Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol 7.djvu/65

ENGLISH WAll ADMINISTRATION. 21 more sfenerally known as the 'Horse Guards.' chap III Not forming any part of the ' Government,' hut wielding, nevertheless, a large share of the sov- Gua"^"" ereign's military power, this Office held some of the functions which are commonly entrusted to a War Department but it also performed the duty of a Headquarter Staff, commanding all our cavalry and infantry. With due warrant as regarded expenditure (for which concert with the ' Government ' was necessary) this same Royal Office provided for the raising, the train- ing, the equipment, and the discipline of horse and foot ; and besides, undertook other kinds of administrative business, for, by means of ' requisitions,' it had power to set in motion several other departments of State. As though to complete the unwliolesome severance, and to withdraw our army absolutely from not only the rule but from even the fair enticements of con- stitutional government, custom suffered — with a strange equanimity — that the Commander-in- Chief at the Horse Guards should alone take his sovereign's pleasure upun the choice of all officers, from the field - marshal down to the ensign.(^) The Horse Guards served as an Office in which the ' personal king ' transacted his army business, and was scarcely in any large sense a Department of State, having in it not even one member of the responsible Government, and owning simply the king — the ' personal ' king — as its master, with, by way of vice-master, a general or field-marshal, wlio, in plainly -cou-