The services of several of the Scots companies were dispensed with in 1613 and they went to Sweden to fight for King Gustavus Adolphus. This became the nucleus of the Royal Scots.

Sir Francis, although suffering from a head wound, was given the task of defending Ostend and supplied with 12 companies of English and 7 Dutch companies. They sailed to Ostend, landing on 11th July and began strengthening the defences. On 23rd July reinforcements arrived; 1,500 fresh troops from England. Vere, however was still unwell and had to be taken to Zealand to recover. During his absence the Spanish began the siege with a non-stop bombardment. The garrison replied with their own artillery but had to gather themselves into two plots of ground within the town where they worked incessantly to dig themselves in and build defensive mounds around the perimeters. The Spanish fired arrows to which were attached letters offering money to the soldiers to change sides and fight for Archduke Albert, but this offer was treated with contempt. On 20th August there was a further reinforcement of 2,000 English troops which managed to get into Ostend. Prince Maurice, meanwhile, had been occupied with the siege of Rhineberg but this was captured and he was able to send 20 companies of Scots, French, Walloons and Frieslanders. These arrived on 23rd Aug and the defenders felt confident enough to make sorties against the besiegers. So in the mouth of a British soldier, “Stiffen the Prussian Guard (or Guards)!” would have been a rousing call to arms.In 1622 the town of Bergen-op-Zoom was under siege from Spinola's army. The garrison was made up of 49 companies of infantry and some cavalry. 14 companies of English and Scots were under the command of Colonel Henderson and they were allotted the south walls of the town to defend. On 22nd July a sortie was made against a hill outside the town which was defended by Spanish troops. Spinola himself arrived on 28th July and the siege commenced 'with vigour'. This siege was distinguished from others in this war by the appearance, on 2nd August, of English soldiers in the ranks of the Spanish besiegers. This strange occurrence came about because James I of England had negotiated a marriage between Charles, Prince of Wales and the Infanta of Spain. Part of the deal was that 2,000 English troops be placed at the service of Spain. However, many of these men deserted the Spanish and entered Bergen-op-Zoom claiming that they had been deceived and told that they would be fighting for the Netherlands. On 29th Oct 1940 the 4th Battalion set sail from Liverpool on the SS Pasteur for Gibraltar, and then on to Malta aboard the battleship HMS Barham. There they endured the Italian air raids and food shortages, filled in holes in the airfields, constructed blast pens to protect aircraft, unloaded bomb-damaged ships etc. On 6th Sep 1943 they sailed for Alexandria but in October they sailed to Leros. Colonel Richard S. Hawks Moody CB. Moody was a distinguished officer, and later a historian, of the Regiment. Moody was second in command of the Regiment when it was sent to relieve the Siege of Malakand in 1897, [74] for which he was mentioned in dispatches, [74] and during which he fought alongside Winston Churchill, who mentions him in Chapter XII ( At Inayat Kila) of his history of the conflict, The Story of the Malakand Field Force. [75] Moody served with the Regiment in the Chitral Expedition, in which he was part of General William Forbes Gatacre's flying column. [74] He subsequently became a Military Knight of Windsor, and, during his occupation of this office, and at the request of the Regiment, [76] he wrote The Historical Records of The Buffs (East Kent Regiment), 3rd Regiment of Foot, 1914–1919, which was published in 1923. [77] [78] He gave the first copy of the book to the Royal Library, Windsor, in 1922. [79] The narrative up to this point has been a distillation of the 'Historical Records of the Buffs East Kent Regiment , Formerly Designated The Holland Regiment and Prince George of Denmark's Regiment. Vol I 1572-1704 by Captain H R Knight psc, Late the Buffs. (Gale & Polden Ltd 1905). From this point on the history will be taken from Gregory Blaxland's The Buffs (Leo Cooper 1972) Eric Partridge’s Dictionary of Catch Phrases calls it an expression “of self admonition or self-adjuration or self-encouragement” that originated in the military. Its origin? Partridge says only that it comes “from an incident in the history of the East Kent Regiment.”

The East Kent Militia, as with other militias, was transformed into the 3rd and 4th Battalions The Buffs, at the same time as the regimental reorganisation. The 4th Battalion, however, was short-lived. The East Kent Militia dated from 1760 and had served overseas in the Mediterranean during the Crimean War. For this they were permitted to carry the battle honour MEDITERRANEAN on their Colour. At first their Regimental Colour was of Kentish Grey, to match their facings. They were not permitted to emblazon the honours gained by the regular battalions. Besides the 2 extra battalions added from the militia there were 2 Volunteer Battalions which were Kent Rifle Volunteers. In 1883 they became 1st VB, Canterbury, and 2nd VB Cranbrook (the Weald of Kent). All these extra battalions served in the Boer War and received battle honours for SOUTH AFRICA 1900-02. The 1st Battalion returned to Fermoy in Sep 1919 to be faced with the prospect of fighting against Sinn Fein militants. It was not simply a matter of peace keeping, and the violence escalated. By the time they left the country in Jan 1922 two soldiers had been killed. Other than a brief mention here or there on an Internet discussion group, sightings of this expression are rare. The 5th Battalion was reformed in 1939 as a 2nd Line duplicate of the 4th Battalion when the Territorial Army was doubled in size. Initially, the 5th Buffs was assigned to the 37th Infantry Brigade, part of the 12th (Eastern) Infantry Division, which was a 2nd Line duplicate of the 44th (Home Counties) Division. However, on 26 October 1939, it was transferred to the Division's 36th Infantry Brigade in exchange for the 2/6th East Surreys. [54] [55] The 5th Buffs, along with the 6th and 7th Royal West Kents, remained in the 36th Brigade for the rest of the war. Like the 2nd and 4th Battalions, it served with the BEF in France in 1940 and fought in the Battle of France and was evacuated at Dunkirk. The 12th Division suffered heavy casualties due mainly to most of the men having little training and the division having no artillery or support units. After returning to England, the division was disbanded in July 1940, due to the casualties it had sustained. In 1942, the 36th Brigade was assigned to the newly raised 78th Division and took part in Operation Torch, the Allied landings in North Africa, followed by the campaign in Tunisia, where the 78th Division, as part of the British First Army, distinguished itself during the crucial capture of Longstop Hill. [56] The division then fought in the Sicilian Campaign, as part of the British Eighth Army. The 5th Buffs and the rest of 78th Division then took part in the fighting in Italy and served there until the 1945 Offensive. [57]

The Buffs also raised many more battalions during the war, mainly for home defence or as training units. None, save the 7th and 11th Battalions, saw active service overseas. The 7th and 11th Battalions were raised in 1940 and were converted to the 141st Regiment Royal Armoured Corps and the 89th Light Anti-Aircraft Regiment, Royal Artillery in 1941 due to the shortage of armoured troops and artillery in the British Army. [58] [59] Post-War [ edit ] Badge of the Buffs as shown on the grave of Private P.M. Godden, who died in 1947, at Stanley Military Cemetery, Hong Kong

Oxford’s earliest example is from Rudyard Kipling’s The Story of the Gadsbys (1888), but we’ve found a civilian usage that’s at least two years older. Army Museum; Ogilby Trust". Buffs, Royal East Kent Regiment Museum Collection. 2010. Archived from the original on 9 October 2009 . Retrieved 7 February 2010. From Singapore the 1st Buffs went to India, in Jan 1887 but it was not until March 1895 that they went on campaign on the Northwest Frontier with Sir Robert Low's 1st Division. The aim of the expedition was to relieve Chitral, a fort that was garrisoned by Sikhs and Kashmiri levies, besieged by Pathan tribesmen. The Buffs went by train to Nowshera and faced a march of 120 miles to Chitral. In the event they were beaten to it by a column of Sikhs who approached from the east but they suffered a gruelling trudge through hostile mountains in freezing temperatures with only a greatcoat to sleep in at night. They were accompanied by a company of Seaforths and 4 companies of Gurkhas and reached the fort with much-needed supplies after a 26 day march. The 6th (Service) Battalion, 7th (Service) Battalion, 8th (Service) Battalion and 9th (Reserve) Battalion were all formed for active service in France. [48] Corporal William Richard Cotter was awarded the VC whilst serving with the 6th (Service) Battalion. [50] The strong fortress of Bois-le-Duc, occupied by the Catholic forces, was situated at the confluence of the rivers Dommel and Aa. The English regiments of Vere, Wimbleton, Morgan and Harewood were part of the Prince of Orange's army. There were also Scots troops, and English cuirassiers and harquebusiers. The siege lasted 5 months and surrendered on 15th Sep 1629. Sir Edward Vere and 4 captains lost their lives in the fighting. Several more forts were recaptured from the Spanish that autumn and the duchies of Cleves, Berg and the country of Mark were reclaimed. But the States had run out of money and failed to pay their soldiers. The Prince of Orange remonstrated with his government and claimed that some units had not been paid since 1614. Subsequently the army pay was regularised.The Irish were encouraged by the Catholic Spanish king in their rebellion against England, and the Earl of Tyrone and other chiefs became enough of a threat to alarm Elizabeth. She sent the Earl of Essex, with hardy veterans from the war in the Netherlands, to 'reduce the insurgents to obedience'. Their place in the Low Countries was taken by new recruits from London and the Home Counties. By some accounts, an adjutant shouted the expression to a battalion of the Buffs while it was on parade in Malta in 1858. Gander, Leonard Marsland (1945). "Long Road to Leros" (PDF). Macdonald & Co. p.174 . Retrieved 30 December 2015.