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Originally Posted by Cdnwolf
I am not sure on that part but it sounds like how the Russian bestowed the honorific title of "Guards" on the units that performed well during World War II.
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In some cases it's not too dissimilar, though not a one for one -- the transition of the Tank Corps to Royal Tank Corps (and later Royal Tank Regiment) for instance.
In other cases, it has to do with the traditional ownership of a given asset by the crown, versus foot and cavalry regiments raised by guys given commissions to do so. The Royal Artillery, for instance, is because people besides the Crown having access to cannon was discouraged quite a ways back, historically. I think other Corps, like the Royal Engineers acquired the Royal title to recognize or indicate that their skills were such that you couldn't trust the Honorable Lord Chumbly-Bumbly to scare up some of them in time of war and that they needed to be managed and administered much more like a centralized bureaucracy and military force than the infantry and cavalry did at the same point in history.