About the year 1484, another auxiliary force proceeded from Scotland to France; and the Scots in the French service signalized themselves in various parts of Europe, but especially in Italy in the year 1495, and they acquired the principal glory in the conquest of Naples.[9] There were also Scots troops with the French army serving against the Venetians in 1509,[10] and with King Francis I. of France, in Italy, in 1515, in which year the Scots Guards were nearly all killed in defence of the King's person before _Pavia_, where he was taken prisoner.[11] After this fatal battle King Francis is stated to have exclaimed, "We have lost everything but our honour!" [Sidenote: 1590] Two historical accounts of the origin and services of the FIRST, OR ROYAL, REGIMENT OF FOOT, have already been printed, in which this corps is stated to be a continuation of the ancient Scots Guards at the French Court but this is an error,--the Scots Guards were Cavalry, and this was always an Infantry corps, and it never sustained any character in the French army, but that of a regiment of the line. The supposition, that this Regiment was formerly the Body Guard of the Scottish kings is also without foundation. Milan, a military historian of the 18th century, who evinced much zeal and assiduity in tracing the origin of every British corps, designates the ROYAL REGIMENT an "OLD SCOTS CORPS; THE TIME OF ITS RISE UNCERTAIN;" and in the two editions of his succession of Colonels, published in 1742 and 1746, he did not give the date of the appointment of its first Colonel, SIR JOHN HEPBURN; but, in a subsequent edition, he states the 26th of January, 1633, to be the date of this officer's commission, as Colonel of the OLD SCOTS CORPS. This date appears to be correct, as SIR JOHN HEPBURN did not quit Germany until 1632, and no mention of a Scots _Regiment_ in the French service has been met with in any of the military histories, or other French works (of which many volumes have been examined), previously to 1633. This corps must, however, have existed some time as _independent companies_, previously to its being constituted a regiment, as Père Daniel, in his history of the French army,[12] states, that this regiment, which he designates "LE REGIMENT DE DOUGLAS," was sent from Scotland to France in the reign of James VI. (James I. of England), and this monarch commenced his reign in 1567, when he was only a child, and died in 1625; hence it is evident that it had been in France some years before its formation into a regiment, under the command of SIR JOHN HEPBURN, took place. Père Daniel also alludes to this corps, in connexion with Henry IV. of France, and thus associates its services with the wars between that monarch and the Leaguers, which fixes the date of its arrival in France about the second year of his reign, viz. 1590. Francis Grose, the author of the British Military Antiquities, does not profess to be