April 7, 2015

Finest Hour 133, Winter 2006-07

Page 48

By Paul H. Courtenay


QUEBEC TAILPIECE: ANOTHER SET OF ROUSSILLON PLUMES

As an addendum to die notes on the Quebec conference (FH 130:23), we outlined details of the badge of The Royal Sussex Regiment and its 5th (Cinque Ports) Battalion; botJi included the plume seized from the French Royal Roussillon Regiment by the 1st Battalion at Quebec in 1759. As Honorary Colonel of the 5th (Cinque Ports) Battalion— 4th/5th after a 1943 amalgamation—Winston Churchill often wore its badge in 1944 and 1945: notably in Italy, on his second visit to Moscow, at the crossing of the Rhine, at Yalta, in Berlin and at Potsdam. The last of die Big Three conferences at the latter place was the final occasion on which he wore this uniform.

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On 2 September 1955, not long after Sir Winston’s final retirement as Prime Minister, a small party of officers from the Royal Sussex was invited to Chartwell, where they presented him with a pair of silver menu holders. In die illustration, die one on die left is the badge of the regiment itself; the Garter star was introduced during the colonelcy of a Knight of the Order of die Garter soon after 1803.

The menu holder on the right is the badge of the 5th (Cinque Ports) Battalion, so prominendy worn by its Honorary Colonel as noted above. In the centre of a Maltese cross are the arms of the Cinque Ports—the battalion having originated as the Cinque Ports Volunteers. A silver plaque round the base of each menu-holder, now on display at Chartwell, reads, “To Sir Winston S. Churchill KG, Hon Colonel 4di/5th (Cinque Ports) Bn, from the officers 1955.”

In a letter of thanks diree days later Sir Winston wrote: “I was indeed complimented by the Regiment’s gift of the beautiful silver menu holders which you were kind enough to present to me. Representing as they do die badges of The Royal Sussex Regiment and the Cinque Ports Battalion they will be a treasured possession in my family, and I hope you will convey my warm thanks to the Regiment for this gesture by which, believe me, I am most honoured.”

Since those days the regiment has been twice amalgamated into larger groupings (1966 and 1992), but the Roussillon plume survives in the collar badge of its current successor, The Princess of Wales’s Royal Regiment; so die Quebec exploit of 1759 is not forgotten.

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