Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor wearing a Grenadier Guards jumper (Image: Marcin Nowak/LNP)
From Waterloo to Sevastopol, Ypres to Anzio and Iraq to Afghanistan, the Grenadier Guards is the most senior infantry regiment of the British Army – top of the Infantry Order of Precedence. In 1656, Lord Wentworth’s Regiment was raised in Bruges to protect the exiled Charles II and in 1665 it became the 1st Regiment of Foot Guards, before some troops split off into the Irish Guards in 1900 and Welsh Guards in 1915.
In December 2017 the then Duke of York inherited the colonelcy of the prestigious infantry regiment from Prince Philip before it was stripped from him, in January 2022, when 150 veterans pleaded with the late Queen to remove his eight military appointments. So imagine those heroic veteran guards’ heartbreak to see that chest-swelling, proud regiment’s badge on a jumper this week … worn by the disgraced Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor.
The 65 year-old was captured on camera on Monday at the wheel of a Range Rover near the Long Walk in Windsor, sporting a burgundy Grenadier Guards jumper bearing the regiment’s cypher.
Think of the centuries of valour tied to that badge…
In the early 1700s, the 1st Foot Guards had the Army’s most celebrated soldier, the Duke of Marlborough, as its colonel. Marlborough had started his military career in 1667 as an ensign in the regiment.
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The Grenadiers boast 78 battle honours for its involvement in conflicts including the War of the Spanish Succession, (1701–1714); the War of the Austrian Succession (1740–1748); and the Napoleonic Wars, including the Peninsular War (1808–1814).
Following Napoleon’s escape from exile, the regiment famously defeated the Grenadiers of the French Imperial Guard at Waterloo (1815). In recognition of this momentous achievement, it adopted that unit’s bearskin headdress and a flaming grenade as its cap badge.
This event also prompted its grenadier title. However, it wasn’t until 1877 that its name officially changed to the Grenadier Guards.
Then the Crimean War (1854–1855) – Alma, Inkerman and Sevastopol – the Egyptian War (1882); the Sudan Campaigns of 1885 and 1898 and the Second Boer War (1889–1902).
Then came the First World War (Western Front) (1914–1918); the Second World War (North Africa, Italy, Northwest Europe) (1939–1945) and the Persian Gulf War (1990–1991).
Andrew in his uniform as Colonel of the Grenadier Guards at 2019’s Trooping The Colour (Image: Getty Images)
More recently it also served during the conflicts in Iraq (2006) and Afghanistan (2007, 2009-10 and 2012).
The Grenadier Guards has received 14 Victoria Crosses (VCs), including one awarded to James Ashworth in 2012, making him the most recent Guardsman to earn the honour.
James, 23, was killed in Afghanistan on 13 June 2012 as he led his fire team in an attack on an enemy-held compound.
Their motto ‘Honi soit qui mal y pense’ means “Shame be to him who thinks evil of it.”
There is no shame on that badge – but when Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor wears it on his jumper, his own shameful links to evil paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein stain it.
In 2019, Andrew told BBC Newsnight he broke off his friendship with Epstein in December 2010, after the two men were photographed together strolling in New York.
But new emails reveal he wrote to Epstein after the photo was published, saying: “It would seem we are in this together and will have to rise above it. Otherwise keep in close touch and we’ll play some more soon!!!!”
Queen Camilla is now the Grenadiers’ Colonel-In-Chief. I wonder if she saw that picture of Andrew in his jumper this week … and had her head in her hands.