Lot Essay
The multitude of fixing-loops indicates that this tunic was worn by a Royal personage. The only such person to have served with the 17th Lancers was Field Marshal HRH The Duke of Cambridge, who was the Colonel-in-Chief of the regiment from 1876 to 1895.
The Duke, who was a younger brother of King George IV and thus the uncle of Queen Victoria, had a distinguished military career. He commanded the 1st Division in the Crimean War and was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Army in 1856, a post which he held until his death in 1895, and became a Field Marshal in 1862. Known within the Army as "The Great German Sausage", the obduracy of his resistance to any form of modernisation was only exceeded by the forcefulness of his language. It is recorded that on one occasion he addressed the Gentlemen Cadets of the Royal Military College, on parade, as "You dirty little bastards".
The Duke, who was a younger brother of King George IV and thus the uncle of Queen Victoria, had a distinguished military career. He commanded the 1st Division in the Crimean War and was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Army in 1856, a post which he held until his death in 1895, and became a Field Marshal in 1862. Known within the Army as "The Great German Sausage", the obduracy of his resistance to any form of modernisation was only exceeded by the forcefulness of his language. It is recorded that on one occasion he addressed the Gentlemen Cadets of the Royal Military College, on parade, as "You dirty little bastards".