It is curious to see, therefore, how the first voluntary national army, long embodied, produced an antagonism, among the mass of the people, to standing armies altogether, a feeling which lasts even until now in theory, if not in fact.
When Charles II. entered London in triumph, the sombre Ironside soldiery must have felt their reign was over. If they did not, the people did. For with the “Happy Restoration” of the monarchy, the dread of a military supremacy, whether of king or dictator, was strong enough to decree that the army of the Commonwealth should be totally disbanded.
So, for a short time at least, the army ceased to be. Its men soberly disappeared as a mass into private life; but so good was its warlike material, that “the Royalists themselves confessed that in every department of honest industry, the discarded warriors prospered beyond other men, that none was charged with any theft or robbery, that none was heard to ask an alms, and that if a baker, a mason, or a waggoner attracted notice by his diligence and sobriety, he was in all probability one of Oliver’s old soldiers.”[15]
Of the royal force there is nothing to be said, except that in displaying the national bravery they added nothing to the military knowledge and strength of the country when the sword was sheathed. It is not from them, but from their stern, more resolute, and better trained adversaries that we have to look for the germs of the future army of the State. After the war in 1652, the total force of the Protector’s army was 31,519 men in England, and about 20,000 in Ireland, though during the war it seems to have numbered at the highest about 80,000 men.
So, till Richard Cromwell disappeared, Great Britain not only possessed a standing army, but was practically governed by it. To the very fact that this was so may be directly traced its nearly entire disappearance; and, curiously enough, to the dread of it, when Charles II. returned, may be confidently attributed its reluctant restoration to safeguard the State he ruled.
CHAPTER IV
THE ARMY OF THE KING—TO 1701
Two important results affecting the composition and growth of the army which, after the Restoration, was to replace that of the “Commonwealth,” were apparent when Cromwell died. The number of well and continuously trained soldiers in Great Britain was far larger than at any previous period, and therefore formed a large nucleus from which a fresh, freely enlisted body could be recruited. It is difficult otherwise to account for the brilliant fighting power of the men who again began to make the name of the English army respected on the Continent, as in the days of Crecy and Poitiers. Many of those who fought under William were probably old soldiers of the latter part of the Civil War; while even those who had not taken an active share in the campaign of King and Cromwell, must have heard much of the bravery of their fathers, and of the glory—a feeling rightly common to both factions—won by the fighting power of those who had so recently passed away.
Armies, especially during long years of peace, live much upon past honours and tradition; and that which had now to be formed could not, if it tried, dissociate itself from the widespread military spirit that prolonged hostilities had aroused and permanently created. As in our days the memory of Peninsular victories lives to fan the flame of military ardour and national courage, so doubtless the “old man eloquent,” whether Cavalier or Roundhead, was listened to by his children, or grandchildren, at his knee with interest and wonder, when he descanted on how Rupert charged at Naseby, or how the trained bands stood the shock at Newbury.