In these early days, the regiments first paid nominally by the sovereign were, as time went on, borne on the strength of three “establishments,” Irish, Scotch, and English, a method of distributing their cost over the sum granted for the administration respectively of each of these sections of the State. The first of these appears in the reign of Edward IV., the second after the union of the Scotch and English crowns,--before which time officers of the Scottish army had to take an oath of fealty to the Estates of Scotland, and not to the sovereign,[17]--and the cost of each establishment slightly varied in detail. Hence we find in the list of the Scotch Establishment of 1678, the Earl of Mar’s Fusiliers, afterwards the 21st Foot, which was brought on the English Establishment in 1689, and dates its seniority, therefore, from that year. The seniority of regiments was ordered by the royal will, and depended on the date on which they came on the English Establishment; and thus, though the Coldstream Guards had been among the first to welcome the Restoration of the king, on the return of the Grenadiers from Dunkirk, it was decreed that “our own Regiment of Foot Guards shall be held and esteemed the oldest regiment.”[18] Each company had at that time a colour, and, in the Guards only, a company badge, but the Grenadiers seem never to have been wholly armed with the “grenade,” and the name was only given after Waterloo, where they had defeated the French Grenadiers. Similarly the “Royal Scots,” constituted as a regiment in 1633, dates its seniority by order from 1661. Its nickname of “Pontius Pilate’s Bodyguard” is said to have arisen from a dispute with a French officer, who declared that _his_ regiment had been on duty the night before the Crucifixion; to which his opponent replied, “Had _we_ been on duty, we should not have slept on our post.” It is probably the oldest organised regiment in existence, and is descended lineally from the Scottish Archer-Guard of the French kings, first raised by Charles III. in the ninth century. Naturally also the “Irish Establishment” ceased with the Union. Some of these early regiments were possibly recruited from the London trained bands, and it is because of this that the Royal Marines, the 3rd Battalion Grenadier Guards, the Royal London Militia, and the 3rd Buffs claim the right, shared by no other foot regiment, of marching through the city with fixed bayonets, drums beating, and colours flying. At first, too, regiments were known by the name of their colonel; and the numbers and definite regulations as to the colour and clothing of regiments were not issued until 1751. Territorial designations were added to the numbers in 1782, and the present titles were given in 1881.