[5] When the Nine Years War began in 1689, the first battalion was sent to Flanders; the second served in Ireland, and fought at the 1690 Battle of the Boyne, before joining the First in 1691.

During the 1740-1748 War of the Austrian Succession, the First Battalion served at Dettingen in 1743 and Fontenoy in April 1745, a British defeat famous for the Gardes françaises and Grenadier Guards inviting each other to fire first.

However, the Jacobite army turned back at Derby, and in July 1747, the Second Battalion was sent to Flanders, where it fought at Lauffeld, before the war ended with the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle.

[9] In the absence of a modern police force, the military was often used for crowd control; in Memoirs of a Georgian Rake, William Hickey describes a detachment from the "Third Regiment of Guards, principally Scotchmen" dispersing a crowd attempting to release the radical politician, John Wilkes from prison in 1768.

It took part in the crossing of the River Douro on 12 May, an operation that ended so successfully that the French Army were in full retreat to Amarante after the actions in Oporto and its surrounding areas.

Their light companies, commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel James Macdonnell, held Hougoumont Farm throughout the battle, a key defensive position on the right flank of the Allied army.

In North Africa, in March 1943, the 2nd Battalion took part in the defensive Battle of Medenine, after the Germans had counter-attacked the Allies.

At the Battle of Monte Cassino in early 1944, the 2nd Battalion suffered heavy casualties in tough fighting.

In 1948, the 2nd Battalion of the Scots Guards was deployed to Malaya (now part of Malaysia) to crush a Communist-inspired and pro-independence uprising during a conflict known as the Malayan Emergency.

[21] In 1992, during their time in Northern Ireland, the Scots Guards were involved in the contentious shooting of civilian Peter McBride: two soldiers were convicted of murder.

[22][23] During the Falklands War in 1982 the main force of the Scots Guards began its advance on the western side of Mount Tumbledown.

[30] The regiment consists of a single operational battalion, which was based in Catterick between 2008 and 2015, thereafter moving to Aldershot in the armoured infantry role.

The 1st Battalion will not rotate public ceremonial duties unlike the other guards regiments with F Company performing that role.

[36] King Edward VII assumed the colonelcy-in-chief of the regiment on his accession,[37] and subsequent monarchs have also been colonel-in-chief.