35th ( Royal Sussex ) Regiment of Foot The 35th ( Royal Sussex ) Regiment of Foot was an infantry regiment of the British Army raised in 1701 . After serving under a number of different titles , it became the 1st Battalion of The Royal Sussex Regiment in 1881 . Its lineage is continued today by the Princess of Wales ' s Royal Regiment . Raising . On 28 June 1701 , Arthur Chichester , 3rd Earl of Donegall was appointed colonel of the regiment of foot he had raised at his own expense in the northern counties of Ireland . The new unit was accordingly titled the Earl of Donegall ' s Regiment of Foot , although it was sometimes informally known as " The Belfast Regiment " , this being the place where it was first embodied . This was the second Earl of Donegall ' s Regiment : the previous regiment was raised in 1693 and disbanded on 8 February 1697 : despite the names there was no lineal connection between them . The regiment was raised to meet the threat of war with France , but was also a strongly Protestant unit tasked with resisting the spread of Roman Catholicism in Britain . The king , William of Orange , gave special permission for the regiment to bear orange facings to show their religious allegiance and as a mark of royal favour . Early service . William died in March 1702 and his successor , Queen Anne , declared war on France on 4 May of that year , part of a conflict that would become known as the War of the Spanish Succession . Anne issued a Royal Warrant on 1 June of 1702 under which Donegall ' s Regiment was one of six regiments designated for " sea service " and put under the command of the Royal Nay . The troops embarked on several ships in June , and took part in the Battle of Cádiz in 1702 , the defence of Gibraltar in 1704 to 1705 , and the Siege of Barcelona , where the Earl of Donegall was killed on 16 April 1706 . On his death Brigadier Richard Gorges was appointed colonel , with the unit becoming Gorges ' s Regiment of Foot . At the disastrous Battle of Almansa in 1707 the regiment was practically wiped out and the regimental colours were lost ( they were recovered three years later in a church in Madrid ) . The survivors returned to Ireland where the regiment was reconstituted . After the war the Gorge ' s Regiment remained mostly in Ireland . In 1717 Gorges resigned as colonel and was replaced by General Charles Otway . They were known as Otway ' s Regiment of Foot until 1751 when a royal warrant redesignated all regiments of foot by their numerical precedence : Otway ' s became the 35th Regiment of Foot . In 1756 the regiment was sent to America to fight in the French and Indian War which had broken out in 1754 . Fort William Henry . " main article Battle of Fort William Henry " The regiment is most known for the " massacre " inflicted on it after the Fall of Fort William Henry during the French and Indian War , as depicted by James Fenimore Cooper in his book " Last of the Mohicans " and in the movie of the same name . The 35th Foot was part of the garrison , under Lieutenant - Colonel George Monro in August 1757 when it was forced to surrender to the superior forces of General Montcalm . The force was allowed to leave the fort with their weapons . The Native American allies of the French set upon the retreating force killing 185 and turning the retreat into disorder , with many members of the garrison being lost in the wilderness for a number of days before reaching safety . In 1759 the regiment had its revenge on Montcalm when , at the Battle of Quebec ( 1759 ) , the 35th Foot were in General Wolfe ' s army on the right of the British line . The steady fire of the 35th broke the French Regiment Royal Roussillon , which had been at Fort William Henry , who turned and fled . Regimental tradition states that members of the regiment picked up the Frenchmen ' s plumes and placed them in their own headress ' . The Roussillon Plume would be incorporated into the badge of the Royal Sussex Regiment in 1881 . American Revolution . The regiment returned to fight in the American War of Independence arriving at Boston in April 1775 . The flank companies , which arrived first , were the regiment ' s Light Infantry Company and Grenadier Company , were amalgamated during this time . They were formed with other flank companies in the 1st Battalion Light Infantry and 1st Battalion Grenadiers , respectively . These companies took part in the Battles of Bunker Hill and suffered tremendous casualties . Of the Light Infantry , only three privates escaped without wounds , whereas all others were killed or injured to some extent . The Grenadier Company fared no better . The rest of the regiment , made up of regular battalion companies , arrived shortly thereafter along with its field commander , Lieutenant Colonel Robert Carr . Having endured the siege of Boston , Lord Howe evacuated the army and Bostonian loyalists to Halifax , Canada in March 1776 . From there , the army descended upon New York . The battalion companies of the 35th Regiment were part of the II Brigade and , after invading Long Island from Staten Island , participated in the Brooklyn . Still pursuing Washington , the British force , including the 35th , moved north and engaged the enemy at the Battle of Pelham Manor and the Battle of White Plains where Lt . Col . Robert Carr was killed in action . The army moved against Manhattan again and the regiment participated in the Battle of Harlem Heights with all companies hotly engaged . Afterwards , the battalion companies of the regiment remained on garrison duty . In 1777 , the Light Infantry and Grenadiers participated in the Philadelphia Campaign and the culmination of the retreat across New Jersey with the Battle of Monmouth , 1778 . The battalion companies , in the meantime , had garrisoned such places as Amboy and New Brunswick , and were moved back to New York . Shortly thereafter , General James Grant took 5 , 000 men , including the 35th , to the West Indies . The regiment took part in the capture of St . Lucia in the West Indies in 1778 and remained in the Caribbean area until 1785 when it returned to England . The regiment , therefore , never met defeat on the field of battle during the American Revolution . Change of titles . In 1782 George III added county titles to infantry regiments in order to help recruiting and the regiment became the 35th ( Dorsetshire ) Regiment although the reason for the connection with Dorset is not known . The first real connection with Sussex came in 1787 when Charles Lennox , 4th Duke of Richmond , joined the Regiment - Lennox not only recruited Sussex men for the Regiment from his family estates in the County but , in 1804 , obtained Royal permission for the title " Sussex " to be transferred from the 25th Regiment of Foot ( later to become the King ' s Own Scottish Borderers ) to the 35th . 19th - Century . Napoleonic War . During the Napoleonic wars both battalions of the regiment served in the Mediterranean during the Sicilian campaign in 1806 , and then in Alexandria during the 1807 . The 35th later served in the Battle of Waterloo in 1815 ( 18 June ) Royal Regiment . On 15 June 1832 the following notice was published in the " London Gazette " : His Majesty has been graciously pleased to direct that the 35th Regiment of Foot shall be permitted to bear the appellation of Royal , and be in future styled the 35th or Royal Sussex Regiment ; and that the facings be accordingly changed from orange to blue . Amalgamation . In 1881 , a number of army reforms , notably the Childers Reforms radically changed army structure . The 35th ( Royal Sussex ) Regiment of Foot was amalgamated with the 107th Regiment of Foot ( Bengal Light Infantry ) , formerly 3rd Bengal ( European ) Infantry . The result was a two - battalion Royal Sussex Regiment where the 35th Foot became the 1st Battalion and the 107th became the 2nd Battalion . It was not common for both battalions of a regiment to be stationed in the same place at the same time , ( one exception being the ill - fated 24th Regiment of Foot during the Zulu War ) .