The Guards; Or, The Household Troops Of England - Softcover

Michael Rafter

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0461818965 ISBN 13: 9780461818963

Publisher: HardPress

Synopsis

The Guards; Or, The Household Troops Of England by Michael Rafter is a compact, popular military history of England’s Guards from their Restoration-era origins in 1660 through early eighteenth-century campaigns. The volume foregrounds the discipline, appearance, and combat record of the Life Guards, Coldstream Guards, Grenadiers, and related detachments, treating them as both ceremonial royal guards and effective fighting troops. It situates the regiments within England’s volatile political and religious upheavals—Rye-house Plot, the Glorious Revolution, and Jacobite disturbances—while tracing their home-front duties during plague, the Great Fire of London, and domestic riots alongside foreign service in the Netherlands, Tangier, and the Iberian Peninsula. A comparative thread with France’s Imperial Guard underscores differences in strategy and patriotism, even as the Guards undergo modernization—recruitment, pay, rank, grenadiers, bayonets, cartridges, and tests for Catholics. The narrative intertwines coronation ceremonies, marches, and parade culture with descriptions of uniforms and equipment, and it presents Napoleonic-era guard portraits as context for understanding the enduring symbolic and operational heart of England’s military establishment.

Edition details

• Publisher: HardPress
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0461818965
• ISBN 13: 9780461818963
• Binding: Paperback