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Royal Scots

The Royal Scots (The Royal Regiment), once known as the Royal Regiment of Foot, was the oldest, and therefore most senior, infantry regiment of the line in the British Army, having been raised in 1633 during the reign of Charles I of Scotland. The regiment existed until 2006, when it amalgamated with the King’s Own Scottish Borderers to become the Royal Scots Borderers, 1st Battalion of the newly-formed Royal Regiment of Scotland.

History

Seventeenth century

The regiment was first raised in 1633 as the Royal Regiment of Foot by Sir John Hepburn, under a royal warrant from Charles I, on the Scottish establishment for service in France. It was formed from a nucleus of Hepburn’s previous regiment, formerly in Swedish service, which had been in existence since 1625. When in France it absorbed the remnants of a number of other Scottish mercenary units which had fought in Swedish service, and by 1635 had swelled to some 8,000 men. Sir John Hepburn, was killed at the siege of Saverne in 1636; it was then taken over by his nephew, Sir John Hepburn who was killed in action the following year  Lord James Douglas was appointed the new colonel, and the name of the corps was altered to the Régiment de Douglas, numbering some 1200 Scotsmen. The regiment fought with distinction, under Douglas, until he was killed in a skirmish near Douai in 1645, in attempt to take the city from the Habsburgs. His elder brother Archibald Douglas, Earl of Angus was appointed in his place.In all the regiment served in France from 1633 to 1661, when it was recalled to England.

Because the regiment had been formed by Royal Warrant, it was legally part of the Crown’s armed forces, even though it had been out of the country for three decades. As such, it was recalled to help secure the coronation of Charles II, and helped provide a model for the other regiments founded after the collapse of the New Model Army. The regiment returned to France from 1662-6 and 1667–78, seeing English service again during the Second Anglo-Dutch War; soldiers of the regiment responded to the Raid on the Medway, when Pepys recorded that Here in the streets, I did hear the Scotch march beat by the drums before the soldiers, which is very odde.

1678 marked the final end of French service, with the regiment placed permanently on the English establishment, and in 1680 the regiment was sent to the Tangier Garrison, where it won its first battle honour. In 1684, the regiment was titled His Majesty’s Royal Regiment of Foot, and withdrawn to England. In 1685 they fought for James II in the Monmouth Rebellion, at the Battle of Sedgemoor, and the following year a second battalion was raised. In 1688, they were the only regiment of the army to remain loyal to James in the Glorious Revolution; both battalions of the regiment mutinied and were disarmed

During the War of the Grand Alliance, the regiment fought at the Battle of Walcourt (1689), the Battle of Steenkerque (1692), the Battle of Landen (1693) and the Siege of Namur (1695). They spent the late 1690s on garrison duty in Ireland.

Eighteenth century

During the War of the Spanish Succession, the regiment fought at the Battles of Schellenberg and Blenheim (1704), the Battle of Ramillies (1706), the Battle of Oudenarde (1708) and the Battle of Malplaquet (1709). Both battalions spent 1715 to 1742 on service in Ireland, but after this point the battalions were normally separated; the 1st went to Flanders, with the 2nd being sent to the Caribbean as a garrison for Puerto Bello. The 1st saw service in the War of the Austrian Succession at the Battle of Fontenoy (1745), whilst the 2nd was engaged in the Second Jacobite Rising, fighting at the Battle of Falkirk and the infamous Battle of Culloden (1746), after which it returned to Ireland.

In 1751, the regiment was titled the 1st (Royal) Regiment of Foot, ranked as the most senior of the line regiments of infantry. The 2nd Battalion was sent to Nova Scotia in 1757, and saw service in the Seven Years’ War, capturing Louisburg in 1758, Guadeloupe in 1762 and Havana in 1763,returning home in 1764.Both then served as garrisons in the Mediterranean, the 1st in Gibraltar from 1768–75, and the 2nd in Minorca from 1771-75

The 1st Battalion was sent to the West Indies in 1781, fought in the capture of Sint Eustatius that year, and was itself captured at St. Kitts in January 1782 but exchanged later in the year.

The French Revolutionary Wars & Napoleonic Wars

The 1st Battalion had returned to the West Indies as a garrison in 1790, and served there until 1797,with a brief period of combat in the Haïtian Revolution. The West Indies were hotbeds of disease, and the battalion lost more than half its strength to disease in this period. It was reformed from militia volunteers in Ireland in 1798: This year saw a major rebellion erupt in Ireland after years of simmering tension. The Lothian Fencibles fought with distinction at the Battle of Vinegar Hill, one of the more important engagements of the rebellion.

After the rebellion was over in Ireland they were used in minor raids on the coast of Spain in 1800. Meanwhile, from 1793 to 1801, the 2nd Battalion was based in the Mediterranean.It fought at the Siege of Toulon (1793) and the capture of Corsica (1794), returning briefly to Northern Europe for the Battle of Egmont op Zee in the 1799 Helder Campaign, before fighting in the 1801 Egyptian campaign at the Battle of Aboukir and the Battle of Alexandria.

Both battalions were subsequently dispatched to the West Indies, the 1st from 1801 to 1812, and the 2nd from 1803 to 1806. The 1st fought at the capture of Saint Lucia, as well as of Demerara and Essequibo in 1803, and the capture of Guadeloupe in 1810. The 2nd then moved to India, where it would remain until 1826, whilst the 1st was sent to Quebec with the outbreak of the War of 1812.It fought in the battles of Sackett’s Harbor and Buffalo & Black Rock, as well as the capture of Fort Niagara (1813), the battles of Longwoods, Chippawa, and Lundy’s Lane, along with the Siege of Fort Erie and the battle of Cook’s Mills (1814).^[10] In February 1812, the regiment was retitled as the 1st Regiment of Foot (Royal Scots), the first official appearance of the popular name.

Two new battalions were raised in late 1804, at Hamilton, the 3rd and 4th Battalions. The 3rd served in the Peninsular War from 1808 to 1809, fighting at the Battle of Corunna in 1809 before being withdrawn by sea and sent to the Walcheren Campaign with the 1st Division. It returned to Portugal in 1810 with the 5th Division, fighting at the Battle of Buçaco (1810), the Battle of Fuentes de Onoro (1811), the battles of Badajoz, Salamanca and Burgos (1812), the Battle of Vitoria, capture of San Sebastián, Battle of Nivelle, and the Battle of Nive (1813),before advancing into France in 1814. It was sent to Belgium during the Hundred Days, and fought in Picton’s Division (the 5th) at the Battle of Waterloo (1815). After two years in the Army of Occupation, it was disbanded at Canterbury in 1817.

The 4th was deployed to the Baltic in 1813, being involved with the recapture of Stralsund, and fought in the Netherlands in 1814, where it was captured and exchanged. It was then dispatched to Canada as part of the War of 1812, where it served as a garrison. It was withdrawn to England with the end of the fighting and disbanded at Dover in 1816.

Nineteenth century

The 1st battalion was sent to Ireland after the end of the Napoleonic wars, and stationed there from 1816 until 1825, when it was moved to the West Indies, where it remained until 1835. The 2nd battalion, however, had a more active time; based in India, it was involved in the Third Anglo-Maratha War, where it fought at the Battle of Nagpore (1817) and Battle of Mahidpur (1818), and in the First Anglo-Burmese War of 1824-26. It moved to Scotland in 1830, and to Canada in 1836, where it was involved in the Rebellions of 1837. A move to the West Indies in 1843 was complicated by half the regiment being shipwrecked and delayed several months, but was successful, and the regiment finally returned to Scotland in 1846.

Both battalions saw active service in the Crimean War, with the 1st fighting at the battles of Alma and Inkerman (1854), and both fighting in the Siege of Sevastopol (1854-5), where the regiment’s first VC was won. After the war, the 1st battalion moved to Ceylon in 1857 and thence to India, returning home in 1870, whilst the 2nd battalion moved to Hong Kong, and saw action in the Second Opium War, fighting at the capture of the Taku Forts (1858) and Pekin (1860), and returning home in 1861.

The regiment was not fundamentally affected by the Cardwell Reforms of the 1870s, which gave it a depot at Glencorse from 1873, or by the Childers reforms of 1881 – as it already possessed two battalions, there was no need for it to amalgamate with another regiment. However, as it had become the county regiment of the Edinburgh area, it was retitled The Royal Scots (Lothian Regiment), and it took on a militia battalion and seven battalions of Volunteers from the local area.The regimental district was reorganised in 1887, with Berwickshire being transferred to the recruiting area of the King’s Own Scottish Borderers along with the country; the remaining volunteers were reorganised in 1888, for a total of eight volunteer battalions.

In 1881, the 1st was in the West Indies; it moved to South Africa in 1884, when it saw action in the Bechuanaland campaign, and remained there until 1891, when it moved back to the UK to serve as the depot battalion and the 2nd moved out to India, where it remained until 1909. With the outbreak of the Second Anglo-Boer War, the 1st was quickly earmarked for service in South Africa, and sailed in late 1899. It remained there until 1903, being joined by the 3rd from 1900 to 1902 – the first time a non-regular unit of the regiment had been activated. The bulk of the time in South Africa was spent patrolling and in mobile columns, with neither battalion engaged in any major battles.

In 1908, the Volunteers and Militia were reorganised nationally, with the former becoming the Territorial Force and the latter the Special Reserve; the regiment now had one Reserve and seven Territorial battalions. The 1st moved back to India in 1909, relieving the 2nd, which moved back to the UK; they remained stationed there until 1914.

First World War (1914-1919)

At the outbreak of the First World War, the 1st was in India, and returned to the UK in November; the 2nd was immediately deployed with the British Expeditionary Force, arriving in France on August 14 and seeing action on the afternoon of the 23rd. The Special Reserve had been mobilised, with the 3rd Battalion activated at Weymouth, and all seven battalions of the Territorial Force had mobilised and raised an additional second-line battalion by the end of 1914. A further seven battalions of the New Army were formed in 1914, including two Pals battalions By the end of 1914, the regiment stood at a strength of 24 battalions; another six Territorial battalions and three New Army battalions (one of bantams) were formed in 1915. In 1916, one service and one reserve battalion were formed by merging depleted Territorial battalions, and in 1917 a labour battalion was formed. In total, the Royal Scots raised some thirty-five battalions of infantry and over 100,000 men during the course of the First World War, of which fifteen battalions saw active service. 11,000 soldiers serving in the regiment were killed, and over 40,000 wounded. Among other decorations and honours, the regiment won six Victoria Crosses.

The 1st, on returning from India, was placed in the 27th Division, a division made up of regular units which had been recalled from garrison duty, and arrived in France in December 1914. It saw combat in the Action of Saint-Éloi and throughout the Second Battle of Ypres in 1915, before the division was withdrawn and moved to Salonika in November, where it spent the rest of the war It was sent to Georgia in December 1918 for operations against the Bolsheviks, and returned to Edinburgh in May 1919. The 2nd was part of the 3rd Division, one of the first units of the British Expeditionary Force to be sent to France. It first saw action in the Battle of Mons, and thence at almost all of the major actions on the Western Front, before returning to Scotland in 1919.

The 1/4th and 1/7th mobilised in Edinburgh in August 1914, and were assigned to the 52nd (Lowland) Division. Whilst the division was mobilising, the 1/7th was involved in the Quintinshill rail crash, which killed 210 officers and men and wounded another 224. They fought at the Battle of Gallipoli before being moved to Egypt in 1916 and serving in the Sinai and Palestine Campaign. They were sent to France in April 1918 for the Second Battle of the Somme, and remained there until the end of the war. Both battalions were reduced to a cadre in March 1919, and returned home to disband in May.

The 1/5th mobilised in Edinburgh in August 1914, and were assigned to the 29th Division. They fought at the Battle of Gallipoli, then to France via Egypt, and saw action on the first day on the Somme. The 1/6th had mobilised at the same time and been dispatched to Egypt in 1915 for the Western Frontier Force; it too was withdrawn to France for the Somme. The two heavily depleted battalions were amalgamated in July 1916, and spent the remainder of war on the Western Front as the 5/6th. After the war, it remained in Belgium until January 1919 when it moved into Germany, and was reduced to a cadre in October 1919 and sent home to be disbanded.

The 1/8th mobilised at Haddington in August 1914, and arrived in France in November – the first Scottish territorial unit to arrive in France – with the 7th Division, though they did not see action until the Battle of Neuve Chapelle. After the Second Battle of Ypres, in August 1915, they were transferred to the 51st (Highland) Division as the divisional pioneers, and disbanded in March 1919 at Haddington The 1/9th mobilised at Edinburgh in August 1914, and moved to France in February 1915 with the 27th Division; when this moved to Salonika in November they remained in France, transferring to the 5th Division, and then to Third Army reserve. They were assigned to the 51st (Highland) Division in March 1916, with whom they fought for two years, then to the 61st (South Midland) Division and 15th (Scottish) Division in 1918. After the war, they were reduced to a cadre and disbanded in Belgium in May 1919.

The 11th, 12th and 13th were raised in August 1914 in Edinburgh, with the 11th and 12th allocated to 9th (Scottish) Division and the 13th to 15th (Scottish) Division, and moved to France in mid-1915. They first saw action at the Battle of Loos, where the 11th was almost wiped out, and spent the remainder of the war on the Western Front. The 11th and 12th moved to Germany after the armistice; the 12th was reduced to a cadre in April 1919 and disbanded in the UK in June, whilst the 11th was reduced to a cadre and disbanded at Cologne in November. The 13th remained in Belgium, being reduced to a cadre in March 1919 and disbanded in the UK in June.

The 15th was raised in September 1914, the 16th in December 1914, and the 17th in February 1915, in Edinburgh. The 15th and 16th were assigned to the 34th Division and the 17th to the 35th Infantry Division, moved to France in early 1916, and first saw action at the first day on the Somme; all three spent the remainder of the war on the Western Front. The 15th and 16th were reduced to cadres in May 1918 and disbanded in August; the 17th was based in Belgium after the armistice, and provided internal security in France and Belgium in early 1919, before being reduced to a cadre in April and disbanded shortly afterward.

The 2/10th was originally mobilised as bicycle infantry, but never served in this role. It was the only second-line battalion of the regiment to be sent overseas, moving to Archangel in August 1918, and serving in the North Russia Campaign until June 1919, when it returned to Scotland to disband.The remaining battalions all remained in the UK on Home Service, and did not see active duty. However, six saw significant periods of service in Ireland, where they served as garrison units, and were often involved in local security – armed patrols, mobile columns to ‘show the flag’, and the like.

Inter-war period (1919-1939)

The regiment was reduced sharply in size following the Armistice; during 1919, the 3rd Battalion disbanded, as did all bar one of the Territorial battalions (the one exception being the 2/10th, which finally disbanded in February 1920).

In September 1919, the 1st Battalion again embarked for imperial service, taking up garrison duties in Rangoon, and in August 1920 the 2nd Battalion was sent to Ireland for service in what would later become the Anglo-Irish War; they would remain there until January 1922.

When the Territorial Force was reconstituted as the Territorial Army in 1920, all seven Territorial battalions of the regiment were reconstituted. At the beginning of 1921, the regiment was formally retitled The Royal Scots (The Royal Regiment), and comprised two regular battalions, one Supplementary Reserve battalion, and four battalions of the newly-renamed Territorial Army, all four of which were activated during the 1921 coal strike. In January 1922, reductions in the military led to the amalgamation of the Territorial component into two battalions. The three battalions not retained in 1921 were converted to support units outside the regimental structure.

The 1st Battalion moved from Rangoon to Secunderabad in 1922, then to Aden in 1925. They finally returned to the UK in 1926, barracked at Maryhill in Glasgow, where they saw duty in the General Strike. Under the Cardwell system, it was common for one battalion to remain at home while the other one served overseas, and accordingly in January 1926 the 2nd Battalion moved to Egypt, then to China in 1928. In 1930 they moved to Quetta, then Lahore in 1934, and finally Hong Kong in January 1938. At the same time, the 1st Battalion was deployed to serve in the Palestine Insurgency, where it would remain for a year, until January 1939. Some sources suggest the 1st Battalion was briefly reorganised as a machine-gun battalion during this period.

With the re-armament program in the late 1930s, the Territorial component of the regiment was heavily altered; one of the two battalions was converted into an anti-aircraft role in 1938 whilst the other formed a duplicate battalion in August 1939.

Second World War (1939-1945)

At the outbreak of the Second World War, the 1st Battalion was at Aldershot as part of 4th Infantry Brigade, 2nd Division; accordingly, it deployed to France with the British Expeditionary Force. It moved to Lecelles in September, and in May 1940 moved into Belgium during the Battle of France. The British forces were heavily hit by the German breakthrough, however, and fell back towards the coast; the battalion was deployed at Le Paradis, near Béthune, on May 25 to protect the flanks of the Dunkirk evacuation. After being heavily hit by armoured attacks, the battalion ceased fighting on the afternoon of the 27th. The adjacent unit, the 2nd Royal Norfolk Regiment, had almost one hundred men taken prisoner and later shot by their captors in the “Le Paradis massacre“. Recent research has suggested that around twenty Royal Scots may have suffered a similar fate. The remnants of the battalion were reconstituted in Bradford in June.

The two Territorial units, the 7/9th and 8th Battalions, mobilised in Scotland in September; the 7/9th was briefly deployed to France before the collapse of the French government, but was quickly withdrawn. A fifth battalion, the 12th, was formed in 1940.

Most of 1941 passed without active duty for the regiment, and with growing concerns about the stability of the Far East, the 2nd Battalion, still based at Hong Kong, moved into defensive positions around the colony. These fears materialised on December 8, when the Battle of Hong Kong began a few hours after the attack on Pearl Harbor; after bitter fighting, the garrison surrendered on Christmas Day. The newly-formed 12th Battalion was disbanded and reformed as the 2nd Battalion in May 1942.

In April 1942 the 1st Battalion was moved to Bombay, and then to Chittagong in December with 2nd Division. It fought in the Burma Campaign, first seeing action in the Arakan operations from March to May 1943, and then withdrawing into India. It later saw action at the Battle of Kohima in 1944 and the Battle of Mandalay in 1945. It was withdrawn to India to refit in April 1945, and moved to Singapore in December.

The 2nd Battalion moved to Gibraltar in April 1943, and moved to Italy in July 1944, where it saw action in the Italian Campaign. In January 1945 it moved to Palestine, where it was active in security duties in October and November, and was then redeployed to the Suez Canal Zone in December.

The 7th/9th Battalion was part of 52nd (Lowland) Division, which trained for mountain and airlanding operations, but was never used in this way. In October 1944 it moved to the Netherlands, fighting in the Battle of the Scheldt and participating in the advance to the Rhine; it crossed the Rhine in March 1945 and advanced to Bremen by the end of the war.

The 8th Battalion remained in the UK as part of 15th (Scottish) Division until June 1944, when it landed in Normandy as part of Operation Overlord. It fought in north-west Europe until the end of the war; it entered Belgium in September, crossed the Rhine in March 1945 and advanced to Hamburg by the end of the war.

Post-war period (1945-2004)

In 1949, the 2nd Battalion disbanded, leaving the regiment with only a single regular battalion for the first time since the seventeenth century.

The 7th/9th (Highlanders) and 8th Battalions were reconstituted in the Territorial Army in 1947. Both battalions remained until 1961, when the latter was absorbed and the single battalion retitled the 8th/9th Battalion. In 1967 this was disbanded and reconstituted as two separate companies, A Company (The Royal Scots) of the 52nd Lowland Volunteers, and A Company (8th/9th Royal Scots) of The Royal Scots and Cameronians Territorials. By 1971, both companies were in the battalions of the 52nd Lowland Volunteers, and though the Royal Scots name was retained in the title the regiment no longer had a Territorial Army element. None of these units were activated for service.

The 1st Battalion briefly saw service in the Korean War in 1953, as part of 29th Infantry Brigade; after a brief spell in Egypt, they deployed to Cyprus from June 1955 to February 1956. They then spent two years in England, two in Berlin, one in Scotland, two in Libya, and four in England. In 1964, they deployed to Aden, then back to England and a three-year spell in Germany with the British Army of the Rhine.

1970 to 1974 was spent in Britain as part of the Allied Command Europe Mobile Force, with the battalion undertaking two four-month tours of duty in Northern Ireland; Then posted to Cyprus in early 1974. Unfortunately Turkey invaded the island and created the “Green Line” which still partitions the island. During the action of moving service families and holidaymakers to safety from Limassol, Piper Halliday played at the roadside becoming known as “The piper of Cyprus”. This had put the Regiment on a war footing and they were involved in riots attacking RAF Akrotiri and protection of the Sovereign Area Base of Episkopi. They were relieved in early 1975 returning unexpectedly to Kirknewton near Edinburgh and did a further four month tour of Northern Ireland where three soldiers were lost in a roadside bomb attack. They moved to Münster in mid-1976 as the Nuclear Convoy Battalion charged with the protection of 8 Regiment RCT. In this role the Battalion was equipped with Landrovers, a change from the normal equipment used by previous and subsequent NCB units which were armoured infantry battalion. Returning to Scotland in 1979 C Company was detached as ‘C Battalion’ providing administrative support to the Edinburgh Tattoo. In 1980 they undertook a two-month tour in Northern Ireland, and moved there under 39th Infantry Brigade in 1981 for a two-year deployment. In 1985, they returned to Germany, deploying to the Persian Gulf in 1991 for Operation Desert Storm, where they operated with 4th Armoured Brigade.

In 1994, the battalion gained a company of Ghurkas, who were later transferred to The Highlanders. Deployments in the 1990s included a further one-year tour to Northern Ireland and two short deployments to Bosnia. In 2003 the battalion was deployed to Iraq as part of Operation Telic for four months, returning in January 2006.

Restructuring of the Infantry (2004-2006)

Until 2004, the Royal Scots had been one of five line infantry regiments never to be amalgamated in its entire history, a claim shared by The Green Howards, The 22nd (Cheshire) Regiment, The Royal Welch Fusiliers and The King’s Own Scottish Borderers.

In 2004, as part of the Delivering Security in a Changing World defence review, it was announced that the Scottish Division would lose an infantry battalion. This was achieved through the amalgamation on March 23, 2006, of the Royal Scots with the King’s Own Scottish Borderers, with the single battalion forming part of the new Royal Regiment of Scotland.

The Royal Scots Borderers

Main article: Royal Scots Borderers

On March 28, 2006, the Royal Scots ceased to exist as an independent regiment, being joined with the five other regular regiments of the Scottish Division to form The Royal Regiment of Scotland. The Royal Scots were designated simply as The Royal Scots Battalion, The Royal Regiment of Scotland, with no number; it is notable that the battalions of the Royal Regiment of Scotland were unique among the new large regiments in retaining their regimental titles for the new battalions. In August of that year, as planned, the Scottish Division was reduced from six battalions to five by amalgamation, with the Royal Scots Battalion being amalgamated with the King’s Own Scottish Borderers Battalion to form The Royal Scots Borderers, 1st Battalion The Royal Regiment of Scotland.

The remaining Territorial element of the Royal Scots, a rifle company of 52nd Lowland Regiment, was likewise amalgamated, becoming A (Royal Scots Borderers) Company of 6th Battalion, The Royal Regiment of Scotland.

Nicknames

Their nickname as Pontius Pilate‘s bodyguard, originated from a 17th century boasting contest with the French Regiment of Picardy, who boasted that prior to the Resurrection Christ‘s tomb was guarded by the French regiment. Both claims are, of course, baseless.

The Royal Scots were also known as “First of foot, right of the line and the pride of the British army”. The 9th (Territorial) Battalion (later after amalgamation with the 7th Battalion, known as the 7th/9th Battalion) was known as “The Dandy Ninth”, being the only kilted battalion of this lowland regiment which was originally formed from highlanders who emigrated to the Edinburgh area.

The 9th were originally one of the Queen’s Edinburgh Rifles volunteer battalions. The 2nd Battalion was sardonically referred to as “The First to Foot It” during the Battle of Hong Kong.