Cap badge of the Life Guards, c1958. NAM. 1991-08-255-1Introduction
The unit is the senior regiment in the British Army. Its origins lie in three troops of cavalry raised by Charles II from among gentlemen in his court-in-exile in the Netherlands between 1658 and 1659. At first these were sent as part of Charles’ contribution to the Spanish war against the English Commonwealth and its French allies.
When Charles was restored in 1660, these three units joined him as his bodyguard and he added a fourth, though this was disbanded in 1683. The remaining three first saw action in the Third Anglo-Dutch War in 1672 and in suppressing the Monmouth Rebellion at Sedgemoor in 1685.
In the meantime, in 1678, two troops of Horse Grenadier Guards had also been raised to fight as grenade-armed mounted infantry, without the same class-based recruiting restrictions. In 1743 the Horse Guards fought at Dettingen and in 1756 their recruiting base was widened, gaining it non-commissioned officers for the first time.
By 1750 amalgamations and disbandments had left only two horse guard troops and these were merged in 1788 to form the 1st and 2nd Regiments of Life Guards. At the same time the two remaining horse grenadier troops were disbanded and many of their personnel transferred to the two new regiments.
Soldiers of the 2nd Life Guards in their guard-room, c1828.
NAM. 1972-07-27In 1815 the Life Guards led the Household Brigade's charge at Waterloo against their French heavy cavalry equivalents. This was to prove their last active service until the 1880s, though the mid-19th century saw them putting down the Gordon, Spitalfields and Burdett riots in London.
In 1877 the two regiments were renamed the 1st Life Guards and 2nd Life Guards and soon afterwards they fought in Egypt and the Sudan, where they took part in a charge by moonlight at Kassassin and another from Tel-el-Kebir to Cairo. This was as part of the Household Cavalry Composite Regiment, which was also revived to provide extra cavalry for the Boer War and the early months of the First World War. The two Life Guards regiments also provided one battalion each for the Guards Machine Gun Regiment in 1918.
In 1922 the two Life Guards regiments were finally amalgamated to form a single unit, known as the Life Guards. This landed in Normandy in July 1944, heading the advance to liberate Brussels and the armoured push during Operation Market Garden.
They continued to fulfil active as well as ceremonial duties in the post-war period, serving in both the First and Second Gulf Wars, Iraq and Afghanistan. In 1991 the Life Guards were operationally merged with the Blues and Royals as the Household Cavalry Regiment, though both still retain their own separate colonels, traditions and uniforms.
Key facts
Motto:
- 'Honi Soit Qui Mal Y Pense ' (meaning 'Shame on Him Who Thinks This Evil')
Nickname:
- Piccadilly Butchers (one rioter was killed when the regiment was used to quell the Burdett Riots on Piccadilly in 1810)
- Piccadilly Cowboys
- Donkey Wallopers
- The Bangers
- The Gallopers
- Lumpers
- The Cheeses (from the expansion in its recruiting base in 1788, when it pensioned off its gentlemen soldiers and began also to accept members of the merchant classes)
- The Cheesemongers
- The Fly-slicers
- The Roast and Boiled (soldiers in line cavalry regiments thought the Life Guards had superior food rations)
- The Ticky Tins (after their metal breastplates)
- Tins
- Tinned Fruit
- The Tin Bellies
- The Patent Safeties
Titles to date:
- 1st, or His Majesty’s Own Troop of Horse Guards
- Monck’s Life Guards
- 3rd, or the Duke of Albemarle’s Troop of Horse Guards
- 3rd, or the Lord General’s Troop of Horse Guards
- 2nd, or the Queen’s Troop of Horse Guards
- 2nd, or The Duke of York’s Troop of Horse Guards
- 1st Regiment of Life Guards
- 2nd Regiment of Life Guards
- 1st Life Guards
- 2nd Life Guards
- The Life Guards (1st and 2nd)
- The Life Guards
- Household Cavalry Regiment
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