Falkiner — The Irish Guards. 9 



EestoratioD, led to the institution of a standing army, and Uiid the 

 foundations of the existing military system of the United Kingdom, 

 are familiar to every student of our political and constitutional 

 history. But it may be well to glance at the beginning of the system 

 in Great Britain, since it was there that the model was provided for 

 the military establishment which, on the appointment of the Duke 

 of Ormond to the Viceroy alty, was at once instituted in Ireland. 

 Especially is this necessary to the elucidation of the origin of the Irish 

 Guards, because the conception of a regiment directly associated with 

 the Crown, a regiment formed to be, in fact as well as name, " His 

 Majesty's Guards," goes back to a period prior to the Eestoration. 



Four years before the Eestoration, Charles II., hopeless of the 

 renewal of the ineffectual and half-hearted succour extended to him at 

 the beginning of his exile by the French Court, which under the 

 inspiration of Mazarin had become convinced of the permanence of the 

 Cromwellian regime, imagined that he had found in Spain the assistance 

 necessary to regain his throne. In connexion with a project for the inva- 

 sion of England by a Spanish expedition, it was resolved to organise, for 

 service with the Spanish forces in the Low Countries, the considerable 

 soldiery which had accompanied their Sovereign abroad, and had 

 earned distinction in the armies commanded by Turenne. Accord- 

 ingly, several regiments, both British and Irish, were gathered to- 

 gether into a division, and placed under the Spanish commander in 

 Flanders. The English officers, by whom Charles was more imme- 

 diately surrounded, were formed into what was called a Eoyal Eegi- 

 ment of Guards under Lord Wentworth, and some regiments of Irish 

 were organised at the same time.^ The command of the largest of 

 these, a corps seven hundi'ed strong, was assigned to the Marquis of 

 Ormond, and quartered near Bruges, and ultimately took part in the 

 unsuccessful operations at Dunkirk. The officers included many of 

 the Confederate Catholic officers who had fled from Ireland. - 



1 Clarendon's account of the matter is as follows : — " The king resolved to raise 

 one regiment of Guards, the command whereof he gave to the lord Weiitworth, 

 which was to do duty in the army as common men till his majesty should be in 

 such a posture that they might be brought about his person. The marquis of 

 Ormond had a regiment in order, to be commanded by his lieutenant-colonel, that 

 the Irish might be tempted to come over." — "History of the EebelUon," xv., 

 p. 68. 



* Sir F. Hamilton, in his " History of the Grenadier Guards," mentions that 

 Charles I., during his stay at Oxford in 1642-3, had raised a regiment which was 

 known as "The King's Guards," and states that " the Kegiment of King's Guards, 

 as well as all the rest of the Eoyalist troops in England, ceased to exist as regiments 



