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.