The British Army's regimental system is older than most countries. Here are the two ends of it.
The oldest: the Honourable Artillery Company, 1537
The HAC received its charter from Henry VIII in 1537, which makes it the oldest regiment in the British Army and one of the oldest military organisations anywhere in the world still in existence.
It began as the Guild of St George, a body of London archers and handgunners licensed to practise for the defence of the realm. It is today a Reserve regiment providing surveillance and target acquisition, with a ceremonial role in the City of London.
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The oldest regular infantry
The Royal Scots, raised in 1633, held the title of oldest regular infantry regiment — and the nickname "Pontius Pilate's Bodyguard", from an old argument with a French regiment about which was older.
The Royal Scots ceased to exist as a separate regiment in 2006, absorbed into the Royal Regiment of Scotland. Its lineage continues as 1 SCOTS.
The newest: the Ranger Regiment, 2021
The Ranger Regiment was formed on 1 December 2021 as part of the Army Special Operations Brigade. Its role is to work alongside partner forces overseas — training, advising and accompanying them on operations.
Before it, the newest large formation was The Rifles, created in 2007 from the amalgamation of four light infantry and rifle regiments — now the largest infantry regiment in the Army.
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What this means for collectors
Every amalgamation ends a badge and starts another. The Royal Scots badge has not been issued since 2006. Light Infantry and Royal Green Jackets insignia stopped in 2007.
Those badges are finite now. There will never be more of them, and what survives came off real uniforms.
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How seniority actually works
Regiments are ordered in the Army List by seniority, and the order is a source of genuine pride. It runs by date of raising, with cavalry before infantry — which is why the Life Guards head the list.
Seniority survives amalgamation: the new regiment inherits the position of its senior parent. It is why some very modern-sounding regiments sit surprisingly high.
The disputes
The Royal Scots were nicknamed Pontius Pilate's Bodyguard after an argument with the French Régiment de Picardie about which was older. The Picardie officers claimed descent from Roman times; a Scots officer replied that if his regiment had been on guard at the Holy Sepulchre, they would not have fallen asleep.
The Coldstream Guards' motto is Nulli Secundus — second to none — which is a pointed response to being placed second to the Grenadier Guards despite being older in continuous service. They have never entirely let it go.
The 1881 reset
Before the Childers Reforms of 1881, regiments were numbered — the 57th, the 88th. In 1881 those numbers were abolished and regiments paired into county formations.
Soldiers minded enormously. Many regiments kept the old number informally for decades, and it appears on insignia and buttons long after it stopped being official.
Why the newest are so new
The Ranger Regiment (2021) and the Army Special Operations Brigade reflect how the Army now expects to work — small teams alongside partner forces rather than large formations of its own.
For collectors that means something specific: their insignia is being made right now, in small quantities, and it will be the scarce material of forty years' time.
The Coldstream Guards' claim
The HAC is older as an organisation, but the Coldstream Guards make a different claim: the oldest regiment in continuous service in the regular Army. Formed in 1650 under Monck, they have never been disbanded and never amalgamated.
Their motto, Nulli Secundus — second to none — is a pointed reference to the fact that the Grenadier Guards are officially senior despite being formed later. It has been an argument for three and a half centuries and nobody expects it to be settled.
Why seniority is not the same as age
Regimental precedence in the British Army follows the order regiments were placed on the establishment, not simply when they were raised. A regiment can be older than another and still rank below it.
This is why the order of march at ceremonial events is fixed and why arguments about it are taken so seriously.
The great reductions
The Army has shrunk repeatedly, and each round ended regiments:
- 1881 — Childers Reforms paired numbered regiments into county regiments.
- 1957–62 — post-Suez cuts and the end of National Service.
- 1968–71 — large infantry amalgamations.
- 1992 — Options for Change, after the Cold War.
- 2004–07 — the round that created the Royal Regiment of Scotland and The Rifles.
What that means for insignia
Every one of those dates is a cut-off. A cap badge from a regiment that ended in 1968 has not been made since 1968, and it never will be again.
That is the whole basis of British badge collecting: a finite, dated, verifiable supply attached to units that genuinely existed. It is also why the regiment matters more than the condition when pricing one.