GUARDS AND HOUSEHOLD TROOPS. The practice of maintaining bodyguards is of great antiquity, and possibly is the origin of organized armies. Thus there is often no clear distinction between the inner ring of personal defenders and the select corps of trained combatants who are at the chief's entire disposal. Famous examples of corps that fell under one or both these headings are the "Immortals" of Xerxes, the Mamelukes, Janis saries, the Huscarles of the Anglo-Saxon kings, and the Russian Strelitz (Stryeltsi). In modern times the distinction of function is better marked, and the fighting men who are more intimately connected with the sovereign than the bulk of the army can be classified as to duties into "Household Troops," who are in a sense personal retainers, and "Guards," who are a corps d'elite of combatants. But the dividing line is not so clear as to any given body of troops. Thus the British Household Cavalry is part of the combatant army as well as the sovereign's escort.
Yeomen of the Guard and Gentlemen-at-Arms.—The oldest of the household or bodyguard corps in the United King dom is the King's Bodyguard of the "Yeomen of the Guard" (q.v.), formed at his accession by Henry VII. The "nearest guard," the personal escort of the sovereign, is the "King's Body guard of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms," created by Henry VIII. at his accession in 1509. Formed possibly on the pattern of the "Pensionnaires" of the French kings—retainers of noble birth who were the predecessors of the Maison du Roi (see below)—the new corps was originally called "the Pensioners." The importance of such guards regiments in the general develop ment of organized armies is illustrated by a declaration of the House of Commons, made in 1674, that the militia, the pensioners and the Yeomen of the Guard were the only lawful armed forces in the realm. But with the rise of the professional soldier and the corresponding disuse of arms by the nobles and gentry, the Gentlemen-at-Arms (a title which came into use in James II.'s time, though it did not become that of the corps until William IV.'s) retaining their noble character, became less and less military. Burke attempted without success in 1782 to restrict membership to officers of the army and navy, but the necessity of giving the corps an effective military character became obvious when, on the occasion of a threatened Chartist riot, it was called upon to do duty as an armed body at St. James's Palace. The corps was reconstituted on a purely military basis in 1862, and from that date only military officers of the regular services who have received a war decoration are eligible for appointment. The office of captain, however, is political, the holder (who is always a peer) vacating it on the resignation of the Government of which he is a member. The corps consists at present of captain, lieuten ant, standard bearer, clerk of the cheque (adjutant), sub-officer and 39 Gentlemen-at-Arms.
In 1822 when King George IV. visited Scotland, it was thought appropriate that the Royal Company should act as his majesty's bodyguard during his stay, especially as there was a tradition of a former archer bodyguard. They thus came to perform the duties usually assigned to the Gentlemen-at-Arms, duties which they have carried out during subsequent State visits.
King George IV. authorized the company to take, in addition to their former name, that of "The King's Body Guard for Scotland." and presented to the captain-general a gold stick, thus constituting the company part of the royal household. In virtue of this stick the captain-general of the Royal Company takes his place at a coronation or similar pageant immediately behind the gold stick of England. The lieutenants-general of the company have silver sticks; and the council, which is the executive body of the company, possess seven ebony ones. George IV. further appointed a full-dress uniform to be worn by members of the company at court, when not on duty as guards, in which latter case the ordinary field dress is used.
The Household Cavalry consists of two regiments, and has its origin, as have certain of the Foot Guard regiments, in the ashes of the "New Model" army disbanded at the restoration of Charles II. in 166o. In that year the "1st or His Majesty's Own Troop of Guards" formed during the king's exile of his cavalier fol lowers, was taken on the strength of the army. The and troop was formerly in the Spanish service as the "Duke of York's Guards," and was also a cavalier unit. In 167o, on Monk's death, the original 3rd troop (Monk's Life Guards, renamed in 166o the "Lord General's Troop of Guards") became the end (the queen's) troop, and the duke of York's troop the 3rd. In 1685 the 1st and and troops were styled Life Guards of Horse, and two years later the blue-uniformed "Royal Regiment of Horse," a New Model regiment that had been disbanded and at once re-raised in 166o was made a household cavalry corps. In 169o, being en camped in Ireland, together with some of King William III.'s Dutch regiments, the name of "The Oxford Blues"—after Aubrey, earl of Oxford, its colonel—became attached to it as a means of distinction from Lord Portland's Dutch regiment of Blue Guards. There were also from time to time other troops of Guards, the best known of which were the 4th (English) Troop, 1686-89; 4th (Dutch) Troop, 4th (Scots) Troop, 1661-1746; Troop of Horse Grenadier Guards, 1693-1788; and (Scots) Troop of Horse Grenadier Guards, 1702-88. The 3rd and 4th Troops were disbanded in 1746.
The whole were reorganized in 1788, the two remaining troops absorbing the two troops of Horse Grenadier Guards, to form the ist and and Regiments of Life Guards, and as such they remained until I922, when the two regiments were amalgamated into a composite regiment designated "The Life Guards (1st and 2nd)." From 17 50 to 1819 the Blues bore the name of "Royal Horse Guards Blue," which in 1819 was changed to "Royal Horse Guards (The Blues)." The general distinction between the uni forms of the red Life Guard and the blue Horse Guard still exists. The Life Guards wear scarlet tunics with the blue collars and cuffs and the Royal Horse Guards blue tunics with scarlet collars and cuffs. Both wear steel cuirasses on state occasions and on guard duty. The head-dress is a steel helmet with drooping horse hair plume (white for Life Guards, red for Horse Guards). In full dress white buckskin pantaloons and long knee-boots are worn. Amongst the peculiarities of these corps d'elite is the survival of the old custom of calling non-commissioned officers "corporal of horse" instead of sergeant, and corporal-major instead of sergeant major, the wearing by trumpeters and bandsmen in full dress of a black velvet cap, a richly laced coat with a full skirt extending to the wearer's knees and long white gaiters.
The Foot Guards comprise the Grenadier Guards (three battal ions), the Coldstream Guards (three battalions), the Scots Guards (two battalions), the Irish Guards (one battalion) and the Welsh Guards (one battalion). The Grenadiers represent a royalist infantry regiment which served with the exiled princes in the Spanish army and returned at the Restoration in 166o. The Grenadiers, successively the King's Royal Regiment of Guards, the four Foot Guards and the ist or Grenadier Regiment of Foot Guards, received the title "Grenadier" in 1815, in commem oration of their services at Waterloo.
The Coldstream Guards are a New Model regiment, and were originally called the Lord General's (Monk's) regiment of Foot Guards. Their popular title, which became their official designation in 167o, is derived from the fact that the army with which Monk restored the monarchy crossed the Tweed into England at the village of Coldstream, and that his troops (which were after wards, except the two units of horse and foot of which Monk himself was colonel, disbanded) were called the Coldstreamers. The two battalions of Scots (Foot) Guards, which regiment was separately raised and maintained in Scotland after the Restoration, marched to London in 1686 and 1688 and were brought on to the English establishment in 1707. In George III.'s reign they were known as the 3rd Guards, and from 1831 to 1877 (when the present title was adopted) as the Scots Fusilier Guards.
The Irish Guards (one battalion) were formed in 1902, after the South African War, as a mark of Queen Victoria's apprecia tion of the services rendered by the various Irish regiments of the line. (The "Irish Guards" of the Stuarts took the side of James II., fought against William III. in Ireland and lost their regi mental identity in the French service, to which the officers and soldiers transferred themselves on the abandonment of the struggle.) The Welsh Guards were formed in 1915. In view of there being a Scots and an Irish regiment the claim of Wales had become obvious, but no opportune moment for their creation had arrived until the World `Var. The dress of the Foot Guards is generally similar in all five regiments, scarlet tunic with blue collars, cuffs and shoulder-straps, blue trousers and high, rounded bearskin cap. The regimental distinctions most easily noticed are these. The Grenadiers wear a small white plume in the bearskin, the Coldstreams a similar red one, the Scots none, the Irish a blue green and the Welsh a green and white one. The buttons on the tunic are spaced evenly for the Grenadiers, by twos for the Coldstreams, by threes for the Scots, by fours for the Irish and by fives for the Welsh. The band of the modern cap is red for the Grenadiers, white for the Coldstreams, "diced" red and white (chequers) for the Scots, green for the Irish and black for the Welsh. Former privileges of Foot Guard regiments, such as higher brevet rank in the army for their regimental officers, are now abolished, but Guards are still subject exclusively to the command of their own officers, and the officers of the Foot Guards, like those of the Household Cavalry, have special duties at court. Neither the Household cavalry nor the Foot Guards normally serve abroad in peace time, but with the latter, excep tions have several times been made to meet special circumstances. Guards' brigades served in the Napoleonic Wars and in several subsequent campaigns, whilst a Guards' division was formed in the World War.
The sovereigns of France had guards in their service in Mero vingian times and their household forces appear from time to time in the history of mediaeval wars. Louis XI. was, however, the first to regularize their somewhat loose organization, and he did so to such good purpose that Francis I. had no fewer than 8,000 guardsmen organized, subdivided and permanently under arms. The senior unit of the Gardes du Corps was the famous company of Scottish archers (Compagnie ecossaise de la Garde du Corps du Roi), which was originally formed (1418) from the Scottish contingents that assisted the French in the Hundred Years' War. Scott's Quentin Durward gives a picture of life in the corps as it was under Louis XI. In the following century, how ever, its regimental history becomes somewhat confused. Two French companies were added by Louis XI. and Francis I. and the Gardes du Corps came to consist exclusively of cavalry. About 1634 nearly all the Scots then serving went into the "regi ment d'Hebron" and thence later into the British regular army (see HEPBURN, SIR JOHN). Thereafter, though the titles, distinc tions and privileges of the original Archer Guard were continued, it was recruited from native Frenchmen, preference being (at any rate at first) given to those of Scottish descent. At its disband ment in 1791 along with the rest of the Gardes du Corps, it con tained few, if any, native Scots. There was also, for a short time (1 643-6o) , an infantry regiment of Gardes ecossaises.
In 1671 the title of Maison Militaire du Roi was applied to that portion of the household that was distinctively military. It came to consist of four companies of the Gardes du Corps, two com panies of Mousquetaires (cavalry, formed 1622 and 166o) , one company of Clievaux legers (157o), one of Gendarmes de la Maison Rouge and one of Grenadiers a Cheval (1676), with one company of Gardes de la Porte and one called the Cent-Suisses, the last two being semi-military. This large establishment, which did not include all the guard regiments, was considerably reduced by the count of St. Germain's reforms in 1775, all except the Gardes du Corps and the Cent-Suisses being disbanded. The whole of the Maison du Roi, with the exception of the semi-mili tary bodies referred to, was cavalry.
The Gardes f rancaises, formed in 1563, did not form part of the Maison. They were an infantry regiment, as were the famous Gardes suisses, originally a Swiss mercenary regiment in the Wars of Religion, which was, for good conduct at the combat of Arques, incorporated in the permanent establishment by Henry IV. in 1589 and in the Guards in 1615. At the revolution, contrary to ex pectation, the French Guards sided openly with the constitutional movement and were disbanded. The Swiss Guards, however, being foreigners, and therefore unaffected by civil troubles, retained their exact discipline and devotion to the court to the day on which they were sacrificed by their master to the bullets of the Marsellais and the pikes of the mob (Aug. io, 1792). Their tragic fate is commemorated by the well-known monument called the "Lion of Lucerne," the work of Thorvaldsen, erected near Lucerne in 1821. The "Constitutional," "Revolutionary" and other guards that were created after the abolition of the Maison and the slaughter of the Swiss are unimportant, but through the "Directory Guards" they form a nominal link between the house hold troops of the monarchy and the corps which is perhaps the most famous "Guard" in history. The Imperial Guard of Napo leon had its beginnings in an escort squadron called the Corps of Guides, which accompanied him in the Italian campaign of 1796-97 and in Egypt. On becoming first consul in 1799 he built up out of this and of the guard of the Directory a small corps of horse and foot, called the Consular Guard, and this, which was more of a fighting unit than a personal bodyguard, took part in the battle of Marengo. The Imperial Guard, into which it was converted on the establishment of the empire, was at first of about the strength of a division. As such it took part in the Austerlitz and Jena campaigns, but after the conquest of Prussia Napoleon augmented it, and divided it into the "Old Guard" and the "Young Guard." Subsequently the "Middle Guard" was created, and by successive augmentations the corps of the guard had grown to be 57,000 strong in 1811-12 and 81,00o in 1813. It preserved its general character as a corps d'elite of veterans to the last, but from about 1813 the "Young Guard" was recruited directly from the best of the annual conscript contingent. The officers held a higher rank in the army than their regimental rank in the Guards. At the first Restoration an attempt was made to revive the Maison du Roi, but in the constitutional regime of the second Restoration this semi-mediaeval form of bodyguard was given up and replaced by the Garde Royale, a selected fighting corps. This took part in the short war with Spain and a portion of it fought in Algeria, but it was disbanded at the July Revolu tion. Louis Philippe had no real guard troops, but the memories of the Imperial Guard were revived by Napoleon III., who formed a large guard corps in 1853-54. This, however, was open to an even greater degree than Napoleon I.'s guard to the objection that it took away the best soldiers from the line. Since the fall of the empire in 1870 there have been no guard troops in France. The duty of watching over the safety of the president is taken in the ordinary roster of duty by the troops stationed in the capital. The "Republican Guard" is the Paris gendarmerie, re cruited from old soldiers and armed and trained as a military body.
In Austria-Hungary, before the break-up of the empire, there were only small bodies of household troops (Archer Body Guard, Trabant Guard, Hungarian Crown Guards, etc.) analogous to the British Gentlemen-at-Arms or Yeomen of the Guard. Similar forces, the "Noble Guard" and the "Swiss Guard," are main tained in the Vatican.
In Imperial Russia the Guard was organized as an army corps. It possessed special privileges, particularly as regards officers' advancement.
In Germany as an empire the distinction between armed retain ers and "Guards" was well marked. The army was for practical purposes a unit under imperial control, while household troops ("castle-guards" as they are usually called) belonged individually to the various sovereigns within the empire. The "Guards," as a combatant force in the army, were those of the king of Prussia and constituted a strong army corps. This had grown gradually from a bodyguard of archers, and, as in Great Britain, the func tions of the heavy cavalry regiments of the Guard preserved to some extent the name and character of a body guard (Gardes du Corps). The senior foot guard regiment was also personally con nected with the royal family. The conversion of a palace-guard to a combatant force was due chiefly to Frederick William I., to whom drill was a ruling passion, and who substituted effective regiments for the ornamental "Trabant Guards" of his father. A further move was made by Frederick the Great in substituting for Frederick William's expensive "giant" regiment of guards, a larger number of ordinary soldiers, whom he subjected to the same rigorous training and made a corps d'elite. Frederick the Great also formed the body guard alluded to above. Nevertheless in 1806 the Guard still consisted only of two cavalry regiments and four infantry regiments, and it was the example of Napo leon's Imperial Guard which converted this corps into a corps of all arms.