Royal Horse Guards

This article is about the British military unit. For the Danish unit, see Royal Horse Guards (Denmark).

Royal Horse Guards
Member of the Royal Horse Guards, 1826
Active	1650-1969
Country	Commonwealth of England (1650–1660) Kingdom of England (1660–1707) Kingdom of Great Britain (1707–1800) United Kingdom (1801–1969)
Branch	Army
Type	Cavalry
Nickname	The Blues
Motto	Honi soit qui mal y pense
March	Quick March: Grand March Slow March: Regimental Slow March of the Royal Horse Guards
Engagements	See Battle honours list

The Royal Horse Guards (RHG) was a cavalry regiment of the British Army, part of the Household Cavalry.

Founded August 1650 in Newcastle upon Tyne by Sir Arthur Haselrig on the orders of Oliver Cromwell as the Regiment of Cuirassiers, the regiment became the Earl of Oxford's Regiment during the reign of King Charles II. As the regiment's uniform 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 RHG was amalgamated with the Royal Dragoons (1st Dragoons) to form the Blues and Royals (Royal Horse Guards and 1st Dragoons) in 1969.

Battle honours

• Dettingen, Warburg, Beaumont, Willems, Peninsula, Waterloo, Tel-el-Kebir, Egypt 1882, Relief of Kimberley, Paardeberg, South Africa 1899-1900

• The Great War: Mons, Le Cateau, Retreat from Mons, Marne 1914, Aisne 1914, Messines 1914, Armentières 1914, Ypres 1914 '15 '17, Langemarck 1914, Gheluvelt, Nonne Bosschen, St Julien, Frezenberg, Loos, Arras 1917, Scarpe 1917, Broodseinde, Poelcappelle, Passchendaele, Hindenburg Line, Cambrai 1918, Sambre, France and Flanders 1914-18

• The Second World War: Mont Pinçon, Souleuvre, Noireau Crossing, Amiens 1944, Brussels, Neerpelt, Nederrijn, Nijmegen, Lingen, Bentheim, North-West Europe 1944-45, Baghdad 1941, Iraq 1941, Palmyra, Syria 1941, El Alamein, North Africa 1942-43, Arezzo, Advance to Florence, Gothic Line, Italy 1944

See also

• Horse Guards Regiment
• Governor General's Horse Guards

External links

• UK Regiments: Royal House Guards