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CHAPTER I.

THE 1ST OR ROYAL REGIMENT OF FOOT, COMMONLY KNOWN

AS THE 1ST ROYALS.'*

We not now

Fight for how long, how broad, how great and large
Th' extent and bounds o' the people of Rome shall be ;

But to retain what our great ancestors,

With all their labours, counsels, arts, and actions,
For us were purchasing so many years.

BEN JONSON, Catiline.

IN the early period of Scottish history the Scots appear to have played in the armies of Europe a part somewhat analogous in character to that which in later years has been filled by the Swiss. Between the two nations there were, indeed, many points of similarity. Both gave birth to brave and hardy mountaineers, whose own country afforded them few opportunities for the acquisition of fame or wealth. Both were ardently patriotic, and prompt to defend their independence and their rights. Both were imbued with the noble sentiment of pride of ancestry; with that pride in a long descended lineage from which so much that is good and generous, as well as mean and ignoble, springs. A feeling of clanship was strong in both Swiss and Scot; the former indulging it towards his canton, the latter towards his chief. Both were insensible to danger, and capable of enduring great fatigue. Both were scrupulously loyal towards the state which purchased their services, but in their fidelity to their employers never forgot their devotion to their fatherland. And both were as brave as they were true; foremost in the battlecharge and last in the retreat.

*The 1st bear on their colours the Royal cipher, the Sphinx, and the inscriptions of Egmont-op-Zee,' St. Lucia,' Egypt,' 'Corunna,'' Busaco,' Salamanca, Vittoria,' St. Sebastian,' 'Nive,' Peninsula,''Niagara,' 'Waterloo,' 'Nagpore,' 'Maheid poor,' ' Ava,' and 'Alma.'

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LES GENDARMES ECOSSOISES.

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As early as the year 882, Charles III. of France had twenty-four armed Scots in his service, a trusty body-guard, to whom he confided the guardianship of his person. Scots were numerous in the French armies, led by king and nobles to the Holy Land during the mad enthusiasm of the Crusades ; and Louis IX., after his return from Palestine, in 1254, increased the number of his Scotch attendants to one hundred, and formed them into a corps of guards. They continued in the service of succeeding monarchs, and were organised by Charles V. on a regular establishment; receiving ample pay and numerous privileges in recompense of their unwavering fidelity.

They remained faithful to the French sovereigns during their long wars with the English Plantagenets, and when Henry VI. assumed the title and exercised the authority of King of France, attached themselves to the Dauphin (afterwards Charles VII.). National rivalry was probably as powerful an influence in this steady adherence to the losing side as traditional fidelity. A body of 7,000 men arrived from Scotland to the Dauphin's assistance in 1421, and turned the scale of battle in favour of the French at Baugé, on March 22, when Thomas Duke of Clarence and upwards of a thousand English were slain. Charles VII. then selected from his gallant auxiliaries 100 men-at-arms and 100 archers, forming them into a corps of guards, for the protection of the royal person, which was subsequently designated Les Gendarmes Ecossoises. At the same time the Earl of Buchan was created Constable of France; and other Scotch nobles held posts of dignity and influence in those provinces which still acknowledged the sovereignty of their rightful lord. These were governed and defended,' says Sismondi, 'by Scotchmen, whom a love of war, of pillage, of the wines and fruits of France, drew thither in considerable numbers. The principal military dignity in the kingdom, that of Constable, had been conferred upon the Earl of Buchan, a Scotchman; by his side served John Stuart, Constable of Scotland, and with him a host of the nobles of his nation and several thousands of their soldiers.'

The Scots displayed their national prowess at the Battle of Crevant on July 1, 1423. The Constable Stuart had under * Sismondi, Histoire des Français, vol. xiii. ch. i.

his orders 3,000 of his countrymen; several troops of Lombard, Gascon, and Spanish adventurers; and his coadjutor, the Marshal de Sévérac, joined him with more than 4,000 men drawn from the central provinces of France and the free companies that maintained a guerilla warfare north of the Loire. The English army included 4,000 Englishmen and as many Burgundians, under the Earls of Salisbury and Suffolk. In the face of this force the French endeavoured to oppose the passage of the Yonne, and barricaded the bridge of Coulange. For three hours the English gallantly attacked the barricades, but were unable to force them; but while the attention of their defenders was entirely concentrated upon this point, the English garrison of the neighbouring fortress of Crevant (on the French side of the river) boldly sallied forth, and harassed them in the rear. Thus assaulted on two sides, the French gave way. The Scotch, with the adventurers who had swelled their ranks, saw themselves surrounded by a continually increasing hostile force. They fought bravely, and, neither asking nor giving quarter, were slain where they stood. The Constable Stuart, Ventadour, and other famous knights, were taken prisoners; a nephew of the Earl of Buchan's, a chief of the Seton clan, a Hamilton, and 1,200 Scots were among the dead.

This severe loss so far diminished the ranks of the Scotch that a reinforcement of 4,000 men was despatched from Scotland early in the following year. The English were then investing Ivry, a port of the greatest importance, which the Scotch-to whom Charles VII. seemed to have abandoned the task of defending his kingdom-resolved, if possible, to relieve. The Earl of Buchan, and Douglas Duke of Touraine, set out from Torno with 5,000 or 6,000 Scotch, and reinforced by several battalions of French infantry. The French nobles and their retainers, and Thibaut Valpoya's Lombard cavalry, mustering in all some 18,000 soldiers, marched towards Ivry. Meantime, the Duke of Bedford hastened to support the besieging force with 1,800 men-at-arms and 8,000 English bowmen.

The duke at once took up a strong position in the neighbourhood of Ivry, where the French could only attack him at a sore disadvantage. Upon arriving in front of his camp, and reconnoitring it, the French leaders found themselves constrained

BATTLE OF VERNEUIL.

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to abandon the idea of an attack; and Ivry surrendered to the English under the eyes of the very army that had approached to its succour. The French generals then retreated rapidly upon Verneuil, which was held for the English, and announcing to the magistrates of that town that they had just defeated the English army, terrified them into opening its gates.

Verneuil is but three leagues from Ivry, and the Duke of Bedford was soon informed of the stratagem by which it had been taken from the English. He resolved to recapture it by force, and the French, knowing their superiority in numbers, were by no means loth to give battle. They left their horses in Verneuil, and on August 17 arrayed their ranks on the ground they had chosen. The Scots, who had formed the backbone of their army, were more at home in fighting on foot than on horseback; the Lombards, on the other hand, whose gendarmerie were excellent, were ordered to make a détour and attack the English in the rear. On his side, Bedford, as soon as he had arrived within sight of the French, made his soldiers dismount, and left behind his baggage and horses under the guard of 2,000 archers. The two masses of infantry came together with an incredible ardour, the French shouting their war cry of Montjoy Saint Denis;' the English, 'St. George for Bedford!' and as each soldier repeated his battle cheer with all his might, their simultaneous clamour had in it something terrible.* For nearly an hour the mêlée was maintained on both sides with equal bravery. Meanwhile, the French ranks had become somewhat disordered by pressing forward too eagerly; while the Scotch had remained immovable to endure the shock of the English assault. At the same time the Lombard troopers had accomplished their manœuvre. They had reached the position where the English had left their horses and baggage, and dispersed the archers in guard of them. But this very success entailed the loss of the battle. They fell greedily upon the cars and horses of the English, and rode away with them to discover a place of secure retreat. The 2,000 archers who had formed the guard had been scattered, but not defeated, and abandoning the baggage, hastened to the succour of their comrades still mingling in the fight. This unexpected

* Sismondi, Histoire des Français.

reinforcement decided the victory; the French, having already lost 4,000 or 5,000 men, fled on all sides. The Earl of Buchan, the Douglas and his son, and others of the Scotch chieftains were among the slain; and the blow fell so heavily on the Scotch that they never again appeared in such force on a French field of battle. Their courage and fidelity, however, so approved them to Charles VII. that he remodelled the Gendarmes Ecossoises, and giving them precedence over all other troops in France, formed them into a household troop, denominated Le Garde du Corps Ecossoises (A.D. 1440). This was in existence until about 1788, but had ceased for nearly a century to be Scotch in anything but name. The French kings long continued to distinguish it with their peculiar favour, and Scott, in his romance of Quentin Durward, has familiarised the English reader with the confidence reposed in it and the nature of the services demanded of it by the astute Louis XI.

A body of Scotch adventurers, attracted doubtlessly by reports of the privileges enjoyed by their countrymen, and officered perhaps by men belonging or who had once belonged to the Scots guard, arrived in France about 1590, and offered their services to Henri Quatre, then in the throes of his struggle with the League of the Guises. Their religious sympathies would necessarily attract them towards a Protestant prince fighting for his crown against a confederacy of Roman Catholic nobles, and their valour having been tested by the sovereign whom they served, it was reasonable that he should retain them about his person.

Twenty years later, another body of gallant Scots was engaged by Gustavus Adolphus, the great King of Sweden, to assist him in his wars (1613). They distinguished themselves by their steady courage and unswerving discipline in a campaign against Russia in 1615; against Poland in 1617 to 1619; and at the siege and capture of Riga in 1621. In 1625 a troop of Scots, who, under John Hepburn, had been fighting in Bohemia against the Emperor of Germany, also enlisted in the King of Sweden's service, and were formed into a regiment under the colonelcy of the said John Hepburn.

Of these various bodies of warlike Scots the present 1st Royal regiment of the British army may be considered the representative. It is, however, necessary we should trace still further the career of Hepburn and his fellow-adventurers.

In 1625 the King of Sweden renewed hostilities with Poland,

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