<P> The Story of the Second English Civil War is short and simple . King, Lords and Commons, landlords, merchants, the City and the countryside, bishops and presbyters, the Scottish army, the Welsh people, and the English Fleet, all now turned against the New Model Army . The Army beat the lot! </P> <P> Having survived Parliament's attempts to disband it, the New Model Army prospered as an institution during the Interregnum . It was disbanded in 1660 with the restoration of the monarchy under Charles II . </P> <P> At his restoration Charles II sought to create a small standing army made up of some former Royalist and New Model Army regiments . On 26 January 1661, Charles II issued the Royal Warrant that created the first regiments of what would become the British Army, although Scotland and England maintained separate military establishments until the Acts of Union 1707 . </P> <P> King Charles put into these regiments those cavaliers who had attached themselves to him during his exile on the European continent and had fought for him at the Battle of the Dunes against the Roundheads of the Protectorate and their French allies . For political expediency he also included some elements of the New Model Army . The whole force consisted of two corps of horse and five or six of infantry . It is, however, on this narrow and solid basis that the structure of the English army was gradually erected . The horse consisted of two regiments the Life Guards (formed from exiled cavaliers); and The Blues (or The Oxford Blues), formed by Lord Oxford, out of some of the best New Model Army horse regiments . The foot regiments were Grenadier Guards (initially two regiments Lord Wentworth's Regiment and John Russell's Regiment of Guards which amalgamated in 1665), the Coldstream Guards (the New Model Army regiment of General Monck), the Royal Scots (formed from the Scotch guard in France), and the Second Queen's Royals . </P>

Who led the first set of british troops into battle