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Welcome to the Regimental History Section
Coldstream Past
Did you know that we have a dedicated section (including
images) for our Regimental History HERE
A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE COLDSTREAM GUARDS
QUICK LINKS:
1st 50 Years
18th Century
Napoleonic
Victorian
WWI
WWII
Post-War
Battle Honours
Victoria Cross Winners
"The town of Coldstream, because the General
did it the honour to make it the piece of his residence
for some time hath given title to a small company of men
whom God hath made instruments of Great Things; and
though poor, yet honest as ever corrupt Nature produced
into the world, by the no dishonourable name of
Coldstreamers."
Thomas Gumble 1671
The First 50 Years
Oliver Cromwell, after raising the New Model Army in
1645 to fight against the Royalists, finally defeated
them in 1649. This paved the way for the execution of
Charles I on 30th January 1649. With the Civil War over,
Cromwell held unprecedented power in England. Ireland,
however, was still in a state of revolt and Cromwell led
a force across the Irish Sea to impose his rule on the
country. During the campaign, he became impressed by the
military qualities of a certain Colonel George Monck and
determined to give him command of his own regiment.
Cromwell created a completely new body of men, by taking
five companies from the Regiment of George Fenwick and
five from the Regiment of Sir Arthur Hazelrigg, then
Governor of Newcastle. Both these formations had been
raised as part of the New Model Army in 1645. Cromwell
formed the new Regiment on 13 August 1650 and gave it
the name, ''Monck's Regiment of Foot''. The modern-day
Coldstream Guards is directly descended from Monck's
Regiment of Foot and is therefore the oldest Regiment in
continuous service with the British Army.
 Scotland at this time still held great sympathy for the
Royalist cause. Charles Stuart, on his return from
exile, seized the offer of a Scottish army to help
reclaim the throne of England. On hearing this news,
Oliver Cromwell, now back from Ireland, marched north,
and decisively defeated Charles's army at the Battle of
Dunbar on 3 September 1650. Monck's Regiment of Foot
took part in the battle under Cromwell. Afterwards,
Cromwell ordered a special medal to be struck and
awarded to the officers and men of the New Model Army.
The Coldstream Guards are the only surviving Regiment to
have earned this early example of a campaign medal.
After Oliver Cromwell's death in 1658, Charles saw again
his opportunity to reclaim the English throne. On 1st
January 1660, General Monck assembled a large part of
his troops in the little town of Coldstream on the
Scottish border and decided to march to London. The
march took five weeks and Monck entered the capital on
3rd February for the first time. Despite some opposition
to his ideas, Monck managed to break the army's
domination of the Government and brought about the
election of a freely-chosen parliament, which met on
25th April 1660. One of the first acts of this new
Parliament was to vote for the return of the Monarchy.
On 25 May 1660, the King landed at Dover, where General
Monck welcomed him. During the journey to London, the
King showed his gratitude to General Monck by bestowing
on him the Order of the Garter, which is now the basis
of the Regimental cap star. On 26 August 1660,
Parliament passed an act ordering the disbandment of the
entire New Model Army. No exceptions, including General
Monck's regiments, were allowed, although one concession
was made: they should be the last to disappear.
This concession had far reaching effects. On Sunday, 6
January 1661, two days before Monck's Regiments were to
be disbanded, an armed revolt occurred against the King,
forcing an alarmed Parliament somewhat reluctantly to
call on ''Monck's Regiment of Foot'' for help. Monck's
men, veterans of a decade of hard campaigning, swiftly
quelled the rebels and ended the rioting. A grateful
Parliament repealed the order for disbandment. On 14
February 1661, Monck's Regiment of Foot paraded at Tower
Hill. The men symbolically laid down their arms and with
them their association with the New Model Army. They
were immediately ordered to take them up again as Royal
troops in the New Standing Army.
The new Regiment received the title of ''The Lord
General's Regiment of Foot Guards'' and became Household
Troops from that moment. A Royal Commission placed them
as the second senior Regiment of Household Troops.
However, the Regiment, to make its views clear on the
injustice of this decision, took as its motto the phrase
''Nulli Secundus'', or ''Second to None''. To this day,
the Regiment does not accept that it should ever be
referred to as ''The Second Guards''. Monck, who had
become the Duke of Albemarle, died in April 1670 and the
Lord General's Regiment was conferred upon the Earl of
Craven. From this time the Regiment became officially
known as the ''Coldstream Regiment of Foot Guards''.
The Regiment saw much active service over the next few
decades. In 1678, it served in Flanders before taking
part in the Battle of Sedgemore in 1687, which ended the
Monmouth Rebellion. The Regiment sent a detachment of
two officers and 130 other ranks to Tangier in 1680 to
form part of the King's Battalion stationed there. The
Regiment's first Battle Honour immortalized this
campaign. After 1688 and the accession to the Throne of
William and Mary, the Regiment embarked for Flanders
again and took part in the Battle of Walcourt (1689),
the Limden campaign (1693) and the Siege of Namur
(1695), the latter forming the second Battle Honour.
After several further major engagements, the 1st
Battalion came home in November 1697 after the signing
of the Peace of Ryswick.
The
18th Century
In July 1702, six companies of the Coldstream joined a
composite Battalion of Guards sent to Cadiz and Vigo. In
July 1704, 400 men of the Coldstream and 200 men of the
1st Guards formed a composite Guards battalion for
service in Portugal, seeing action in Gibraltar and
Spain as well.
The renewal of the war in Flanders again saw the
Regiment on active service and it took part in the
Battles of Oudenarde in 1708 and Malplaquet in 1709.
From 1715 to 1742, the Regiment enjoyed its first long
spell of peace. This was eventually broken by the
dispatch of seven companies to Spain, which culminated
in the surrender of Vigo in May 1742. King George II was
now on the throne of England and the 1st Battalion, with
two other Guards battalions, embarked once more for
service in Flanders to support of the cause of Maria
Theresa. The Battalion was present at, although not
heavily involved in, the Battle of Dettingen, the last
in which an English King personally commanded his
troops.
The Regiment played a distinguished part in the Battle
of Fontenoy in 1745. Although it did not result in a
Battle Honour, this was one of the most glorious battles
ever fought by the Brigade of Guards. The Brigade
marched for half a mile under heavy fire to halt thirty
yards from the French Guards. The French fired first,
doing little damage; the British then fired with deadly
effect and decimated the enemy ranks.
The 2nd Battalion proceeded to Flushing in 1747 and
joined the Allied Army until after the Peace of
Aix-la-Chapelle in 1749. In July 1760, the 2nd Battalion
went to Germany with two other Guards battalions to
campaigns under Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick and the
Marquis of Granby. It played a distinguished role in the
Battle of Wilhelmstal and at the Castle of Arnoneberg.
The Battalion returned home in 1763.
In 1776, following the outbreak of the War of
independence in the American Colonies, the three
regiments of Guards under the command of Colonel Mathew
of the Coldstream formed a composite force. The
Coldstream contingent consisted of 307 men of all ranks.
Early in 1777, this force formed two separate battalions
with Colonel Mathew elevated to Brigadier. The
battalions fought throughout the War and returned home
after Lord Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown to a
stronger American force of some 20,000 men, including
7000 French troops.
The
French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars
As a result of the French Revolution in 1793, Britain
joined the confederacy against the Republican
Government. Once more the Coldstream 1st Battalion
joined the 1st Battalions of the other two Guards
Regiments to form a Guards Brigade. The Brigade,
consisting of four battalions (the fourth being made up
of the Grenadier companies of the three Regiments),
embarked for the Continent. The Brigade distinguished
itself in subsequent actions, including the sieges of
Valenciennes and Lincelles, and in several small
engagements and skirmishes of less importance. The
Coldstream arrived home in May 1795. In 1799, brigaded
with the 1st Battalion 3rd Guards under General Burrard,
they embarked again for service in Holland. There they
took part in the campaign led by Sir Ralph Abercrombie
that ended with the Battle of Egmont-op-Zee.
After taking part in the expedition against Vigo, the
1st Battalion sailed to join the Army in Egypt, once
more under the familiar command of Sir Ralph
Abercrombie. A series of operations ended with the
surrender of the French Army of Occupation in Cairo. The
Regiment was awarded the distinctive badge of the
Sphinx, superscribed Egypt, for their conspicuous
service the campaign that blighted Napoleon's dream of
world conquest. The Battalion returned home after a
short stay in Malta.
The 1st Battalion was sent with a British Force to
Bremen in 1805 but returned home in 1806; in 1807, they
landed on the Danish coast and took part in the
investment of Copenhagen. The Battalion, still in the
same brigade, moved to Portugal in January 1809 to join
Sir Arthur Wellesley's Army. The Battalion served at the
Passage of Douro, the capture of Oporto and the Battle
of Talavera as well as the Sieges of Ciudad Rodrigo
Badajos, Burgos and San Sebastian, the Battles of
Fuentes d'Onor, Salamanca, Vittoria, Pyrenees, Bidassoa,
Nive, Nivelle and the investment of Bayonne.
The 2nd Battalion joined the Walcheren Expedition, where
they served as Flank Companies. These companies served
under General Graham at Cadiz and fought at the Battle
of Barossa. After this, the companies, along with those
of the other Regiments of Guards, returned home. In
1813, six companies of the 2nd Battalion proceeded to
Holland and took part in the unsuccessful but gallant
assault on Bergen-op-Zoom. They stayed garrisoned in
Brussels and later at Ath.
When Napoleon escaped to France from Elba, the companies
at Ath were reinforced from home by four companies and
the Headquarters of the 2nd Battalion, which now made
the
 2nd Battalion complete. The 2nd Battalion joined the
2nd Guards Brigade and moved with it towards Waterloo.
Wellington identified the Chateau, or farm complex, of
Hougoumont, in the right centre of his defensive line,
as one of three key points for breaking up French
attacks. He ordered a force consisting of the four light
companies from the 1st and 2nd Guards Brigades to occupy
and defend Hougoumont, under the command of Lieutenant
Colonel Lord Saltoun, 1st Guards and Lieutenant Colonel
James Macdonnell, 2nd Guards.
The French first attacked Hougoumont at 11.00 o''clock
on 18th June and continued to do so for the next eight
hours, creating a ''battle within a battle''. At one
desperate moment, a small French detachment succeeding
in entering the courtyard but were repulsed by a party
of 2nd and 3rd Guardsmen, led by Lieutenant Colonel
Macdonnell and including Sergeant Graham, who succeeded
in closing and holding the courtyard gates shut against
further assaults.
The troops in Hougoumont acted as a thorn in the side of
Napolean's left flank throughout the day by causing
delay and diversion of forces. It is estimated that the
3,500 British and German soldiers, either in or around
Hougoumont, kept over 14,500 French troops at bay. 8,000
French soldiers lost their lives trying to capture the
Chateau.
Sergeant Graham, Coldstream Guards and Sergeant Fraser,
3rd Guards each received a special medal for their brave
conduct. When a patriotic rector left £500 in his will
for ''the bravest man in England'', Wellington, asked to
adjudicate in this sensitive issue, nominated Lieutenant
Colonel Macdonnell for his role in closing the gates at
Hougoumont. Lieutenant Colonel Macdonnell promptly
shared the prize with Sergeant Graham. Today, the
Sergeants' Mess of the 1st Battalion remembers Sergeant
Graham's gallantry every year during the tradition of
''Hanging the Brick''.
The 2nd Battalion took part in the subsequent occupation
of Paris, remaining in France until the summer of 1816.
The 1st Battalion went to Portugal in 1827-28 and the
2nd Battalion to Canada during the troubles of 1838-42.
The latter campaign, the details of which are now
long-forgotten, is well remembered by the Regiment
because of the tale of ''Jacob'', a white goose whose
head and neck is preserved in Regimental Headquarters,
complete with a brass officer's gorget bearing the
inscription, ''Jacob, 2nd Coldstream Guards, Died on
Duty''. Jacob saved the lives of many Coldstreamers by
giving the alarm one night as a band of rebels, intent
on a surprise attack, approached the encampment. Jacob
returned to London with the 2nd Battalion as a treasured
pet and stayed in the Regiment for many years before
being run down by a hansom cab outside the Portman
Street Barracks. His loyalty is not forgotten and he
remains, in the annals of the Regiment, the only example
of any animal approaching the status of official mascot.
In 1831, by the sanction of King William IV, the
Coldstream adopted the bearskin cap that had previously
been worn by the Grenadier companies of the Regiment. A
red plume worn on the right side distinguished the
Coldstream from other Regiments.
The
Victorian Age
The 1st Battalion embarked for the Crimea in 1854 and
played an important part in the Battles of Alma,
Inkerman and Sevastopol. The Treaty of Paris brought
p eace on March 1856 and the 1st Battalion returned to
England in June of that year. Four Coldstreamers- Brevet
Majors Goodlake and Conolly and Privates Strong and Stanlake- received the Victoria Cross (which had been
instituted in early 1856) on their return.
From 1856 to 1882, the Regiment enjoyed a long period of
peace. However, in August 1882, the 2nd Battalion
embarked from Ireland to join the Guards Brigade for
service in Egypt against the rebels under Arabi Pashi.
The Brigade consisted of the 2nd Battalion Grenadier
Guards and the 1st Battalion Scots Guards, commanded by
Major General HRH the Duke of Connaught, KG. The arrival
of the 2nd Battalion Coldstream Guards completed the
Brigade. The campaign ended after the Battle of Tel-el-Kebir
and the 2nd Battalion returned home.
Early in 1885, the 1st Battalion embarked for the Suakin
Campaign and took part in the actions at Haskin and at
Tofrek, returning home in September. From 1885 to 1897,
the Regiment was once more left undisturbed by
operations or administrative change. In 1897, Parliament
sanctioned the addition of a 3rd Battalion to the
Regiment. HM Queen Victoria presented New Colours to the
new Battalion at Aldershot in July 1898. In 1899, on the
outbreak of the Boer War, the 2nd Battalion left for
South Africa, and the 1st Battalion also embarked from
Gibraltar for the same destination. By November, both
Battalions had encamped near the Orange River Station
and later played a very distinguished part in the
campaign that followed. On the conclusion of peace in
May 1902, they arrived home together at Aldershot.
On September 29 1906 the 3rd Battalion left England for
Egypt, returning in March 1911.
World War
I
On August Bank Holiday 1914, Great Britain declared war
on Germany and the Coldstream were immediately involved.
The 1st Battalion, as part of 1st Guards Brigade, and
the 2nd and 3rd Battalions, as part of 4th Guards
Brigade, all moved to France immediately. The Regiment
suffered heavily throughout the War: on 29 October 1914
at Gheluvelt, for example, the 1st Battalion suffered
such causalities that it had no officers left and only
80 men. Four days later, after reinforcement, it had
once more been reduced to no officers and 120 men only.
The Regiment took part in many of the War''s most
significant engagements, including the Retreat from Mons,
the battles at Marne, Aisne and Ypres during 1914 -
 15
and those at Loos, the Somme, Ginchy and the 3rd Battle
of Ypres in the War''s later stages.
The First World War brought significant change to the
Coldstream, including an additional, 4th, Battalion. For
instance, from 1915 onwards the Regiment was composed
mainly of short service officers and men who had joined
for the duration of hostilities but not for a life-long
career. The men of the Guards Brigade had always been
called ''Privates'' but on 22 November 1918 the King
granted them the title of ''Guardsmen'' ''…as a mark of
His Majesty's appreciation and pride of the splendid
services rendered by the Brigade of Guards during the
War''. During the post-war rationalization of the
British Army, the 4th (Pioneer) Battalion was
disbanded).
Two decades of peace followed the First World War. In
1936 all three Battalions of the Regiment received new
Colours from HM King Edward VII, and in the autumn of
the same year the 3rd Battalion helped suppress the
disorders in Palestine.
World
War II
On the outbreak of World War II in 1939, the 1st and 2nd
Battalions, despite being woefully under-equipped (in
common with the rest of the Army), took to the field
with the British Expeditionary Force in France. During
the following six years the Coldstream fought throughout
Europe and North Africa: France 1939 - 40, Egypt 1939
-42, North Africa 1942, Italy 1943 - 45, Normandy to
Baltic 1944 - 45. The battles are too numerous to detail
in this brief account, but during the War the Regiment
served both as dismounted Infantry and as Armoured
Battalions (equipped with Sherman and Churchill tanks).
Throughout the war they amply lived up to the Regimental
motto of ''Second to None''. Two additional battalions,
the 4th and 5th, were also raised during the war.
After the German surrender, the Guards Division gave up
its armour at a ceremonial parade attended by Field
Marshal Montgomery and became part of the Army of
Occupation as an Infantry Division in the area of
Cologne. The 4th and 5th Battalions disbanded in 1946
and distributed their personnel between the newly formed
1st and 2nd Guards Training Battalions. The 2nd
Battalion arrived home in September 1946 from Trieste
where it had been since the German surrender in Italy in
May 1945.
The Post-War Years
In the autumn of 1946, the Guards Division also
disbanded. The 1st Battalion came home to the barracks
at Pirbright. In 1947, volunteers from the Brigade of
Guards trained as parachute troops, with the Coldstream
contributing five officers and 150 other ranks. This
Guards contingent eventually became the No 1(Guards)
Independent Company The Parachute Regiment.
Full ceremonial dress was re-introduced in the summer of
1948 (khaki had been worn throughout the war years), but
the old Guard Order of Slade-Wallace equipment and
folded cape gave way to the waist belt and bayonet frog
only.
The 2nd Battalion sailed on September 5th 1948 with the
2nd Guards Brigade to the Far East and subsequently took
part in the operations against the Communists in
Northern Malaya. The 1st and 3rd Battalions deployed on
peacekeeping duties in Palestine from 1946 - 1948. The
3rd Battalion was placed in suspended animation in 1959.
Since then the Coldstream have been engaged in keeping
the peace in a number of locations including Kenya from
1959 - 1962, Aden in 1964, Mauritius in 1965, Cyprus in
1974 as part of the UN, and on numerous occasions in
Northern Ireland. The 1st Battalion was deployed to the
Gulf from London in 1990 and served in Bosnia in 1993-4
in an armoured infantry peacekeeping role.
In 1993, the 2nd Battalion was also placed in suspended
animation as a result of defence cutbacks. No 7 Company
now carry the Colours of the 2nd Battalion.
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