Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 3.djvu/618

604 Guards were raised in 1661—composed and treated, however, like the Gardes du Corps of the French—being principally gentlemen of families of distinction, who themselves, or their fathers, had fought in the civil wars. In the same year the Blues were also embodied, and called the Oxford Blues, from their first conmiander, Aubrey, earl of Oxford. The Coldstream guards date their formation from 1660, and two regiments were added to the one raised about ten years previously by general Monk, at Coldstream, on the borders of Scotland.

To these were added the 1st Royal Scots, brought over from France at the restoration; the 2nd, or Queen's, raised in 1661; the 3rd, or Old Buffs, from their accoutrements being composed of buffalo leather, embodied in 1665; the Scotch Fusiliers, now the 21st, raised in 1678, and so called from their carrying the fusil, invented in France in 1630—being a firelock lighter than the musket, but about the same length; and the 4th, or King's Own, raised in 1680.

During this reign the bayonet—so called from Bayonne, where it was invented—was sometimes three-edged, sometimes flat, with a wooden hilt like a dagger, and was screwed or merely stuck into the muzzle of the gun. The bayonet superseded the sweyne's feather, or rapier attached to the musket-rest in James's reign. Even then the bayonet was a far inferior weapon to what it is now, as it had to be removed to fire and charge again. The Grenadiers were introduced in 1078, and were so called from being practised to fling hand-grenades, each man having a pouch full. To these James added the 1st or King's regiment of Dragoon Guards, in 1685, and the 2nd, or Queen's Dragoon Guards, in 1685; the 5th and 7th regiments, called the Royal Fusiliers, the same year; and in 1688, the year of the revolution, the 23rd, or Welsh Fusiliers.

Gentlemen of the reign of Charles II., from the engraving of the Funeral of General Monk.

Lawyers of the time of Charles II., from Hollar's print.

Gentleman and Serving-man of the time of Charles II., from Ogilby's Book on the Coronation.

Bishops of the time of Charles II.

MANNERS AND CUSTOMS.

We need not repeat what we have in the last chapters of our history said of the profligacy of the court and aristocracy in Charles II. 's reign, which soon polluted the spirit of the greater part of the country. However harsh and repulsive were the manners and social maxims of the puritans, they were infinitely preferable to the vile licentiousness and blasphemy of the cavaliers, who mistook vulgarity and obscenity for gentility. Notwithstanding the traditionary feeling left by the royalist writers of these times, and too faithfully taken up by such writers as Sir Walter Scott, it is now beginning to be perceived that the cavaliers were, in reality, the vulgar of the age. If to swear, gamble, bully, murder, and use the most indecent of language, and lead the most