The regiment was raised in December 1673 by Sir Walter Vane, one of three 'English' units in the Dutch Anglo-Scots Brigade, a mercenary formation whose origins went back to 1586.

[3] In June 1685, the brigade was sent to England in 1685 to help James II suppress the Monmouth Rebellion and returned without seeing action; while there, the unit was designated the 6th Regiment of Foot.

[4] During the November 1688 Glorious Revolution, it accompanied William III to England in 1688; en route, a ship carrying four of its companies was captured by HMS Swallow, but the soldiers were released after James went into exile.

Three companies were detached to garrison Charlemont Fort after its capture in May, while the rest fought at the Battle of the Boyne in July, suffering heavy casualties.

[8] Following the battle, it was part of a detachment under Lieutenant-General James Douglas that unsuccessfully attempted to capture the Jacobite-held town of Athlone.

[9] After Babington died of disease, Prince George of Hesse-Darmstadt became the new Colonel in January 1691; he commanded the regiment at Aughrim, and the Second Siege of Limerick in August 1691 that ended the war in Ireland.

[13] The Treaty of Ryswick ended the Nine Years War in 1697; Parliament was determined to reduce costs and by 1699, the English military was less than 7,000 men.

[15] When the War of the Spanish Succession began, the regiment took part in the 1702 Cádiz Landing; in 1703, it was sent to the West Indies, a notoriously unhealthy posting in an expedition that achieved very little.

[20] In 1739, commercial tensions with Spain led to the War of Jenkins' Ear; in January 1741, the unit returned to the West Indies and took part in the expedition to Cartagena de Indias, modern Colombia.

[21] The survivors returned to England in December 1742; the unit was brought up to strength as a result of the 1740–1748 War of the Austrian Succession, then sent to Scotland.

[33] At the Heights of Echalar, in August 1813, Wellington watched the regiment's attack against 6,000 French in rugged positions in the mountains and described it as "The most gallant and the finest thing he had ever witnessed".

[41] The 2nd battalion started the century in South Africa, where they were engaged in heavy fighting in the early phases of the Second Boer War.

After a large portion of the men were struck down with malarial fever, they were in August 1901 transferred to Bermuda to guard Boer prisoners.

The battalion returned home in November 1902, after the end of the war earlier that year, to be stationed at Raglan barracks, Devonport, Plymouth.

[48] Bernard Montgomery served with the battalion seeing action at the Battle of Le Cateau and during the retreat from Mons in August 1914 and was awarded the Distinguished Service Order at that time.

[49] The 2nd Battalion landed at Zeebrugge as part of the 22nd Brigade in the 7th Division in October 1914 for service on the Western Front and then moved to Italy in November 1917.

[48] Second Lieutenant Euan Lucie-Smith, who was commissioned into the 1st Battalion, was one of the first mixed-heritage infantry officers in a regular British Army regiment and, on 25 April 1915, the first killed in World War I.

[50] The 1/5th, 1/6th, 1/7th and 1/8th Battalions landed at Le Havre as part of Warwickshire Brigade in the South Midland Division in March 1915 for service on the Western Front and then moved to Italy in November 1917.

[48] The 2/5th, 2/6th, 2/7th and 2/8th Battalions landed in France as part of the 182nd (2nd Warwickshire) Brigade in the 61st (2nd South Midland) Division in May 1916 for service on the Western Front.

The battalion only very briefly fought in the final stages of the Burma Campaign under Lieutenant-General Bill Slim, an officer who served with the regiment during the Great War and who led the British Fourteenth Army and took part in Operation Dracula, the capture of Rangoon, with the 4th Indian Infantry Brigade, part of the 26th Indian Infantry Division, in April 1945 but saw little contact with the enemy and, on 20 May, the battalion received orders to prepare to, again, return to India.

In late September 1939, the battalion was sent overseas to France to join the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) on the Franco-Belgian border, where it remained for many months, not involved in any major engagements.

The battalion, now under command of Lieutenant Colonel Philip Hicks (an officer of the regiment who would serve with distinction in the war), fought in the Battle of France in May 1940, fighting at the defence of the Escaut and Wormhoudt, where they became embroiled in the Wormhoudt massacre and fought on the Ypres-Comines Canal during the retreat to Dunkirk, from where they were evacuated to England, most of the remaining men arriving on 1 June 1940.

From D-Day until the end of the war, the 2nd Battalion, Royal Warwickshire Regiment lost 286 officers and men killed in action, with nearly another 1,000 all ranks wounded, missing or suffering from exhaustion.

It transferred to the Royal Artillery in 1940 and later became a Light Anti-Aircraft unit and then an Anti-Tank regiment that saw action in the Burma Campaign, as part of 36th Indian Infantry Division.

[64] The battalion served with the 59th in France during Operation Overlord, the Battle of Normandy, arriving in late June 1944 as part of the British Second Army.

After being evacuated at Dunkirk, during which it was reduced to 8 officers and 134 other ranks,[63] the battalion spent many years on home defence anticipating a German invasion and remained in the United Kingdom for the rest of the war.

However, both remained in the United Kingdom throughout the war, both briefly serving in Northern Ireland until being reduced to reserve training battalions, with the 9th being disbanded in late 1944.

As well as being assigned to a new division, the battalion also received a new commanding officer – Lieutenant Colonel Alastair Pearson – who would eventually rise to become one of the most highly respected and decorated soldiers in the history of the Parachute Regiment.

The latter colour may have originated with the period of Dutch service under the House of Orange or simply been an arbitrary decision under James II.