page_title: Royal Horse Guards
section_title: Reform at Horse Guards
hierarchical_section_title: Royal Horse Guards / Origins and history / Reform at Horse Guards
context_page_description: The Royal Regiment of Horse Guards 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 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 to form the Blues and Royals in 1969.
context_section_description: On returning to civil duties again in 1795 The Blues were expected to maintain public order in Loughborough and Coventry; developing the doctrinal laws of absolute military necessity.  They also patrolled the shoreline for smugglers.  The Blues for the most part remained in the East Midlands. In 1788 and 1789 The Blues were required to come to London to mount up the King's Life Guard, as there were inadequate personnel in the Life Guards thanks to reorganization and reform.  The lack of recruits threatened the Expeditionary Forces viability in Holland.  The Blues were part of a contingent of 3,500 cavalry who departed Northampton with Sir Charles Turner.
  In June 1793 The Blues were royal reviewed at Northampton.  Commanded by Lt-Colonel Sir Charles Turner, they disembarked at Ostend on 15 June.  They marched to join the allied army at Valenciennes, being besieged by the Duke of Coburg.  The Blues and The Royals encountered the French at Dunkirk in a sea board march. Lieutenant Board was unhorsed and killed by a cannonball.  Skirmishes continued all year, and by November they retired to winter in Ghent.  The new Depot System worked well, and 1794 started with promise of success.  The Blues were in Major General Mansel's brigade, as the allies laid siege to Landrecies.  Mansel was criticized as being slow to engage the enemy, when a large French force left Cambrai on 23 April 1794.  Mansel was still in command when the allied army took a position north of Cambrai on the Beaumont road.  Mansel vowed to avenge the shame of 24th, he told the Duke of York, which he did charging and scattering the enemy, but was killed.  The French line caught totally offguard were broken in the open, losing 5,000 men.  The Blues lost 15 men, Quartermaster John Kipling, and 25 horses.  In total allied casualties were 150.  The regiment earned the epithet "Immortals" in this action.
  Now commanded by Ralph Dundas, the Blues and the Royals pursued the French infantry northwards from Beaumont trapping them in a quagmire near the village of Baisieux.  A French general was fought to a standstill and run through by Private Joseph White. The battered French army retreated to Tournai.  York moved into Roubaix, but the Austrian Emperor had run out on the allies, and returned to Vienna.  The Blues returned to the depot at Northampton.
caption: Field Marshal Henry Conway who became colonel of the Regiment in 1770
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