The life of the Regiment began in Flanders. At many times in the last three hundred years the towns and villages of the Low Countries have been familiar to men of the 1st Guards. They fought in 1658, and again in 1940, against great odds, on the road between Furnes and Dunkirk. Under the great Duke of Marlborough they bore their part in the victories of Ramillies, Oudenarde and Malplaquet. At Waterloo in 1815 they won their name, a name to which great honour was added a century later in the mud and suffering of the Western Front. In 1944 they entered Brussels at the head of a victorious British Army. They have returned gloriously many times to Flanders, and in Flanders they were first formed.
King Charles II was in exile, and England lay under the military dictatorship of Cromwell, the Lord Protector. In May of that year [1656] the King formed his Royal Regiment of Guards at Bruges, under the Colonelcy of Lord Wentworth. The Regiment was first recruited from the loyal men who had followed their King into exile rather than live under tyranny, and their reward came in 1660 when the King was restored to his throne…..
Since its formation the Regiment has fought in almost every major campaign of the British Army. It fought against the Moors at Tangiers (1680) and in America (1776-82) and even took part as Marines in the naval wars against the Dutch (1793). They also fought in the Napoleonic Wars, Waterloo (1815), Crimea (1854-56). Tel-el-Kebir (1882) the Boer War (1899-1902) and both World Wars.
--And little Elisabeth is starting to look like here mom...and Gabriel!!!!--How handsome! 
