The Uniforms of the Household Cavalry

now this video was originally going to be just a very basic overview of the lifeguards as a whole we were going to talk about their uniforms or history as well as their modern-day practices but reading through just their uniforms alone I realized there is a great deal of material that I didn't really want to skip over any of them so rather than talking about just the uniforms of the lifeguards for a very short amount of time and then largely repeating a lot of this information in the next video on the Blues and Royals let's just combine the two in one comprehensive video on the uniforms of the household cavalry [Music] now the most immediate way to tell these two regiments apart would be their tunics the lifeguards wearing the bright scarlet tunics and the Blues and Royals wearing a dark blue appropriate to their name often time above these tunics we will see the cavalry wearing bright polished Kier asses originally from about 1661 until 1730 these cure asses were just a very dark black and that there was no ceremonial purpose to them at all they were only really worn in the field between 1730 and 1820 in fact they didn't have cure asses at all with the polished kiosks which we know nowadays being introduced in 1821 it's remained largely unchanged since that time we gone the armor the Life Guards have they're very beautiful white plumed helmets with B Strep being held underneath the lower lip which yes that does sometimes cause complications it's important to keep in mind that these straps aren't so much intended to actually hold the helmet on the head but rather they're planned to deflect saber blows to the face we blues Royals on the other hand have their red plumed helmets with the straps being held in a much more comfortable position at least so it seems underneath the chin the current helmet design was introduced first in 1842 by Prince Albert's to replace the old bearskin style helmets which were used around 1830s there have been minor changes to the plume and the spike in 1856 and 81 respectively but otherwise how much are largely unchanged another small difference between the two regiments the Life Guards you might notice have a sort of bulbous onion shaped top to there plume rather than the Blues and Royals which have it loosely hanging down this originates to the practice of the Second Life Guards before the amalgamation of the 1st and 2nd we'll talk more about that knee history video coming up and it comes from the way that Second Life Guards would wash tie off and then dry the plume while cleaning it some more similarities each regiment has their thigh high riding jack boots made of leather the design of which dates from 1812 each regiment on their backs also carries a cartridge box and these are from the days black-powder firearms when the soldiers would be carrying carbines and pistols as well as theirs these boxes have remained more or less unchanged since 1856 carrying those cartridge boxes we have white cross belt each with a red flask Korda which used to carry the powder flasks again back when black powder was actually needed in the field now the Blues had always wore these worn these red cords with the lifeguards adopting the flask words in 1829 at first the first lifeguards would wear red and second lifeguards actually wore blue red cords but when they were amalgamated in 1922 the regiment decided to stick with the red cords both regiments also have their plain white pantaloons these are for ceremonial wear before 1812 there was a actually a variety of colors with the Blues and Royals actually wearing red at one point for that pantaloons although after 1812 these were standardized with both regiments wearing the rather smart-looking pure white both regiments of course have their thick white gauntlets and carry very ornate cavalry sabers the designs of which have of course varied over the years and officers tend to have as usual more fancy looking ones but more or less the design has remained rather standard and at the very last for the more colorful bits of this ceremonial kit we have during the winter months or otherwise just general adverse weather conditions the Life Guards wear cloaks of bright red with blue collars and facings with the Blues and Royals wearing as you may have guessed dark blue tunics with red facings moving I should hope rapidly onto the uniforms of the officers we have there the same basic color scheme for their tunics although their collars and cuffs are much more ornate with golden designs as well as more decorative tales their cross belts and slings as well are bit more pretentious a beautiful-looking with the golden color and of course their most clear marker would be the golden shoulder cords on their breastplates other than say a bit more shiny medals or bit of a fancier sword and things like that you know normal office serial type things their outfits are more or less similar to the uniforms of the troopers in the same pantaloons and boots and all those sorts of things but of course there are a number of uniforms outside of this the the most ceremonial if you will that they have the first of which we can begin with the undress uniform which consists of a frock coat and overalls they have small white gloves rather than large gauntlets Wellington riding boots rather than be much more uncomfortable looking jackboots and a forage cap the undress uniform is most commonly worn when inspecting troops under arms when they're in full dress we also have the number one dress which consists of a blue jacket with standing color Wellington boots short white gloves forage cap as well as the cross belt with cartridge box the officer's sword and shoulder cords may also be worn and in the presence of a member of the royal family the cross belts and slings become gold rather than their regular white we also have the number two dress service dress which consists of the khaki brown jacket and tie along with white shirt brown leather gloves brown boots and trousers as well as a brown Sam Browne belt that meaning simply that the cross belt and the waist belt are one in the same unit if you will a sword in a steel scabbard may also be worn besides these three alternate uniforms if you will there of course a number of uniforms based on climate conditions and if their training or in combat situations and what-have-you we won't go into the detail of each and every single one of those although you can find more information at the website links down below lastly we have the officers mess dress which consists of a mess jacket waistcoat overalls and forage cap with only minor variances between the two different regiments and cut and design and these are really only worn during formal evening events such as say dining at st. James's Palace as for the enlisted men of the equivalent uniforms they say number one dress number two just things like that are largely the same for the enlisted men and the noncommissioned officers are just generally less decorations and when it comes to things like the rest dress not used nearly as much now with that covering the basic discussion of the uniforms of the household cavalry as a whole there are too much more indistinct looking uniforms which are still worthy of mentioning these being of the farriers and the musicians of the regiment's but before we get into that I would like to take a small aside and talk for a short bit about the horses themselves of the regiment's now from the earliest days of the two regiments the horses were provided privately generally by the men who would actually be riding them and because of this you might see a great variety of colours of heights and things like that on the field at any given time we do know that by at least around 60 ninety-two ii lifeguards were using specifically black horses but again the origins of that is very difficult to figure out exactly when or why that may have taken place it's largely based around just paintings from the time period the practice of individuals purchasing their own horses though would linger for quite some time as even up until the Second World War at least officers were required to actually purchase their own mounts nowadays of course all of the horses are directly purchased from the Royal Army veterinary Corps most of them coming from Ireland and being purchased around three or four years of age they are selected by members of the veterinary Corps and by the riding master who is responsible for overseeing their training the general requirements for the horses to be purchased are that they must be at least 16 hands taller about 5 foot 4 inches or thereabouts and unbroken the horses chosen for musicians do prove a few exceptions to this rule but we'll cover that later it takes about 8 to 10 months to train each horse and about 16 weeks so to train the rider first they do it in a full khaki uniform and then in the proper ceremonial kit here we have a short video that I found at the Household Cavalry Museum over at Horse Guards in London about the training of the men and the horses so I will leave you to that and talk with you again in the next Oh 2 minutes or so it's pretty important we stopped off to stop the shadow [Music] [Music] sit down true story so I was going as a little bit nervous about approaching submittals six times five of those was when I put it back on [Music] though so I talking the less [Music] now earlier on I mentioned the farriers and while we can talk more specifically about their actual role you know about what they actually do in the future suffice to say for now there's sort of combination blacksmith and vet as they're responsible for shoeing the horses of the army now each farrier regardless of if they're a member of the Life Guards of the Blues and Royals wear the same dark blue tunics though the farrier of the lifeguards is always distinguishable because the plume on his helmet is actually black rather than white with the Blues and Royals farriers getting the standard red farriers are always found bringing up the rear in any significant parade of the troops and they are most infamous for carrying these large axes rather than the traditional sabers traditionally historically I should say these axes would have been used to dispatch wounded horses as well as to collect their hooves which again we can talk more about why they would do that in future videos again spice to say for now the hooves would carry information used to identify which horses had fallen in battle and such in line with their role as the shooters of each regiment their tunics also have very distinctive horseshoe insignias and lastly this brings us to the musicians who when compared to the troopers of either regiment look dramatically different this is of course mainly due to their brightly colored state coats now these coats date back at the very latest to 1661 and have remained remarkably unchanged to this very day now as you may be aware going back to the 17th century the relationship between charles ii and the parliament was either tedious at best and while parliament controlled the treasury they refused to fund for the livery of the Cavalry's musicians so charles ii was actually forced to pay for the uniforms out of his own private funds and the musicians were clad in the livery of the king the state coats as such are a bright golden and red colored each one being decorated with the cypher of the current reigning monarch currently of course being ER 2 for elizabeth regina ii queen elizabeth ii in latin and here you can see an old Victorian coat with an ER I'm sure you can guess who that one's for other than this changing of the cypher between each generation though the coat has remained again remarkably unchanged over the past 350 years the only real change is being to the standing collar and the shoulder wings in addition to their very shiny state coats the musicians wear jockey caps which date much later to about the late 18th century their original shape was with a much larger and more rounded peak with the modern design being introduced in 1881 now these lovely uniforms aside if chance should have it that no member of royalty or the Mayor of London happens to be present for the occasion the musicians often will revert to their non state dress recognizable as the standard uniforms from their original regiments while there's not all that much to say about the instruments themselves or at least not much that I could say about the topic the two great big kettle drums are always a favorite the horse which carries them must be particularly strong and well-trained each one actually takes around a year and a half to fully trained for the job and each drum horse is actually a hearty Clydesdale cross I don't actually know if they're hearty but I don't know they look rather hearty I assume them to be in any case these horses often carry a very heroic names I think such as Achilles and Hector Alexander the greater Jimmy and the drums themselves often rather ornate and usually clad in rather royal coverings each of those drums is actually a total of 68 pound and when you combine the two of those with the weight of the rider and saddle as well it seems rather obvious why it's just any old horse would do add in the fact of course that they have to put up with a lot more noise than the regular horses and know they do not get cotton stuffed in their ears also note might be the trumpeters of the regiment their instruments as well by the Royal coat of arms and their horses in very stark contrast to the rest of the house'll cavalry are always a very pale gray trumpeters of course where the traditional means of communication between various cavalry regiments and their commands in the field a role which they filled really up until the last days of cavalry actually being used on the battlefield the trumpets themselves are valveless and because of this they're limited in the number of notes that they can actually play they're usually used in fanfares for the monarchy we only see them right before the singing of the national anthem as well as during long guards over it for Scots parade of course the practice of using trumpeters to hearken the arrival of nobility or royalty date far earlier than just the reign of charles ii well my goodness I certainly did manage to drone on about uniforms for a lot longer than I I certainly thought I would be able to in any case our next video will be about the history of the Life Guards Affairs regiment in the household cavalry if you have any specific questions about the history of the Life Guards or about their uniforms about how they operate nowaday is that anything like that be sure to ask and I'll see if I can't I include it next section or otherwise just answer the question in the comments below as I always do and until that time comes I am and I shall remain dear viewer your most humble and obedient of servants [Music]

Channel: Brandon F.

Views: 277,800

Rating: 4.9123769 out of 5

Keywords: household cavalry, blues and royals, life guards, uniforms, parade, dress, kit, swords, helmet, tunic, coat, breastplate, cuirass, musician, state coat, royal cipher, farrier, axe, helmet plume, cavalry, horses, queens horses, royal horses, history, war, charles II, no 1 dress, no 2 dress, mess dress, officer, trooper, training, drum horse, trumpeter, royal fanfare

Id: x4M-PhUNtB0

Length: 16min 1sec (961 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 03 2017