The time when the name and institution of a regiment were adopted in England cannot be fixed with precision ; but Sir James Turner, in the work above quoted, remarks that the word regiment was not then a hundred years old ; and if it is meant that the word had been nearly a century in use in this country, it would follow that it was introduced about 1583, or about twenty years after it began to be used in France.
In the account of the pay of the officers of the army which was raised by Queen Elizabeth in 1588, when the country was threatened with the Spanish invasion, mention is made of the colonel and lieutenant colonel of the regiment (Grose, 'Military Antiquities,' vol. i., p. 348); and both colonel and regiment occur in Morrison 'e account of the army in Ireland, in 1598. From the time of that queeu's reign the British army has been invariably divided into regiments ; and this practice has been followed by all the other nations of Europe.
The army which it was proposed to raise in 1620 for the protection of the Palatinate was to have been formed of 12 regiments of infantry, each consisting of 13 companies, of which the first, or the colonel's company, was to be composed of 200 men, and the others of 150 men ; and there were to be 50 troops of horse, each consisting of 100 men.
At this time, and perhaps earlier, the word battalion came into general use to denote either the whole or some division of a regiment. Sir Walter Raleigh, in his ' History,' calls the maniples of the Roman troops at the battle of Zama small battalions. Each of the four regi ments of infantry which were raised by Charles I. to serve against the Scots consisted of 1850 men ; and in 1659, during the civil wars in this country, the Parliamentary forces consisted of 9 regiments of horse, each divided into 6 troops of 80 men, and 14 regiments of foot, 12 of which consisted of 1200 men, and 2 of 1100 men, all exclusive of officers. Each of the regiments was divided into 10 companies ; and there were, besides the regiments, 5 bodies each containing 500 men, and 3 others each containing 300 men : these 8 bodies were called companies, and probably they corresponded to the companies or independent bands in the French army before the institution of regiments.
Soon after the Restoration all the regiments were disbanded ; two of them, however, one of which is designated the lord-general's regi ment of foot, and the other his life-guard of horse, were immediately (1661) re-engaged in the service of the crown ; and in the same year the Scotch corps or band of 1700 men, which in the time of James I.
had gone into the service of France, returned to England. (Daniel, torn. i., liv. rt.) This body was then denominated the First or the Royal Regiment of Infantry : and it boasts of being the oldest regular corps in Europe.
In 1684, or near the end of the reign of Charles II., that part of the English army which was assembled near London was reviewed on Putney Heath ; and a list of the officers commanding the several regiments is given by Grose (vol. ii., Appendix No. x.). The first named are three troops of horse-guards, which apparently were the lord-general's life-guards above mentioned. These were afterwards disbanded, and instead of them there were raised two troops of horse grenadier guards ; and in 1788, when the latter were reduced, the two regiments of life-guards at the head of the present list of the British regiments were raised. The second at the review was the Earl of Oxford's royal regiment of horse.guards, which was divided into eight troops ; and these are tho royal horse-guards which constitute the third regiment in the present list. The third was Lord Churchill's
regiment of dragoons, which was divided into six troops, and which is at present denominated the First or the King's Dragoon-Guards.
The infantry consisted of the following corps, namely :—Two battalions of the royal regiment of guards, now called the Grenadier Guards; one battalion of the Coldstream regiment of guards, which regiment still bears that name; one battalion of the Earl of Dein barton's regiment, or the royal regiment of infantry above mentioned; and one battalion of the Duke of York's, or the admiral's, maritime regiment. This last, which was named in compliment to the king's brother (afterwards James II.), was subsequently disbanded or con verted into a regiment of marines. No other regiments were at the review, but there then existed the queen's regiment of foot, since deno minated the queen's royal regiment of infantry : the Holland regiment, Which was raised in 1665, and was so designated because it had served in that country. This was then considered as the fourth regiment of infantry, after the two regiments of guards, but it was afterwards, and is still, designated the third, in consequence perhaps of the reduction of the admiral's regiment. The same regiteent is also called the Bars, from the colour of the facings of the uniforms of the men. In the year 1684 a regiment of infantry was raised in Irelaud ; and this appears to have been the seventh, but not being considered as in the pay of England till some years afterwards, and other regiments having in the interval been raised, it became the eighteenth on the list. This is now designated the Royal Irish regiment, the epithet royal having been given to it for its gallant behaviour at the siege of Namur in 1695.
The augmentations which have since taken place in the British army consist of one additional regiment of guards (infantry), called the Scots Fusiliers; of 21 additional regiments of cavalry, making, exclusive of the guards, 25 regiments ; and of infantry, as many as snake 100 regiments of the line, independently of the foot-guards and the Rifle Brigade, the royal regiment of artillery, the corps of royal engineers, and the royal corps of marines. The cavalry then consists of 2 regi ments of life-guards, 1 royal horse-guards, 7 regiments of dragoon guards (numbered from 1 to 7). and 18 other regiments of cavalry (numbered from I to 18), of which the 1st, 2nd, and Gth are dragoons, the 5th, 9th, 12th, 16th, and 17th are lancers, and the 7th, 8th, 10th, 11th, and 18th are hussars. The infantry consists of 3 regiments of foot-guards, 100 regiments of the line, the rifle brigade, and the following colonial regiments :-3 West India regiments, the Ceylon rifle corps, the Cape mounted rifles, royal Canadian rifle regiment, St. Helena regiment, royal Newfoundland companies, Gold Coast artillery corps, and the royal Malta fencible regiment. To these are now added what were the Honourable East India Company's regiments, which are now amalgamated with the royal army.
As the legions of Henry II. of France bore the names of the several provinces where they were raised, so most of the regiments composing the line of the British army are distinguished by the names of the counties or districts in which the men were enlisted : thus the 3rd is called the East Kent regiment ; the 5th, the Northumberland; the 6th, the royal Warwickshire ; and so on. The second of the guards, also, is called the Coldstream regiment.
For the divisions and evolutions of a regiment, see BATTALION.