Nov 01 2011
The Household Brigade: the Royal Horse Guards
This is the second of four articles about the Household Brigade. The first three articles deal with the three regiments which made up the brigade, and the fourth will examine the part they played at the Battle of Waterloo.
A trooper of the Royal Regiment of Horse Guards
Whereas the Life Guards owe their origins to a cavalier regiment raised in 1658 in France, the antecedents of the Royal Horse Guards were a force raised at Newcastle in 1650 on the orders of Oliver Cromwell as part of the New Model Army. When Charles II arrived in England in May 1660 he claimed the regiment as his “Own” and styled it The Royal Regiment. However, he was forced to disband the regiment in December of the same year.
In January 1661 a group of religious dissenters, the Fifth Monarchy Men, rose against the new king. The rising was easily suppressed, but it served as an excuse for the formation of a small standing army, including the Horse Guards. They were to be commanded by the Earl of Oxford and, on account of their blue coats, were known as the Oxford Blues, although from 1689 their official title was The Royal Regiment of Horse Guards. In 1750 they became The Royal Horse Guards Blue.
Unlike the Life Guards, the Horse Guards were a fighting unit. They first saw action during the Duke of Monmouth’s rebellion against James II in 1685. Four years later they were in Flanders to fight the French, but never engaged the enemy. The following year they were part of the army William III took to Ireland and were present at the battles of the Boyne and Aghrim.
The first battle honour came in 1743 during the War of Austrian Succession for Dettingen and they also fought at Fontenoy during the same war. They were at Minden during the Seven Years War, but were not engaged because of a misunderstanding between the British commander, Sackville, and the allied commander, Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick. However, two years later they achieved their second battle honour at Warburg, where they distinguished themselves after a hard march. They also fought at Gröbenstein and Homburg, being mentioned in dispatches for their service at the latter.
Upon their return to England after this continental success they found themselves ousted from the court. This seems to have been as the result of a conspiracy among their more influential rivals for royal favour.
In 1793, at the start of the Revolutionary Wars, they were part of the Duke of York’s army in the Netherlands. This Anglo-Austrian campaign ultimately ended in failure but not before the regiment achieved another battle honour for Beaumont-en-Cambresis (also known as Coteau).
A return to England in 1795 meant a return to garrison life and recruiting, with none of the privileges of a royal regiment. This changed in 1804, though, when the regiment was once more stationed at Windsor and regained its former honours and privileges, including gold laced clothing and appointments and ornamented bridles.
By 1812 the activities of machine breakers like the Luddites were so serious that the Horse Guards were sent to Lancashire to deal with them. By the autumn, however, they had been warned for foreign service, along with the Life Guards. They marched to Portsmouth in October, but then had to wait for the Life Guards to join them, which meant an unpleasant period crowded into the transports which would take them to the Peninsula. To make matters worse, the weather was stormy throughout this period.
They finally set sail on the 10th November, reaching Lisbon thirteen days later. Unlike their fellow household regiment, when the Horse Guards were inspected, by Sir William Beresford and Sir Stapleton Cotton, they were highly praised. Their reward came when they learnt that the Marquis of Wellington, as he then was, had accepted the colonelcy of the regiment.
Like the Life Guards, their operations during the rest of the Peninsular War were limited by the terrain in which they found themselves. At Vitoria on the 21st June 1813 they could only advance in support of the infantry because of the nature of the ground. Nevertheless, they lost two horses to cannon shot. The following day they marched with the 5th and 6th divisions in pursuit of General Clausel, who had arrived too late for the battle.
The Battle of Vitoria, 21st June, 1813
They operated for a while as a reserve with the other cavalry brigades but in August they were sent to Logroño, where they remained for the next seven months. Even after they had crossed the Pyrenees, in March 1813, they still operated as a reserve. Not surprisingly, although they were on the scene at Toulouse, they did not become involved in the action. Nevertheless, those who survived until 1847 were able to claim GSM bars for both Vitoria and Toulouse. Seven officers and seventy men claimed for both actions, while nine officers and seventy-four men claimed for either Vitoria or Toulouse. The regiment also gained “Peninsula” as a further battle honour.
Although the dismounted men were back in England by the end of May 1814, as a result of Napoleon’s first abdication, the mounted men did not reach Boulogne until the 23rd July. For all of them there was now the expectation of a period of peace and a return to royal duties at Windsor.
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