Horse guards
Horse Guards is the first major, fully illustrated history of the Household Cavalry, which comprises the three oldest and most senior regiments in the British army: the Life Guards, the Blues and the Royals. All three were formed within a year of Charles II's Restoration in 1660 - from both Royalist and Parliamentarian origins - and were organized along the same lines as Cronwill's Ironsides, but each with its own culture, echoes, traditions and uniforms. As the regiments gradually amalgamated over 340 years they became and remain an integral part of the continuing history of the British Isles. A blend of military and social history this is a story of the men who served, their commitment and their bravery. their vanities and their follies of their families, their horses, the bloody battles they fought and he long periods in between. Barney White-Spunner has used his unique access to private letters and journals, war diaries, order books, stable books, courtmartial minutes, royal documents and records of state occasions to paint a human picture of these unique institutions, and the origins of the Household Cavalry that we know today. Illustrated throughout with paintings, photographs, objects, uniforms and maps from the Household Cavalry's archives and museum - many never before published - this book takes the reader on a fascinating historical narrative. It follows the fortunes of the regiments, and those who served in them, from Cromwell and the English Civil War, through the turbulent years of James II, the Battle of Sedgemoor, William III and the War of the Spanish Succession to the European wars in the mid-eighteenth century. It tells the story of the Peninsular War and Waterloo - when the household Cavalry staged the famous charge against the French Cuirassiers that saved the British centre - the Crimea, Queen Victoria's small wars in Africa and the Boer War and the bloodbath of the First World War through to the Second World War, Suez and the present day. Throughout it all Barney White-Spunner explains the unique dual role the Household Cavalry plays in the army - functional and symbolic - as both a fully operational military regiment and a key constituent in royal and state ceremonial events
Print Book, English, 2006
Macmillan, London, 2006