THE MINDEN REGIMENTS
The Suffolk Regiment was one of the six regiments of British infantry that performed the remarkable feat of charging and utterly destroying a column of French cavalry, superior in numbers to themselves. This was at Minden, the other five regiments being the Lancashire Fusiliers, Royal Welsh Fusiliers, King's Own Scottish Borderers, Hampshire Regiment and the Yorkshire Light Infantry. The regiments passed to the battlefield through gardens of roses in full bloom, and the soldiers picked the blossoms and fixed them in their hats, and in commemoration of their victory they enjoy the right of wearing roses in their head-dress on the anniversary of the battle.
The Prince Albert's Somerset Light Infantry has two peculiar distinctions, one being that it is the only regiment without a Royal title to wear blue for its facings, and the other being that the sergeants enjoy the right of wearing their sashes over the left shoulder the same as the officers, in commemoration of their devoted gallantry at the battle of Culloden, when the casualties among the officers were so numerous that the sergeants were left in command.
The Cheshire Regiment also enjoys a peculiar privilege, that of wearing oak leaves in its head-dress and as a wreath on its colour staves on all Royal ceremonial parades, in commemoration of its rally round its Sovereign who took shelter at a critical moment beneath an oak tree during the battle of Dettingen.