During the seven years' war it suffered severely at the siege of a small German castle, by the heroism of a sergeant of the enemy. Under Lord Rohallion a party of the Edinburgh Regiment had made themselves masters of an outwork, in which they established themselves at the point of the bayonet. _Under_ this work was a secret mine, which (as the "Ecole Historique et Morale du Soldat" relates) was entrusted to a sergeant and a few soldiers of the Royal Piedmontese Guards. The mine was ready, the _saucisson_ led through the gallery, the train was laid, and a single spark would blow all below and above to atoms! With admirable coolness the sergeant desired his comrades to retire, and request the king to take charge of his wife and children. He then, inspired by a spirit of self-devotion, set fire to the train and perished, as the mine exploded. The outwork rose into the air and fell thundering into the fosse, Lord Rohallion, a corporal, and two men alone escaping, covered with bruises and cuts. The name of the sergeant was said to be Amadeus di Savillano, son of the Castellan of the fortress of that name in Piedmont. The Edinburgh regiment served at the battle of Minden. The Earl of Home was then its colonel, and it was in the second line, and on the left of Kingsley's famous brigade. Landing in England, on the homeward march, near the Borders, the old colours borne in the seven years' war were buried by its soldiers, with all honour, and three volleys were fired over them. In those days, when any regiment approached London, the colours were furled and cased, and no drum was beaten or fife blown during the march through its limits. The 3rd, or Old East Kentish Buffs, were alone excepted, and had the exclusive privilege of marching through the City of London with all the honours of war, in memory of having, at some period, been recruited from the City Trained Bands. Likewise no regiment could beat a drum within the walls, or through the portes of the Scottish capital, with the exception of the 25th, or old Edinburgh Regiment. But not long after the battle of Minden, it chanced that a certain thick-pated lord-provost objected to their drums beating up for recruits, on the plea that none should beat there but those of the City Guard. On this, the colonel, Lord George Henry Lennox (M.P. for the county of Sussex, who died in 1805), was so incensed, that on his special application the title of the corps was changed, and its facings were altered from the royal yellow of Scotland to the royal blue of Britain, and after a time it was styled the "King's Own Borderers." Egmont-op-zee, Martinique, and Egypt added fresh honours to those of other times; but still on drum and standard are borne unchanged the castle, triple-towered, with the anchor and motto, _Nisi Dominus Frustra_, usually the first little bit of latinity learned by the Edinburgh schoolboy.