Talk:The Royal Mallows

Royal Army or former HEIC Regiment?

You're true: the high seniority number could prove that the 117th Royal Mallows was an Irish regiment raised up from European HEIC regiments absorbed into the Royal Army after the 1857 mutiny in India and the coronation of Elizabeth II as Empress of India, etc., like the Royal Munster Fusiliers (amalgamation of 2 former HEIC units at the time of the Childers reforms in 1881: the 101st Royal Bengal Fusiliers and the 104th Bengal Fusiliers). But there's an inconsistency. According to Sherlock Holmes: The Royal Mallows is one of the most famous Irish regiments in the British Army. It did wonders both in the Crimea and the Mutiny. And so far as I know, there weren't HEIC units under Lord Raglan besieging Sevastopol in 1854-56 (I confess that the only book on that war that I've ever read is Christopher Hibbert's The Destruction of Lord Raglan). And in "The Crooked Man" the 1st Royal Mallows is based in Aldershot (England). And the regiment bore an Irish title in 1854-56 (Crimean War) and 1857 (Mutiny), so the the unit doesn't seem to have been part of the HEIC Bengal (or Madras or Bombay) Army.

All of this to be taken with a grain of salt, because it's a fictional regiment.