Читать книгу The Royal Regiment, and Other Novelettes онлайн

40 страница из 49

The latter conviction, which had come strongly home to the heart of Roland Ruthven, filled him with sincere regret, for he loved the Royals, and was proud of them. A regiment, old in history, is, says some one (Kinglake, we think), like the immortal gods, ever young and ever glorious.

And great, indeed, in fame, rich in glory, and old in history, are the First Royal Scots—the most ancient regiment in the world, for their traditions go back in an unbroken line to the twenty-four Scottish Guards of Charles III. of France; thence to the Scottish Garde du Corps which saved the life of St. Louis in 1254 in Palestine, and fought in all the wars of France, at Agincourt, the conquest of Naples, and at Pavia, where they were nearly cut to pieces; even Francis was taken prisoner.

In after years there were engrafted on them the remains of those gallant Scottish bands which served in Bohemia under Sir Andrew Gray, and under Sir John Hepburn in all the wars of Gustavus Adolphus, and as the regiment of the Lords Douglas and Dunbarton—Dunbarton of "the druns"—they returned to Scotland after the Restoration, and now at this day their standards are so loaded by embroidered trophies, that the blue silk—the national colour of Scotland—is nearly hidden, while the mere list of the battles and sieges in which they have been engaged—ever with glory and honour—occupy ten closely printed pages of the War Office Records. Even their rivals for three hundred years, the famous Regiment de Picardie, could not equal this, though in the French service they were wont to quiz the Royals as having been "the Guards of Pontius Pilate who slept upon their posts."