The regiment known as the Coldstream Guards derives its origin from a regiment of the Commonwealth that served against the king in the Civil War under the command of General Monk. It takes its name from Coldstream, a small border town in the south of Berwickshire on the left bank of the Tweed. This town formed the head-quarters of General Monk for some time before he set out on his march for London with the view of effecting the restoration of Charles II., and it was here, indeed, that this movement was projected and matured. During his sojourn in this town in 1659, Monk may rather be said to have reorganised and recruited his old corps, originally called “Monk’s Regiment,” than to have raised a new one, as it is commonly stated, and, having surrounded himself with a body of troops on whose fidelity he could rely, he commenced his march towards London on January 1, 1660. On his arrival his soldiers were employed in repressing the tendency which was evinced by the citizens of London to dispute the authority of the Parliament then sitting. Immediately after the Restoration the forces of the Commonwealth were disbanded by Act of Parliament, but Charles had resolved to add “Monk’s Regiment” to the Household Troops that were then forming for the defence of his person against the attempts of the more desperate republicans who still cherished a bitter hatred to the monarchical form of government, and the soldiers, having laid down their arms on Tower Hill as a mark of obedience to the king’s authority, and in token of their dissolution as a regiment of the Commonwealth, immediately took the oath of allegiance, and sprung into existence anew as an English regiment, under the name of “The Duke of Albemarle’s, or Lord General’s Regiment,” which appellation was changed to that of the “Coldstream Guards” about 1670, after the death of Monk, in remembrance of the place where he had prepared for the enterprise which it was his good fortune to bring to such a happy issue. The precedence of the Grenadier Guards over the Coldstream Guards was established by a general order, dated September 12, 1666, in which it was directed “that the regiment of Guards (composed of the two regiments of Foot Guards, commanded by Colonel Russell and Lord Wentworth) take place of all other regiments, and the colonell take place as the first foot colonell; the General’s Regiment (the Duke of Albemarle’s, or Coldstream Guards) to take place next.”