[7] The unit took part in the 1743 Battle of Dettingen, after which the Household Cavalry Brigade was formed for the first time, comprising the Life Guards, Horse Grenadiers, and Blues.

Granby was depressed by his son's death and that of his wife too, and the loss of his stud, so he decided to set up a Widows' Fund, and to provide better regimental medical care.

The famous 'Charge' on trumpet and bugle sent Granby's men into history: For we Rout'd all before us – Down precipices, over hollow ways we went like a torrent as the French general term'd it, which struck such a panick so that they [led] without firing a shot.

The regiment was present in the summer at the Villinghausen when they took a force twice their size led by Charles, Prince of Soubise, with the flexible use of artillery fire; the cavalry unable to gallop in the terrain.

[10] If Granby's grief at his son's loss was saddening, the crippling reductions to The Blues, according to William Pitt the Elder doomed "the bravest men the world ever saw to be sent to starve in country villages and forget their prowess.

[12] On returning to civil duties again in 1795 The Blues were expected to maintain public order in Loughborough and Coventry; developing the doctrinal laws of absolute military necessity.

[a] Their new colonel was the rich Hugh Percy, 2nd Duke of Northumberland, who used experience, had served in the American wars, and now wished to spend a small fortune on the regimental band.

Horse Guards' military secretary Colonel Henry Torrens had told the regimental commander, Sir Robert Chambre Hill that such appointments were unauthorised.

[23]Having discounted any principle of customary succession, Wellington felt free to promote on merit, which he achieved from 1813, already considering the Blues as part of the Household Cavalry.

The Oxford Blues were in the mid-column of Sir John Eiley's Household Brigade, when they marched in the early hours of 16 June 1815 towards Quatre Bras via Enghien down narrow Belgian lanes.

They fought Michel Ney's cavalry to a standstill, until Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher's Prussians appeared to the left, and recovered the hilltop commanded by La Haye.

[33]Trumpeter Tom Evans who had saved General Robert Hill's life, retired to start a pub in Old Windsor, called the Oxford Blue.

[42] Rising professionalism meant a better educated, trained and equipped cavalry in late 19th and 20th centuries increasingly drew officers from London and the southern counties.

The Duke, however, did not believe in bucking the chain of command, and declined to exercise extraordinary influence outside the fact that The Blues had become part of the Household Cavalry on 29 January 1820.

Dr Cosmo Gordon Logie was the crusading Medical Officer, of The Blues, who wrote an article condemning some barracks as unfit for human habitation.

Horse Guards had thought a Transport Corps unnecessary, and now men lay dying of cholera through lack of provision for fresh food, and clean water.

Sir Colin Campbell commanding the Highland Brigade, reinforced by Raglan's infantry, at 5 am had heard the Russian General Pavel Liprandi was moving 25,000 cavalry in 35 squadrons forward to take the Allied positions in front of Sevastopol.

The Heavy Brigade of Scots Greys, Inniskillings, Dragoons and Blues were formed up by Scarlett as the black looking mass of 2,000 Russian Hussars and Lancers appeared over the hill.

At Kassassin Lock Graham held his own "till the Cavalry came up and under Lowe, by moonlight, made a brilliant charge, destroying all before them, riding over 12 guns and entirely routing the Egyptians".

[61] Both Victoria and the Prince of Wales, who was temporarily staying at Bad Homburg wrote the regiments with congratulations[62] On 21 October Cambridge went to Regent's Park Barracks to inspect the Squadron of the Blues.

[70]Since being made colonel of the Blues, Lord Wolseley took great care to ask the Queen permission to send a squadron from each of the three Household regiments to South Africa.

At 6 am General Christiaan de Wet shelled Broadwood's encampment, before they broke and marched into an enfolding trap; sending two batteries ahead to fall into the waiting Boers lap at the Koornspruit.

3 miles upstream Lieutenant-Colonel Fenwick and the Blues dashed down Waterval Drift towards the spruit under heavy Boer cross-fire; Lieutenant Meade was wounded.

On 3 May Broadwood despatched a squadron led by Arthur Gore, Viscount Sudley, a captain in the Royal Horse Guards to gallop to exploit between two converging enemy forces of 4,000 and 1,000 men respectively over the Brandfort Ridge through a gauntlet of fire left and right.

[f] On 10 May the Blues detachment under Colonel Fenwick bivouacked in the east of Ventersburg township, Two days later French's Winburg Column was able wheel round to capture the Boer HQ at Kroonstad with 1st and 4th Cavalry brigades.

In his journal, Captain Meade exonerated Major-General Hamilton for any blame attached to de Wet's escape through Olifant's Nek, where he hid out in the mountains until returning southwards weeks later.

His simple prosody such as "An Outsider" and "A friend" and "Sesame and Lilies", said to be in the style of Robert Browning, were symbolic of an innocence of youth on horseback cut down in his prime, lost to his father.

I feel confident that since this reorganization has become necessary, it will be accepted with the loyalty and devotion with which every turn of fortune has been met by British Officers and men throughout the war, and that the Household Cavalry regiments will in their new role as Machine Gun Battalions maintain their old esprit de corps and add further honours to their very distinguished record.

[95]At Villeselve some horsemen from the Royals, Dragoon Guards and 10th Hussars saw some infantry in the sunken lanes "The Germans had taken up what positions they could in the open",[96] and wheeling round made, what was the last cavalry manoeuvre of its kind in Europe.

But cavalry actions were heavily restricted due to the crater-pocked landscape of shell holes lined with barbed wire presenting "a death trap" to horses.