10 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



"Wentwortli's Eegiment of Guards survived the ill-success of 

 Charles the Second's negotiations for aid from Spain ; and remaining 

 abroad'at the Restoration as part of the garrison of Dunkirk, it escaped 

 inclusion in that general dishandment of the army of the Common- 

 wealth, in September, 1660, which was almost the first act of the 

 restored monarchy. The young Sovereign, however, whose whole 

 conception of the kingly dignity was coloured by his familiarity with 

 continental courts, had no intention of remaining without a personal 

 guard ; and at the very moment which witnesses the dispersion of the 

 remnant of Cromwell's Ironsides, he entrusted Colonel John Russell, a 

 brother of the Duke of Bedford, with a commission to raise a Regi- 

 ment of Foot Guards, twelve hundi'ed strong, under the title of the 

 King's Royal Regiment of Guards. Lord "Wentworth's earlier formed 

 regiment remained abroad until the sale of Dunkirk, when it came to 

 England, where it was maintained as a distinct corps during Went- 

 worth's life. But on the death of its colonel, thi'ee years later, on 

 the eve of the outbreak of the Dutch "War, Wentworth's was merged 

 in Colonel Russell's regiment, to which the existing regiment of 

 Grenadier Guards proudly traces its origin. ^ 



No one who has had occasion to consider the character of the 

 aiTangements made upon the restoration for the machinery of the 

 constitution and the equipment of the public service, can have failed 

 to be struck by the closeness with which the institutions of every 

 sort set up in Great Britain were followed in the organisation of the 



in. 1646-7 ; and the English troops raised subsequently by Charles II., with which 

 he endeavoured to recover the Crown of his ancestors, were disbanded after the 

 battle of Worcester in 1651; so that though we trace among the officers of the 

 Eegiment of Guards which Charles II. raised in Flanders many Eoyalists who had 

 either served in the King's Guards or in other corps during the Civil "War, both in 

 the time of Charles I. and II., there is no connexion as a regiment between these 

 two corps of Guards " (vol. i., p. 8). It appears, however, from a letter published 

 in the " Ormonde Papers " (Hist. MSS. Comm., 14th Eep., vol. i., p. 97), that 

 Wentworth's regiment existed in some form in 1649: — "Thomas Wentworth 

 to EdM-ard Broughton. Breda, June 24, 1649. You are to receive such 

 men as shall be delivered you on shipboard as part of a Eegiment to {sic) the 

 King's Guards, and you to command them as Serjeant-Major to the said Eegiment, 

 and at your landing in Ireland you are to obey such orders and directions as you 

 shall receive from the Marquis of Ormond, the Lieutenant-General of the kingdom 

 of Ireland." It is noticeable that this letter is addressed by the subsequent colonel 

 of Charles the Second's post-Eestoration Guards, to an officer who subsequently 

 held a commission in that regiment. The letter is addressed, " For Major Edward 

 Broughton, Major to the King's Guard of Foot." 



1 Sir F. Hamilton's " History of the Grenadier Guards," pp. 30-34. 



I 



