subs. phr. (military).—The late 1st Regiment of Foot, now The Royal Scots, the oldest regiment in the service. [When the Régiment de Douglas, and in the French service [1633–78], the officers disputed with the Picardy regiment about the antiquity of their corps. The Picardy men declared they were on duty on the night of the Crucifixion, when the colonel of the 1st Foot replied, “If we had been on guard, we should not have slept at our posts.”—BREWER.]—GROSE (1785).
