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More than 5000 entries on the history, culture and life of Britain (published in 1993 by Macmillan, now out of print)
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Foot Guards
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The sovereign's personal bodyguard and the elite of the British infantry, dating back to the *Restoration. The First Regiment of Foot Guards, the Grenadiers, derives from a bodyguard formed at Bruges in 1656 during the exile of Charles II. The second, the Coldstream, is older in its foundation but not in the service of the sovereign; it was raised by Cromwell in 1650 as a regiment for General *Monck, and derives its name from the march south with him in 1660 from Coldstream, a small town on the Scottish border. The Scots Guards, raised in 1662, have been linked with the other two regiments since the Act of *Union (1707).
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The name of the 1st Guards was changed to Grenadiers in 1815 as a token of their defeat of Napoleon's Grenadiers at Waterloo. They adopted at the same time the French bearskin as a headdress, subsequently taken up by the other regiments. The Irish Guards were formed in 1900 and the Welsh Guards in 1915, to complete the present Guards Division. Between them they carry out the daily event of *changing the guard at Buckingham Palace; and a battalion of one of the regiments performs the annual ceremony of *trooping the colour.
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