Questions re: British military?

Ammo08

Why is it the Royal Air Force, Royal Navy, but not Royal Army?

FelixLeiter ♀

The Royal Navy was created by the king and so bears 'royal' in its title.

Parts of the army are 'Royal' - e.g. Royal Army Medical Corps. The army is made up of units which became united at some point in history and it was considered an honour for units to be granted 'royal' in their title.

Originally the RAF was a part of the army. It came from the Royal Flying Corps which if you work back came from the Royal Engineers and so was granted the title 'Royal' before it became separate.

There are various arguments about why the army as a whole has never been granted the 'royal' title. One is that whilst the navy was (on an island nation) only going to be used against outside enemies, the monarch could have turned the army on the people.

Thunderpussy

I was always told it had to do with Oliver cromwell.
Making it the Army of the Country and not the Monarch.

FelixLeiter ♀

Yes I read something along those lines. As the army had chopped off Charles I's head, it wasn't deemed fitting for them to be granted 'royal'.

Silhouette Man

Of course the Army is deployed abroad by HM Government, and as such is HM Armed Forces, though it does not have the 'royal' part. All of this comes under the royal prerogative - a subject on which I wrote some 20,000 words (on its reform) for a Law dissertation in 2009.

And yes, it probably does have something to do with the supremacy of Parliament over the Crown and the monarchy - Oliver Cromwell, and later the Bill of Rights 1688, King William of Orange and the new Settlement that resulted after the Battle of the Boyne and the defeat of the absolutist King James I of England. Standing armies were viewed suspiciously by Britons, hence the lack of a 'royal' moniker. The armed forces therefore came under the command of the representatives of the people - MPs in Parliament - and Parliament is sovereign, at least until the advent of the EEC/EU, bit that's another story altogether, really.