Talk:35th (Royal Sussex) Regiment of Foot

Rousillon and white plumes

"In September 1759 the regiment had its revenge on Montcalm when it fought under General James Wolfe at the Battle of the Plains of Abraham charging the French Regiment Royal Roussillon and picking up the Frenchmen's white plumes and placing them in their own headresses"

This is a tradition that has no basis in history as demonstrated in a summary of the topic by Philip Haythronthwaite in the bulletin of the Military History Society, May 1988 pp.176-178, prompted by articles and correspondence in preceding issues of February, August and November 1987, a dicussion which resumed in issues of May 1989 and November 1990.

As a general observation, the reliance of this article on the Trimen history of 1873 is problematic.

JF42 (talk) 11:42, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

I agree that, if Haythronthwaite has cast doubt on this particular event, it should be deleted. That said Trimen was a serving officer who presumably had access to the regimental records so I don't think we should necessarily consider him unreliable per se. Just my view. Dormskirk (talk) 11:58, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

In general, as I understand it, Wikipedia guidelines advise against reliance on a single source. Trymen is of course also :: somewhat dated, but possibly the key source for later histories.

I suggest that, if reference to the Roussillon plume is couched in terms of being a cherished tradition, origin of a

prominent feature of the regiment's cap badge, and also of the descendant regiments' collar badge, that should be

sufficient. When I have a moment. I'll draft something and post it here.

JF42 (talk) 22:40, 25 March 2021 (UTC)

The 'trim' of 11:59, 11 March 2021 leaves an orphan as the significance of the Royal Roussillon regiment is not explained. As it is the notion the victory at Quebec being revenge for events at Fort William Henry is undermined by modern research which shows that casualties in the Indian attack were not nearly as heavy as tradition has held, and fell on the provincial forces and their families, not the regulars. Trymen himself points out that "no record of the loss sustained by the different regiments during the defence, and also of those murdered afterwards, appears to have been preserved" but then speculates The regiment must have suffered fearfully. Apparently not.

Moreover, there is no indication other than in regimental tradition that the 35th had specific contact with the Royal Roussillon regiment on the Plains of Abraham, the two following separate trajectories in the battle (Another small but inconvenient point is that the French did not wear hat plumes of any colour at this date). The relevant sentences should be amended to remove these hostages to fortune.

Done.

JF42 (talk) 02:11, 1 April 2021 (UTC)