Royal Leicestershire Regiment
military unit
The Leicestershire Regiment (Royal Leicestershire Regiment after 1946) was a line infantry regiment of the British Army, with a history going back to 1688. The regiment saw service for three centuries, in numerous wars and conflicts such as both World War I and World War II, before being amalgamated, in September 1964, with the 1st East Anglian Regiment (Royal Norfolk and Suffolk), the 2nd East Anglian Regiment (Duchess of Gloucester's Own Royal Lincolnshire and Northamptonshire) and the 3rd East Anglian Regiment (16th/44th Foot) to form the present day Royal Anglian Regiment, of which B Company of the 2nd Battalion continues the lineage of the Royal Leicestershire Regiment.
History
Early wars
On 27 September 1688 a commission was issued to Colonel Solomon Richards to raise a regiment of foot in the London area. In its early years, like other regiments, it was known by the name of its various colonels. Following a failed attempt to break the siege of Derry in 1689, Richards was dismissed and replaced by the Irishman George St George. The regiment embarked for Flanders in 1693 for service in the Nine Years' War and took part in the attack of Fort Knokke in June 1695 and the siege of Namur in summer 1695 before returning home in 1697.
In 1701 the regiment moved to Holland for service in the War of the Spanish Succession and fought at the siege of Kaiserswerth in 1702,the siege of Venlo later that year and the capture of Huy in 1703. It transferred to Portugal in 1704 and took part in the sieges of Valencia de Alcántara, Alburquerque and Badajoz in 1705 as well as the siege of Ciudad Rodrigo in 1706. It also saw action at the Battle of Almansa in April 1707 before returning to England in 1709. In spring 1713, the regiment was ranked 17th in seniority.
The public source identifies “Royal Leicestershire Regiment” as military unit. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Royal, Leicestershire and Regiment.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 20, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7374393. VIAF identifies the subject as 136305645. The Library of Congress control number is nb2009030038. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1946, 1688, 1964 and 1689.
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This entry incorporates text from “Royal Leicestershire Regiment” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.