The Scots Guards

Core claims about the Scots Guards are established: the regiment's status as a Foot Guards regiment, its precedence position, its major campaign service, and its continued separate existence outside the Royal Regiment of Scotland are all documented by the National Army Museum, the Household Division, the British Army and the regiment's own charity. The one point requiring care — flagged here consistent with the series standard — is the founding date. The regiment traditionally and officially traces its origins to 1642, but this is a traced-lineage claim rather than a claim of continuous existence: the 1642 unit was disbanded in 1651, and the regiment that has served continuously to the present was re-raised at the Restoration (commission to the Earl of Linlithgow dated 23 November 1660; regiment constituted 1661–1662) and placed on the English establishment only in 1686. This is Shared/Traditional in the same sense as other regimental "birth date" claims examined earlier in this series. Casualty figures for both World Wars vary by source and counting method and are presented with that caveat.

17th-century origins and founding-date precision

The Scots Guards trace their origins to 1642, when — by order of King Charles I — Archibald Campbell, 1st Marquess of Argyll, raised a regiment (the Marquis of Argyll's Royal Regiment) for service in Ireland in response to the 1641 Irish Rebellion. The regiment later became the "Lyfe Guard of Foot" of Charles II in 1650 after the exiled king landed in Scotland, and it fought in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms before being disbanded in 1651 following the Royalist defeat at Worcester.

The unit that has served continuously to the present day was re-raised after the Restoration. The Earl of Linlithgow received a commission dated 23 November 1660 to raise The Scottish Regiment of Foot Guards; the first companies were raised in January 1661 to garrison Edinburgh and Dumbarton castles, and in 1662 a regiment of six companies was formally constituted. It was placed on the English establishment in 1686 by James II, becoming the Third Regiment of Foot Guards.

This is why the founding-date question needs the series' usual precision. The regiment's official and traditional origin date is 1642 — this is the date the regiment itself, the National Army Museum, and the Household Division all use. But 1642 is a traced-lineage date, not a claim of unbroken existence: there is a discontinuity between the 1642–1651 regiment and the 1660–1662 re-raised regiment. The regiment's own charity is candid about the gap, noting that "their royal connections as personal troops of the Sovereign and their designation as Foot Guards date from 1650," and that "only in 1662 did these become a Regiment of Foot Guards once more." Some scholarly and institutional accounts therefore date the continuously serving regiment to the Restoration. Both statements are true at once, and this card treats "1642" exactly as it is: an officially recognised origin point, with a documented gap.

Status as a Regiment of Foot Guards (the core institutional distinction)

This is the section that sets Card #15 apart from every regiment card before it. Cards #5–14 covered line infantry regiments — county, city and clan-recruited regiments of the line that were progressively amalgamated and finally merged into the Royal Regiment of Scotland in 2006. The Scots Guards are not a line infantry regiment. They are one of the five Regiments of Foot Guards — Grenadier, Coldstream, Scots, Irish and Welsh Guards — which together form the Guards Division (now the Guards and Parachute Division) and, with the two Household Cavalry regiments (Life Guards and Blues and Royals), constitute the Household Division.

What makes a Foot Guards regiment structurally different from a line infantry regiment:

• Household/royal function. Foot Guards regiments hold a specific, institutionalised role guarding the Sovereign and the royal residences (Buckingham Palace, St James's Palace, Windsor Castle, the Tower of London), and providing troops for State Ceremonial. This is a permanent constitutional-ceremonial function, not an occasional honour. Their origins are literally as the personal bodyguard of the monarch.
• Dual role. Foot Guards are, first and foremost, fully operational infantry — they deploy on active service like any other regiment — but they additionally carry the Public Duties role. Line infantry regiments do not carry this household role as a defining feature.
• Separate administrative structure. Foot Guards sit within the Household Division and its own chain of administration (Regimental Headquarters at Wellington Barracks, the Major General commanding the Household Division), distinct from the divisional structure that governed the Scottish line infantry (the Scottish Division).
• Seniority and precedence. Foot Guards are placed high in the Army's order of precedence, immediately after the Household Cavalry and ahead of the line infantry. Precedence within the Foot Guards is governed by history of service to the Crown, not simply by founding date (see below).

Crucially, the Scots Guards were not "excluded" from the 2006 Royal Regiment of Scotland — the question never arose. The 2006 reform amalgamated the six regular Scottish line infantry regiments of the Scottish Division. The Scots Guards belong to an entirely different category (Foot Guards / Household Division) and were simply never within the scope of that reform. This is a structural fact, not a decision about the Scots Guards specifically. The regiment therefore remains a separate, continuously serving regiment with an unbroken identity — the only Scottish regiment of Foot Guards, sometimes described as Scotland's only Household regiment of infantry.

Establishment and seniority within the Household Division

When the Scots Guards were placed on the English establishment in 1686, they became the Third Regiment of Foot Guards, ranking behind the two English Foot Guards regiments — today's Grenadier Guards (1st) and Coldstream Guards (2nd). This precedence reflects the date each regiment joined the English/British establishment and its history of continuous service to the Crown, rather than raw founding date: the Scots Guards can trace their origin (1642) earlier than either the Coldstream (1650) or the Grenadiers (1656), yet rank third, because Scottish regiments did not join the English establishment until 1686, by which point two English Guards regiments already held precedence. As Forces News summarises the rule, precedence "is based largely on the age of each regiment's oldest antecedent regiment, though 'seniority' in this instance does not always depend upon a forebear regiment's actual age." The two junior Foot Guards regiments — the Irish Guards (raised 1900) and Welsh Guards (raised 1915) — followed later. The full Foot Guards precedence is therefore: Grenadier, Coldstream, Scots, Irish, Welsh.

The nickname "The Kiddies" dates from 1686, when the two senior regiments applied it to emphasise the newcomer's junior status. On parade the Scots Guards are identified by tunic buttons spaced in threes (reflecting their position as the third regiment) and, uniquely among the five Foot Guards, by wearing no plume on the bearskin.

Ceremonial duties

The Scots Guards' documented ceremonial functions include:

• The King's/Queen's Guard at Buckingham Palace and St James's Palace, and the Castle Guard at Windsor — the "Changing of the Guard" familiar to visitors.
• Trooping the Colour (the Sovereign's Birthday Parade). As the British Army states, "the five regiments of Foot Guards: Grenadier, Coldstream, Scots, Irish and Welsh Guards take it in turns to do so annually," with only one Colour trooped at any one time. The Scots Guards trooped their Colour in 2011 (1st Battalion, at Horse Guards Parade) and again in a scaled-down COVID-era parade at Windsor Castle in 2021, having previously done so in 2002 (Golden Jubilee year) among others.
• State Ceremonial occasions: state visits, Beating Retreat, Remembrance Sunday at the Cenotaph, coronations and state funerals. F Company Scots Guards took part in the State Funeral of Queen Elizabeth II in 2022.
• The regiment maintains a Regimental Band (part of the Corps of Army Music) and, unusually, Pipes and Drums rather than a Corps of Drums — the pipers being fighting soldiers rather than full-time musicians.

These are set out here as documented institutional roles rather than objects of reverence: they are, constitutionally, part of what a Foot Guards regiment is for.

Major European and imperial campaigns (with attention to Waterloo)

From the late 17th century the regiment fought across Europe: the Nine Years' War (Steenkerque 1692, Landen 1693, and the 1695 siege of Namur, its earliest battle honour), the War of the Spanish Succession (Saragossa and Brihuega, 1710), and the War of the Austrian Succession (Dettingen 1743, Fontenoy 1745, Lauffeld 1747). During the American War of Independence the regiment contributed men to a composite Guards battalion (Long Island, Brandywine, Guilford Courthouse, Yorktown). In the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars it served in Flanders, the Helder, Egypt (Alexandria, 1801) and throughout the Peninsular War (Talavera, Bussaco, Fuentes d'Onor, Salamanca, Vitoria).

Waterloo (18 June 1815): the Scots Guards were present. Consistent with the precision applied in Cards #6–13 about which Scottish units were and were not at Waterloo, the answer here is unambiguous and documented: the 2nd Battalion, 3rd Regiment of Foot Guards (the Scots Guards' antecedent) fought at Quatre Bras and Waterloo. Its light companies were part of the celebrated defence of Hougoumont farm — the key strongpoint on the Allied right flank — under Lieutenant-Colonel James Macdonnell (a Coldstream officer commanding the combined light companies of the Coldstream and 3rd Foot Guards). The 3rd Foot Guards suffered well over 200 men killed or wounded in the fighting around Hougoumont. The Duke of Wellington himself judged the action pivotal, remarking that "the success of the battle turned upon the closing of the gates at Hougoumont." Note the naming precision: the unit at Waterloo was the "3rd Regiment of Foot Guards," which became the Scots Fusilier Guards in 1831 and the Scots Guards in 1877.

Nineteenth-century imperial and colonial service must be presented honestly as such. The regiment (as the Scots Fusilier Guards) served in the Crimean War (1854–1856), fighting at the Alma, Inkerman and Sevastopol; four of the six Victoria Crosses awarded for the Battle of the Alma went to men of the regiment (the Alma was the first land action for which the VC was awarded). It then served the machinery of empire: the 1882 Egypt expedition under Wolseley (Tel-el-Kebir), the Sudan campaigns of 1883–1885 (including a Guards Camel Corps detachment), and the Second Boer War (1899–1902, Modder River) — all campaigns of imperial conquest and control, and named as such here rather than framed only as "battle honours."

First World War

On the outbreak of war both regular battalions deployed to the Western Front, where they remained throughout, serving as part of the Guards Division from its formation in August 1915. The 1st Battalion landed in France on 14 August 1914 (Mons, Marne, Aisne, First Ypres); the 2nd Battalion landed in Belgium in October 1914. A 3rd (Reserve) Battalion was re-formed for home service and provided drafts.

Casualties — presented with source-variation care. The National Army Museum states that between them the two battalions "gained 33 battle honours. Nearly 3,000 soldiers from the regiment were killed." The regiment's own charity records total losses of 111 officers and 2,730 other ranks (i.e. about 2,841). The Commonwealth War Graves Commission recorded 1,486 deaths for the 1st Battalion alone between 1914 and 1918. These figures are consistent with a regimental death toll approaching 3,000; the exact number varies with counting method (battalions included, date range, "killed" vs "died of all causes"). Sources also differ on the number of Victoria Crosses won in this war (commonly given as five). Between them the battalions gained 33 battle honours.

Second World War

By 1939 the 2nd Battalion was already in Egypt. It fought through the North African campaign (Western Desert to Tunisia) with the Guards Brigades — including the defence of the Knightsbridge Box (Gazala) and the Battle of Medenine — then in Italy (the Salerno landings, the Volturno, Monte Camino, Anzio/Carroceto, Monte Cassino), before ending the war in North-West Europe. The 1st Battalion deployed to Norway in 1940, then also to North Africa and Italy; it was at Djebel Bou Aoukaz in Tunisia in April 1943, where Captain Lord Lyell was awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross for single-handedly destroying a machine-gun post and an 88mm gun position before being killed. A 3rd Battalion was converted to armour (3rd (Tank) Battalion, 6th Guards Tank Brigade, Churchill tanks) and fought in North-West Europe from July 1944; a 4th Battalion was also raised. Altogether, per the National Army Museum, "the regiment gained 41 battle honours. Over 1,000 Scots Guardsmen were killed in action."

The modern role and continued separate existence

After 1945 the regiment served in the occupation of Germany, then in a long series of post-war and colonial/counter-insurgency deployments: Malaya (1948–51), the Suez Canal Zone (1951–52), Kenya (1962), Borneo (1965–66), repeated tours in West Germany with the British Army of the Rhine, and multiple tours of Northern Ireland (last deployment 2001). In 1982 the 2nd Battalion fought the night Battle of Mount Tumbledown in the Falklands (13–14 June 1982), in which eight Scots Guardsmen and one attached Royal Engineer were killed and some 40 wounded; the action is commemorated as a regimental anniversary and was dramatised in the BBC film "Tumbledown."

In 1993 the 2nd Battalion was reduced (removed from the order of battle) and its identity preserved as F Company Scots Guards, which carries out Public Duties in London. The 1st Battalion served in the Gulf War (1991, battle honour "Gulf 1991") and, in the 2000s, deployed to Iraq (Op Telic, 2004–05 and 2007–08) and Afghanistan (Op Herrick, 2007 and 2012–13).

Current status. Under the Future Soldier reforms the 1st Battalion is a light mechanised infantry unit; as the British Army states, "As a Light Mechanised regiment, we use the Foxhound armoured vehicle… The Scots Guards are based at Somme Barracks in Catterick Garrison, North Yorkshire." The regiment today comprises the 1st Battalion (the fighting component, established at 707 personnel), F Company (Public Duties, London) and G (Messines) Company (Army Reserve, London). Its Colonel-in-Chief is King Charles III and its Colonel Prince Edward, Duke of Edinburgh. It remains a separate regiment of the Household Division / Guards and Parachute Division — entirely outside the Royal Regiment of Scotland structure that absorbed the Scottish line infantry regiments covered in Cards #5–14. Across its history the regiment has been credited by the British Army with 93 battle honours and 11 Victoria Crosses.

• The Scots Guards can trace their origin (1642) earlier than either the Coldstream (1650) or the Grenadier Guards (1656), yet rank third in Foot Guards precedence — because Scottish regiments only joined the English establishment in 1686.
• Their two senior sister regiments nicknamed them "The Kiddies" in 1686 to rub in their junior status; the nickname stuck.
• They are the only Foot Guards regiment to wear no plume on the bearskin, and their tunic buttons are grouped in threes (marking them as the 3rd Regiment).
• At Waterloo, the Duke of Wellington held that "the success of the battle turned upon the closing of the gates at Hougoumont" — the strongpoint the regiment's light companies helped defend.
• Four of the six Victoria Crosses awarded for the Battle of the Alma (1854) — the first land action ever to earn the VC — went to men of the regiment (then the Scots Fusilier Guards).
• In 1911 Scots Guards marksmen were called out to the Siege of Sidney Street in London, watched by Home Secretary Winston Churchill — the first time in the 20th century that the police requested military assistance in London.
• The SAS founder David Stirling was a Scots Guards officer; he formed the unit's early desert raiding concept while serving in North Africa.
• Uniquely among the Foot Guards (with the Irish Guards), the Scots Guards field Pipes and Drums — pipers who are trained fighting soldiers, not full-time bandsmen.

• Founding date. The single most important accuracy point on this card. "1642" is the regiment's official traced-origin date and is used by the regiment, the NAM and the Household Division — but it is a lineage claim, not a claim of continuous existence. The 1642–1651 regiment was disbanded; the continuously serving regiment dates from the 1660–1662 Restoration re-raising, with the English establishment date of 1686. Treat "founded 1642" as Shared/Traditional, and "continuously serving since 1660–1662 / on the English establishment since 1686" as Established.
• "Excluded" from the Royal Regiment of Scotland. It is a misconception to say the Scots Guards were "left out of" or "excluded from" the 2006 RRS amalgamation. They were simply never in scope: the RRS was formed from Scottish line infantry regiments, and the Scots Guards are a Foot Guards / Household Division regiment in a separate category. This is the core institutional distinction from Cards #5–14.
• Casualty figures. WWI and WWII death tolls vary by source and method. WWI figures range from about 2,841 (regimental record: 111 officers + 2,730 other ranks) to "nearly 3,000" (NAM), with CWGC recording 1,486 for the 1st Battalion alone. WWII figures are given as "over 1,000." These should be cited as approximate ranges, not precise totals.
• Victoria Cross and battle-honour totals. The British Army gives the regiment's overall totals as 93 battle honours and 11 Victoria Crosses; individual-war tallies quoted in older regimental sources (e.g. "five VCs" in WWI) may differ slightly from these consolidated figures depending on how they are counted.
• Precedence vs. age. The claim that the Scots Guards are "the oldest Guards regiment" is true by traced founding date but does not translate into seniority — a common point of confusion. Precedence follows service to the Crown and establishment date, hence third place.
• Naming at Waterloo. The regiment at Waterloo was the "3rd Regiment of Foot Guards," not yet called the Scots Guards (that name dates from 1877). Sources that simply say "the Scots Guards fought at Waterloo" are correct in substance but anachronistic in name.