The Colours, Honours, and Ceremonial Duties

PRO 210 · Ceremonial and Protocol · Level 200 (Phase Two)

A Royal Army College course in the Army's consecrated emblems, its honours, and its ceremonial duties.

Course length: 10 hours, studied online and asynchronously at the student's own pace, together with any in-person practical instruction and assessment the course requires.

Foreword

An army is held together by more than its drills and its rules. It is held by the things it reveres: the Colours that carry its identity and its loyalty to the Crown, the honours that mark courage and long faithful service, and the ceremonial by which it renders to the Sovereign, the State, and its own dead the respect they are owed. These are not ornament. For a small, young Principality whose standing rests on its dignity and its honour, the care with which the Army handles its Colours, confers and wears its honours, and conducts its ceremonial is part of how the State earns and keeps its place.

This course takes up, in depth, what the Drill and Ceremonial course (RMT 130) introduced. It teaches what the Colours truly are and how they are guarded, trooped, and laid up; the honours system of the Principality, its decorations and medals and the order in which they are worn; and the formal ceremonial duties of the Army, from the guard of honour to the military funeral and the day of mourning. It is exact about the distinctions that the careless get wrong, above all the firm difference between the consecrated Colours, which are draped or cased in mourning and dipped only to the Sovereign, and the flags, which are flown and half-masted.

Who this course is for

Members on the Ceremonial and Protocol pathway, members who will form or train Colour parties and guards, and any soldier who will take a serious part in the Army's ceremonial life. It assumes the Drill and Ceremonial course (RMT 130) and the customs of the Service (RMT 120), and it sits beside Protocol and Official Occasions (PRO 201), with which it shares the formal occasions of the State.

What you will be able to do

By the end you will be able to:

• explain what the Colours are, how they are consecrated, and what they embody;
• handle, guard, troop, and lay up the Colours correctly, and distinguish them firmly from flags;
• describe the honours system of the Principality and the Honours Chancellery;
• name the Army's decorations, the Valour Cross, and the service medals, and what each recognises;
• apply the order of wear and the rules for wearing insignia and honours;
• conduct a guard of honour and render the correct salutes, dipping the Colour only to the Sovereign;
• mark a day of remembrance or mourning and a military funeral with the correct honours; and
• explain the Army's ceremonial duties and the standard of dignity they demand.

How the course works

The course is self-paced and studied online, with a worked example and a reflection in each lesson. Ceremonial is finally learned on the parade ground, so the handling of the Colours, the forming of a guard, and the conduct of a funeral are practised and certified in person, under qualified supervision; this course gives the understanding and the exact standard those rehearsals serve. It draws throughout on the Sovereign's Regulations and Orders (Chapter 26, ceremonial and the Colours; Chapter 10, honours and awards; Chapter 20, dress and the wearing of insignia).

Structure

A note on sources

This is the College's own course, built on the Sovereign's Regulations and Orders (Chapters 10, 20, and 26) and the British and Commonwealth ceremonial tradition, adapted to a small, lightly armed, humanitarian home-defence force and written fresh in Kaharagian terms. Its honours are those of the Principality, conferred under the authority of the Honours Chancellery and recorded in the Register of Awards.

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