Tradition has perhaps a stronger hold in the Foot Guards than in any of the Infantry units dealt with in the chapter which follows. Accordingly, the reader must not be surprised to find that most of the general rules which affect the colours of the line regiments do not apply to the Grenadier, Coldstream, Scots, Irish and Welsh Guards. We have already mentioned that the King’s colour, as a rule, consists of a Union Jack, whilst the regimental colour is a flag bearing the devices and honours of the regiment to which it belongs. In the Guards, however, this rule is reversed, and the Jack constitutes the regimental, and the banner, charged with devices, the King’s colour. Another difference which may be mentioned concerns the battle honours. These are not placed on the royal colours in the majority of foot regiments, but the Guards show them on both the King’s and regimental colours. (The Irish and Welsh Guards at the time of writing possess no battle honours, they being comparatively new units.) =The Grenadier Guards= have three flags, known as the Colonel’s, the Lieutenant-Colonel’s, and the Major’s colours, which are used as the King’s colour in the first, second and third battalions respectively. [Illustration: =17.= King’s Colour of the Grenadier Guards (1st Battalion). ] [Illustration: =18.= Regimental Colour of the Grenadier Guards (15th Company). ] [Illustration: =19.= King’s Colour of the Coldstream Guards (1st Battalion). ] [Illustration: =20.= Regimental Colour of the Coldstream Guards (1st Company). ] [Illustration: =21.= King’s Colour of the Scots Guards (1st Battalion). ] [Illustration: =22.= Regimental Colour of the Scots Guards (9th Company). ] [Illustration: =23.= King’s Colour of the Irish Guards. ] [Illustration: =24.= King’s Colour of the Welsh Guards. ] PLATE 3. COLOURS OF THE FOOT GUARDS The Colonel’s or King’s first battalion colour consists of a crimson silk banner bearing an imperial crown above a flaming grenade. (Fig. 17.) On either side is a column of twelve tablets in gold, each inscribed with the name of one of the following battle distinctions:— Tangier, 1680; Namur, 1695; Gibraltar, 1704-5; Blenheim; Ramillies; Oudenarde; Malplaquet; Dettingen; Lincelles; Egmont-op-Zee; Corunna; Barrosa; Nive; Peninsula; Waterloo; Alma; Inkerman; Sevastopol; Egypt, 1882; Tel-el-Kebir; Suakin, 1885; Khartoum; South Africa, 1899-1902; Modder River. The Lieutenant-Colonel’s or the King’s colour of the second battalion consists of a crimson silk banner bearing in the dexter canton, a small Union Jack, whilst in the centre of the crimson field is the Royal Cypher, reversed and interlaced, having above it an imperial crown, and, below, a flaming grenade. Battle honours also appear.