Brave British soldiers and the Victoria Cross / a general account of the regiments and men of the British Army, and stories of the brave deeds which won the prize "for valour"

by Unknown

From the earliest times, when standing armies were needless, inasmuch as every human unit that made part of a nation’s total was more or less a soldier, and was ready and willing to buckle on his harness and fight at the beck of the ruler to whom he owed allegiance, to the present day when the army and navy estimates are the bêtes noirs of every would-be politician who prefers money-grubbing to national honour, the chosen head or chief magistrate of every nation—no matter what his style and title may have been, or may be—has always had a select body-guard at his command, partly as a mark of distinction and honour, and partly for the special defence of his person against malcontents at home and enemies abroad.

To this rule Victoria, by the Grace of God, Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and Empress of Hindostan, is no exception, and could our eyes be gratified with a review in which the “household troops” of all nations took part, from the Cent Gardes of Napoleon III. to the Amazons of His Brutality of Dahomey, it would be seen that there are none superior to the British Guards.

The Guards, or Household Troops of England, consist of six regiments, three of cavalry and three of infantry. The three regiments of cavalry are styled respectively, the First Life Guards, the Second Life Guards, and the Horse Guards, or Oxford Blues; while the three regiments of Foot Guards are known as the First, or Grenadier Guards, the Second, or Coldstream Guards, and the Third, or Scots Fusilier Guards. These six magnificent regiments of cavalry and infantry are—and it is just and right to say so, though it be said with the pride of an Englishman—unequalled in the world, whether it be in appointments or soldierly bearing, in physical strength or majesty of stature, in dash or discipline, unflinching endurance of hardships or superb indifference to death—which last, by the way, are qualities common to all British soldiers and sailors at all times and under all circumstances.

The First and Second Life Guards owe their origin to a troop of eighty Cavalier gentlemen who were enrolled in Holland, on May 17, 1660, as a body of Life Guards for the protection of the person of Charles II. against the conspiracies that were said to be forming in England to assassinate him as soon as he set foot once more on English soil. The number of this body-guard was raised to six hundred before the king quitted Holland; but after the Restoration had been effected, several gentlemen retired from the service to return to their homes in the country, and it dwindled down to two troops—one of which remained with the king in London, while the other went into garrison under the Duke of York at Dunkirk. The attempt, however, of the “Fifth Monarchy Men” to overthrow the king’s authority in 1661 led to the recall of the Duke of York and his troopers, when the corps of Life Guards was raised to five hundred men, and divided into three troops—the first being called His Majesty’s Own; the second, the Duke of York’s, as before; and the third the Duke of Albemarle’s.

No change was made in the constitution of the Life Guards, with the exception of the addition of a fourth troop after the Duke of Monmouth’s rebellion in 1685, until October, 1693, when the Horse Grenadiers, who had hitherto been attached to each troop of Life Guards—just as a company of grenadiers formed part of almost every infantry regiment in the British service until a few years ago—were embodied and formed into a separate troop, distinguished by the title of the Horse Grenadier Guards. It should also be stated that the Scots Life Guards and Horse Grenadier Guards, which had been raised after the Restoration to act as a guard of honour to the Lord High Commissioner and the Scottish Parliament, were marched to London, and incorporated with the English Life Guards shortly after the union of the two kingdoms.

In 1745, after the defeat of Prince Charles Edward—otherwise styled the Pretender—at Culloden, the four troops of Life Guards were reduced to two; but the establishment of the Horse Grenadier Guards, which now consisted of two troops, remained on the same footing. This continued until June 25, 1788, when the two troops of Life Guards and the two troops of Horse Grenadier Guards were embodied into two regiments, the former bearing the title of the First Regiment of Life Guards, and the latter that of the Second Regiment of Life Guards; and no further alteration has been made to the present day, except in the number of companies in each regiment, and the numerical strength of the companies.

The third cavalry regiment of the Household Troops—the Royal Regiment of Horse Guards, or Oxford Blues, as it is familiarly called—was originally a body of horse that had been raised by Cromwell as a body-guard, and had been retained after his death to act as a guard of honour to the Parliament and General Monk, who then bore the title of the Lord General. After the Restoration the whole of the troops that had been in the service of the Parliament were disembodied; but the officers and men of the Lord General’s troop of horse were immediately formed into a new regiment, which received the title it now bears, and was placed under the command of the Earl of Oxford. With the exception of alterations at various periods in its numerical strength, no change has taken place in the constitution of this regiment from the time of its enrolment for the service of Charles II. until the present time.

Of the three infantry regiments of the Household Troops, the First, or Grenadier Guards, although it takes precedence of the other two regiments in point of rank, yields to the Coldstream Guards in priority of enrolment. This regiment was incorporated at Brussels in 1657, having been raised at that time by the Duke of York for the service of the Spanish crown in the Netherlands. It consisted of about four hundred men of all ranks, the majority of whom were gallant, reckless, royalist gentlemen, who had fought and bled for Charles I. and his son Charles II. in the Civil War, and had followed the fortunes of the latter and his brother, the Duke of York, when they were driven from England, and obliged to take refuge in France, from which country they were also expelled when peace was made between Louis XIV. and Oliver Cromwell in 1655. The regiment was cut to pieces before Dunkirk in 1658, when that town was taken from the Spaniards by the French troops and the soldiers of the Commonwealth; but it was reorganised two years subsequently by Lord Wentworth, who then assumed the command. In 1662 it was ordered to repair to England, where it was incorporated with a regiment known as the “King’s Regiment,” commanded by Colonel Russell, under the title of the “First Regiment of Foot Guards.” It did not receive its present appellation of the “Grenadier Guards” until after the battle of Waterloo, when it was thus distinguished in commemoration of the glorious charge in which its officers and men broke and routed the veteran Grenadiers of the far-famed French Imperial Guard—the last charge of the British line on June 18, 1815, which decided the terrible struggle of that eventful day in favour of the English arms, and crushed for ever the power and prestige of Napoleon I.