The Royal Regiment of Horse Guards (The Blues) (RHG) was a cavalry regiment of the British Army, part of the Household Cavalry.
Raised in August 1650 at Newcastle upon Tyne and County Durham by Sir Arthur Haselrigge on the orders of Oliver Cromwell as a Regiment of Horse, the regiment became the Earl of Oxford's Regiment in 1660 upon the Restoration of King Charles II. As, uniquely, the regiment's coat was blue in colour at the time, it was nicknamed "the Oxford Blues", from which was derived the nickname the "Blues." In 1750 the regiment became the Royal Horse Guards Blue and eventually, in 1877, the Royal Horse Guards (The Blues).
The regiment served in the French Revolutionary Wars and in the Peninsular War. Two squadrons fought, with distinction, in the Household Brigade at the Battle of Waterloo. In 1918, the regiment served as the 3rd Battalion, Guards Machine Gun Regiment. During the Second World War the regiment was part of the Household Cavalry Composite Regiment. The Royal Horse Guards was amalgamated with the Royal Dragoons (1st Dragoons) to form the Blues and Royals (Royal Horse Guards and 1st Dragoons) in 1969.
Origins and history
Restoration: Catholics v. Protestants
The Royal Regiment of Horse Guards has its origins in the Regiment of Cuirassiers, raised by Sir Arthur Haselrig on the orders of Oliver Cromwell at Newcastle upon Tyne and County Durham in August 1650. It was transferred to the King's service in July 1660 before being disbanded at Bath, Somerset in December 1660. It was re-raised in the wake of the Venner Riots by King Charles II on creation of what would become the British Army on 26 January 1661. King Charles II offered the colonelcy of the new regiment to the Earl of Oxford and the regiment first paraded at Tuthill Field in London on 6 February 1661.
Early duties included escorts. There were three troops. King's Troop was at Canterbury, but one was usually at Southwark. Henry Compton's Troop, posted at Bagshot, was responsible for protecting the Navy Office at Portsmouth. They were used to round up prisoners. Early policing included the arresting of contraband tobacco smuggled from the colonies. Sir Henry Jones was a puritan dismissed from the service, but returned to London in 1673, raised a regiment to go to the Siege of Maastricht, where he was killed.
The Royal Horse Guards were wealthy gentlemen, sons of the well-to-do, not controlled by parliament. By 1685, Charles II was paying the guards £283,000. But the Blues deployed almost entirely outside London; in 1666, the Duke of York's Articles and Rules of War attempted absolute royal control over the army. In disciplinary disputes officers appealed to the Privy Council, the highest executive body in the kingdom. The Earl of Oxford was still colonel of the Blues when the Army Board met for the first time on 5 August 1670.
