Titles
The regiment was raised in 1661 by Henry Mordaunt, 2nd Earl of Peterborough as The Earl of Peterborough's Regiment of Foot on Putney Heath (then in Surrey) specifically to garrison the new English acquisition of Tangier, part of Catherine of Braganza's dowry when she married King Charles II. From this service, it was also known as the Tangier Regiment. As was usual at the time, it was also named after its current colonel, from one of whom, Percy Kirke, it acquired its nickname Kirke's Lambs.
In 1685, it was given the Royal title the Queen Dowager's Regiment of Foot (after Queen Catherine, widow of Charles II) and in 1703 became The Queen's Royal Regiment of Foot. In 1715, it was renamed The Princess of Wales's Own Regiment of Foot after Caroline of Ansbach, then Princess of Wales, and was re-designated The Queen's Own Regiment of Foot in 1727 when the Princess became Queen. It was ranked as 2nd Foot in the clothing regulations of 1747, and was renamed 2nd (The Queen's Royal) Regiment of Foot by Royal warrant in 1751.
In the Childers reforms of 1881 it became the county regiment of West Surrey, named The Queen's (Royal West Surrey Regiment). In 1921, its title was slightly altered to The Queen's Royal Regiment (West Surrey). By 1950 it was known as The Queen's Royal Regiment. In 1959, it was amalgamated with The East Surrey Regiment, to form The Queen's Royal Surrey Regiment.
Read more about this topic: Queen's Royal Regiment (West Surrey)
Famous quotes containing the word titles:
“Lear. Dost thou call me fool, boy?
Fool. All thy other titles thou hast given away; that thou wast born with.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“We have to be despised by somebody whom we regard as above us, or we are not happy; we have to have somebody to worship and envy, or we cannot be content. In America we manifest this in all the ancient and customary ways. In public we scoff at titles and hereditary privilege, but privately we hanker after them, and when we get a chance we buy them for cash and a daughter.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
“I have known a German Prince with more titles than subjects, and a Spanish nobleman with more names than shirts.”
—Oliver Goldsmith (1728–1774)