British / Royal Forces

[xiphias]

.wysiwyg { background-attachment: scroll; background-repeat: repeat; background-position: 0% 0%; background-color: #fffae6; background-image: none; color: #000063; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, "Lucida Grande", Arial, Helvetica, "Lucida Grande"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; font-size: 10pt; line-height: normal } p { margin: 0px; }I generally lurk but briefly wondered about something so thought I would post. Why is it the Navy and Air Force are prefixed Royal, but the Army is British instead?

[Al R]

Matt comes close.

To control the King, in 1689, the English Parliament passed the Bill of Rights, preventing him from forming an army without the consent of Parliament (in 1707, the English army joined forces with the Scottish army anyway, I've forgotten what the Act was called). To this day, annual notice is required for the British Army to remain legal (The Army Act 1955), but why the R.A.F and the RN are different, I don't know. It might be an interesting exercise to count the number of Jocks who have commanded the Scots Guards throughout the years too..

http://www.army.mod.uk/servingsoldier/termsofserv/discmillaw/index.html (http://www.army.mod.uk/servingsoldier/termsofserv/discmillaw/index.html)

[Two's in]

Not forgetting that individual Regiments and Corps are granted the "Royal" annotation by the appropriate Monarch or Royal, usually in their capacity as Colonel-In -Chief. The Army Air Corps have been courting Charlie for some time now (he's the Colonel-In-Chief) to try and obtain "Royal" status, whereas some Regiments have had Royal status for hundreds of years, despite Des Browne's attempt to form a single Womens Auxilliary Balloon Corps to save on the cost of cap badges.

[Blacksheep]

I thought the Women's Auxiliary Balloon Corps (WABCo) were absorbed into the Women's Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF) and then became Royal by the change to Women's Royal Air Force (WRAF)?

They have, in these days of equality of course, now been issued with popguns so they can stand guard with the rest of the chaps. I do hope that with the demise of the WRAF, they are now allowed to wear their legs the right way up?

[Al R]

To: You know who you are.

You were right, it was under 5 minutes and I owe you £5.

;)

[Background Noise]

Bit more here (and some thread creep!) http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthread.php?t=186418

[Shiney Pencil]

Are the RAF and RN not Royal because of Royal Asscent that they received when they were created? Same goes for the Royal Marines etc. Do some of the Army Regiments not have Royal in their title?