This article describes the phrase "die hard." For the 1988 movie starring Bruce Willis, see Die Hard.
The phrase die hard was first used during the Peninsular war to describe the Middlesex regiment . This was as a result of the action at the battle of Albuera of Colonel Inglis who upon being badly wounded refused to retire from the battle but calmly and repeatedly said "Die hard 57th, die hard" as he himself lay dying on the field.
In British politics the term "die hard" was later used to describe those members of the House of Lords who, in the crisis caused by the Lords' rejection of Lloyd George's "People's Budget" of 1909 refused to accept the dimunition of the upper house's powers in the Parliament Act.
It was later used to describe those members of the Conservative Party, including Winston Churchill, who refused to accept any moves towards Indian self-government in the 1930s. Again this opposition was powerfully concentrated in the House of Lords.
Many of the die hards, though obviously not Churchill, flirted with Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists and some even became active sympathisers with Adolf Hitler and called for a negotiated peace in the crisis of 1940.
