselves at the capture of Avranches, in Normandy, in 1422; and at the battle of Crevan, in 1423. An additional force of five thousand men was sent from Scotland to France in 1424, and the Scots gave proof of personal bravery at the battle of Verneuille, in 1424; and in the attack of an English convoy under Sir John Falstolfe, in 1429; and after these repeated instances of gallantry, Charles VII. selected a number of Scots gentlemen of quality and approved valour, whom he constituted a Guard, to which he gave precedence before all other troops in France, and this guard was designated Le Garde du Corps Ecossoises.[8] The Scots Gendarmes, and Garde du Corps, continued to form part of the French military force until about the year 1788; but for more than a hundred years before their dissolution the officers and men were nearly all French.
1484
1495
1509
1515
About the year 1484, another auxiliary force proceeded from Scotland to France; and the Scots in the French service signalized themselves in various parts of Europe, but especially in Italy in the year 1495, and they acquired the principal glory in the conquest of Naples.[9] There were also Scots troops with the French army serving against the Venetians in 1509,[10] and with King Francis I. of France, in Italy, in 1515, in which year the Scots Guards were nearly all killed in defence of the King's person before Pavia, where he was taken prisoner.[11] After this fatal battle King Francis is stated to have exclaimed, "We have lost everything but our honour!"
1590
Two historical accounts of the origin and services of the First, or Royal, Regiment of Foot, have already been printed, in which this corps is stated to be a continuation of the ancient Scots Guards at the French Court but this is an error,—the Scots Guards were Cavalry, and this was always an Infantry corps, and it never sustained any character in the French army, but that of a regiment of the line. The supposition, that this Regiment was formerly the Body Guard of the Scottish kings is also without foundation.
Milan, a military historian of the 18th century, who evinced much zeal and assiduity in tracing the origin of every British corps, designates the Royal Regiment an "Old Scots Corps; the time of its rise uncertain;" and in the two editions of his succession of Colonels, published in 1742 and 1746, he did not give the date of the appointment of its first Colonel, Sir John Hepburn; but, in a subsequent edition, he states the 26th of January, 1633, to be the date of this officer's commission, as Colonel of the Old Scots Corps. This date appears to be correct, as Sir John Hepburn did not quit Germany until 1632, and no mention of a Scots Regiment in the French service has been met with in any of the military histories, or other French works (of which many volumes have been examined), previously to 1633. This corps must, however, have existed some time as independent companies, previously to its being constituted a regiment, as Père Daniel, in his history of the French army,[12] states, that this regiment, which he designates "Le Regiment de Douglas," was sent from Scotland to France in the reign of James VI. (James I. of England), and this monarch commenced his reign in 1567, when he was only a child, and died in 1625; hence it is evident that it had been in France some years before its formation into a regiment, under the command of Sir John Hepburn, took place. Père Daniel also alludes to this corps, in connexion with Henry IV. of France, and thus associates its services with the wars between that monarch and the Leaguers, which fixes the date of its arrival in France about the second year of his reign, viz. 1590. Francis Grose, the author of the British Military Antiquities, does not profess to be in possession of any information respecting the Royal Regiment, beyond what he obtained from Père Daniel; and the French historians of the seventeenth century introduce the regiment into their works abruptly, without saying a word about its origin. Thus, the only intelligence extant relating to the origin of this distinguished corps, and which is corroborated by collateral evidence, amounts to this:—"A body of Scottish Infantry proceeded from Scotland to France in the reign of James VI., to assist Henry IV. in his wars with the Leaguers; and was constituted in January, 1633, a regiment, which is now the First, or Royal, Regiment of Foot in the British line." The companies which proceeded to France were probably raised and commanded by men who had served in the Scots Guards at the French Court, which might give rise to the tradition of the Royal Regiment being connected with that corps; and, as the Scots Guards have ceased to exist, the Royals may be considered as the representative of that ancient body.