The principal function of the monarchy was originally war. Kings and princes led their people into battle, as Henry V did at Agincourt. King Arthur Uther Pendragon was a warlord in fiction, and problematically in history also. The history plays of Shakespeare would be dim without Henry IV, Richard III and their other warrior kings. Prince Andrew revived his hereditary tradition by flying as a Royal Navy helicopter pilot in the Falklands.

He was more successful in his martial ambitions than his great-uncle. The Duke of Windsor, then Prince of Wales, was of the minimum age for active service in 1918. He joined the Grenadier Guards and was desperate to serve in the front line, but Lord Kitchener refused to allow it. He cited the immense harm the capture of the heir to the throne would cause and the extra peril that his presence in the trenches would attract to his comrades.

The last reigning monarch to perform his original function of leading his British Army into battle was George II at the Battle of Dettingen in southwest Germany on June 27, 1743.

Pictures show a little red-faced man in a red coat on a white horse, brandishing a sword. But his presence caused as many problems as assets to his surrogate commander, the Earl of Stair. The King’s enormous retinue of carriages paralysed local roads for days. When the French cannonade started his horse bolted backwards through the Royal Scots Fusiliers and took shelter under an oak tree.

George presented an oak leaf to the soldiers who rescued him, still represented on the regimental crest.

The British “Pragmatic” Army won Dettingen against considerable odds. The Garde Francaise dived into the River Main so fast that the Brits nicknamed them “Les Canards du Main” – an insult that gave rise to the French idiom of a canardmeaning a false rumour.

Dettingen was a surprising victory. But it suggests that the tradition of royals leading the ranks has become one that is more honoured in the breach than the observance.

Explore UK News

• Crime News

• Education News

• Health News

• Science News

• Scotland News

Times Recommends

• No room for Baldrick in overstretched army
• Freecycle booms as middle class feels squeeze
• Marksman gets £5,000 over ‘serial killer’ quip