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Wed 26 Jan, 2011 12:22 pm
Is the Royal Air Force (RAF) the most recent branch of the UK's forces to have been granted a royal title?
Have there been any since?
If you are asking about the British Armed Forces, there are three Services. (Royal) Navy, Army and (Royal) Air Force.
The Navy is sometimes referred to as the "Senior Service" as it was the first of the three. The Army came next, followed by the Air Force (obviously after aeroplanes were invented.)
As this covers land, sea and air, I can't envisage a fourth service being commisioned anytime soon, but who knows? One day, we might have a Royal Intergalactic Battle Force.
But then again, bankers may forego their bonuses. Anything's possible.
Actually, the Royal Artillery was founded not long after the Royal Navy. There has never been any such thing as a "Royal Army." The Royal Engineers was once a separate establishment, too. I don't know that they still are. The English were long deeply suspicious of a standing army, and until late in the 19th century, England had few standing regiments, and those usually only a cadre strength to proivde a framework for the expansion of the army.