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By Lawrence Weaver
Those who read this excellent book will not be likely to commit this fault. There they may read the long pedigree of The Royal Scots, who date, so to speak, their legal existence to 1662, but who may be traced long before then, and indeed earned from their antiquity the playful nickname of “Pontius Pilate's Bodyguard.” They will see how ineffaceably The Royal Scots have stamped their name on almost every battlefield in which our army has been engaged; how they have been commanded and trusted by such consummate captains as Turenne, Marlborough and Wellington. It has, indeed, been their habit to fight all over the world; there is scarcely a region where they have not left their mark. That is the way now with all our regiments, but The Royal Scots have been longer at it. And now they are marching gallantly into the burning fiery furnace of this world conflagration.
Just now we can think of nothing but this war which is to make or mar the world. Each soldier of the King, great or small, who is fighting in this campaign, fights that we may breathe freely once more and be relieved from the nightmare of a brutal and odious tyranny. Each soldier and sailor, then, is the champion of civilization and liberty as well as of his country. He will conquer, as he did the less barbarous armies of the Zulus and the Mahdists, forces trained, like the Prussian, for the injury and domination of their neighbours. He is fighting for as sacred and vital a cause as any Crusader, against venomous gases, poisoned wells, the piratical submerging of innocent vessels, the tramping underfoot of the law of nations, and the other abominations of Prussian culture. And those who cannot serve strain anxious eyes to discern all that we can of our champions and their deeds.
But in a closer fashion we are concerned with our neighbours who have left their homes in our province of Lothian, be they mansions or cottages, to fight for us. For them even more than for ourselves this Story is written. We wish them to know the full splendour of the tradition which they carry like their colours. Nothing surely to them or to us can be more inspiriting than the record of the centuries of valour which they represent. They have in this war proved already that they yield nothing to their forbears in achievement, yet they may well wish to know the details of the traditions that they inherit and emulate.
We at any rate, men, women and children of the Lothians, Edinburgh and Peebles, the romantic county with the unromantic name, desire to know all about our famous regiment, and so we welcome this book. There will need to be another volume added to it when this war is over.
Honour, then, to The Royal Scots, bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh, among the choicest of our fighting men, whose record is in this book, as on the field of battle. We who cannot stand with them must at least try all we can to sustain them and fill their ranks.
You can read this book at http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...cots/index.htm
Alastair
PREFACE
By the EARL OF ROSEBERY AND MIDLOTHIAN, K.G., K.T.
It is well at this time to he reminded of the history of The Royal Scots, for we in the Lothians think that it is not sufficiently borne in mind. There are so many famous regiments in Scotland that ours, though the senior, stands some chance of being overlooked.By the EARL OF ROSEBERY AND MIDLOTHIAN, K.G., K.T.
Those who read this excellent book will not be likely to commit this fault. There they may read the long pedigree of The Royal Scots, who date, so to speak, their legal existence to 1662, but who may be traced long before then, and indeed earned from their antiquity the playful nickname of “Pontius Pilate's Bodyguard.” They will see how ineffaceably The Royal Scots have stamped their name on almost every battlefield in which our army has been engaged; how they have been commanded and trusted by such consummate captains as Turenne, Marlborough and Wellington. It has, indeed, been their habit to fight all over the world; there is scarcely a region where they have not left their mark. That is the way now with all our regiments, but The Royal Scots have been longer at it. And now they are marching gallantly into the burning fiery furnace of this world conflagration.
Just now we can think of nothing but this war which is to make or mar the world. Each soldier of the King, great or small, who is fighting in this campaign, fights that we may breathe freely once more and be relieved from the nightmare of a brutal and odious tyranny. Each soldier and sailor, then, is the champion of civilization and liberty as well as of his country. He will conquer, as he did the less barbarous armies of the Zulus and the Mahdists, forces trained, like the Prussian, for the injury and domination of their neighbours. He is fighting for as sacred and vital a cause as any Crusader, against venomous gases, poisoned wells, the piratical submerging of innocent vessels, the tramping underfoot of the law of nations, and the other abominations of Prussian culture. And those who cannot serve strain anxious eyes to discern all that we can of our champions and their deeds.
But in a closer fashion we are concerned with our neighbours who have left their homes in our province of Lothian, be they mansions or cottages, to fight for us. For them even more than for ourselves this Story is written. We wish them to know the full splendour of the tradition which they carry like their colours. Nothing surely to them or to us can be more inspiriting than the record of the centuries of valour which they represent. They have in this war proved already that they yield nothing to their forbears in achievement, yet they may well wish to know the details of the traditions that they inherit and emulate.
We at any rate, men, women and children of the Lothians, Edinburgh and Peebles, the romantic county with the unromantic name, desire to know all about our famous regiment, and so we welcome this book. There will need to be another volume added to it when this war is over.
Honour, then, to The Royal Scots, bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh, among the choicest of our fighting men, whose record is in this book, as on the field of battle. We who cannot stand with them must at least try all we can to sustain them and fill their ranks.
You can read this book at http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...cots/index.htm
Alastair