Sorting hierarchical positions of soldiers, knight and monarch (7)
I believe the answer is:
ranking
'sorting hierarchical positions' is the definition.
'ranking' can be an answer for 'sorting' (thesaurus). I am unsure of the 'hierarchical positions' bit.
'soldiers knight and monarch' is the wordplay.
'soldiers' becomes 'RA' (abbreviation for Royal Artillery).
'knight' becomes 'n' (chess abbreviation).
'and' is a charade indicator (letters next to each other).
'monarch' becomes 'king' (king is a kind of monarch).
'ra'+'n'+'king'='RANKING'
'of' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for ranking that I've seen before include "Place among seeds" , "Assigning a position to" , "Grading" , "position on graded scale" , "Status" .)