61. It is difficult to summarize the history of the army between the Hundred Years’ War and 1642. The final failure of the English arms in France was soon followed by the Wars of the Roses, and in the long period of civil strife the only national force remaining to England was the Calais garrison. Henry VIII. was a soldier-king, but he shared the public feeling for the old bow and bill, and English armies which served abroad did not, it seems, win the respect of the advanced professional soldiers of the continent. In 1519 the Venetian ambassador described the English forces as consisting of 150,000 men whose peculiar, though not exclusive, weapon was the long bow (Fortescue i. 117). The national levy made in 1588 to resist the Armada and the threat of invasion produced about 750 lancers (heavy-armed cavalry), 2000 light horse and 56,000 foot, beside 20,000 men employed in watching the coasts. The small proportion of mounted men is very remarkable in a country in which Cromwell was before long to illustrate the full power of cavalry on the battlefield. It is indeed not unfair to regard this army as a miscellaneous levy of inferior quality.
It was in cavalry that England was weakest, and by three different acts it was sought to improve the breed of horses, though the light horse of the northern counties had a good reputation, and even won the admiration of the emperor Charles V. Perhaps the best organized force in England at this time was the London volunteer association which ultimately became the Honourable Artillery Company. At Floddon the spirit of the old English yeomanry triumphed over the outward form of continental battalions which the Scots had adopted, and doubtless the great victory did much to retard military progress in England. The chief service of Henry VIII. to the British army was the formation of an artillery train, in which he took a special interest. Before he died the forces came to consist of a few permanent troops (the bodyguard and the fortress artillery service), the militia or general levy, which was for home, and indeed for county, service only, and the paid armies which were collected for a foreign war and disbanded at the conclusion of peace, and were recruited on the same principle of indents which had served in the Hundred Years’ War. In the reign of Mary, the old Statute of Winchester was revised (1553), and the new act provided for a readjustment of the county contingents and in some degree for the rearmament of the militia. But, from the fall of Calais and the expedition to Havre up to the battle of the Dunes a century later, the intervention of British forces in foreign wars was always futile and generally disastrous. During this time, however, the numerous British regiments in the service of Holland learned, in the long war of Dutch independence, the art of war as it had developed on the continent since 1450, and assimilated the regimental system and the drill and armament of the best models. Thus it was that in 1642 there were many hundreds of trained and war-experienced officers and sergeants available for the armies of the king and the parliament. By this time bows and bills had long disappeared even from the militia, and the Thirty Years’ War, which, even more than the Low Countries, offered a career for the adventurous man, contributed yet more trained officers and soldiers to the English and Scottish forces. So closely indeed was war now studied by Englishmen that the respective adherents of the Dutch and the Swedish systems quarrelled on the eve of the battle of Edgehill. Francis and Horace Vere, Sir John Norris, and other Englishmen had become generals of European reputation. Skippon, Astley, Goring, Rupert, and many others soon to be famous were distinguished as company and regimental officers in the battles and sieges of Germany and the Low Countries.
The home forces of England had, as has been said, little or nothing to revive their ancient renown. Instead, they had come to be regarded as a menace to the constitution. In Queen Elizabeth’s time the demands of the Irish wars had led to frequent forced levies, and the occasional billeting of the troops in England also gave rise to murmurs, but the brilliancy and energy of her reign covered a great deal, and the peaceful policy of her successor removed all immediate cause of complaint. But after the accession of Charles I. we find the army a constant and principal source of dispute between the king and parliament, until under William III. it is finally established on a constitutional footing. Charles, wishing to support the Elector Palatine in the Thirty Years’ War, raised an army of 10,000 men. He was already encumbered with debts, and the parliament refused all grants, on which he had recourse to forced loans. The army was sent to Spain, but returned without effecting anything, and was not disbanded, as usual, but billeted on the inhabitants. The billeting was the more deeply resented as it appeared that the troops were purposely billeted on those who had resisted the loan. Forced loans, billeting and martial law—all directly connected with the maintenance of the army—formed the main substance of the grievances set forth in the Petition of Right. In accepting this petition, Charles gave up the right to maintain an army without consent of parliament; and when in 1639 he wished to raise one to act against the rebellious Scots, parliament was called together, and its sanction obtained, on the plea that the army was necessary for the defence of England. This army again became the source of dispute between the king and parliament, and finally both sides appealed to arms.
62. The first years of the Great Rebellion (q.v.) showed primarily the abundance of good officers produced by the wars on the continent, and in the second place the absolute inadequacy of the military system of the country; the commissions of array, militia ordinances, &c., had at last to give way to regular methods of enlistment and a central army administration. It was clear, at the same time, that when the struggle was one of principles and not of dynastic politics, excellent recruits, far different from the wretched levies who had been gathered together for the Spanish war, were to be had in any reasonable number. These causes combined to produce the “New Model” which, originating in Cromwell’s own cavalry and the London trained bands of foot, formed of picked men and officers, severely disciplined, and organized and administered in the right way, quickly proved its superiority over all other armies in the field, and in a few years raised its general to supreme civil power. The 15th of February 1645 was the birthday of the British standing army, and from its first concentration at Windsor Park dates the scarlet uniform. The men were for the most part voluntarily enlisted from existing corps, though deficiencies had immediately to be made good by impressment.
Four months later the New Model decided the quarrel of king and parliament at Naseby. When Cromwell, the first lieutenant-general and the second captain-general of the army, sent his veterans to take part in the wars of the continent they proved themselves a match for the best soldiers in Europe. On the restoration of the monarchy in 1660 the army, now some 80,000 strong, was disbanded. It had enforced the execution of Charles I., it had dissolved parliament, and England had been for years governed under a military regime. Thus the most popular measure of the Restoration was the dissolution of the army. Only Monk’s regiment of foot (now the Coldstream Guards) survived to represent the New Model in the army of to-day. At the same time the troops (now regiments) of household cavalry, and the regiment of foot which afterwards became the Grenadier Guards, were formed, chiefly from Royalists, though the disbanded New Model contributed many experienced recruits. The permanent forces of the crown came to consist once more of the “garrisons and guards,” maintained by the king from the revenue allotted to him for carrying on the government of the country. The “garrisons” were commissioned to special fortresses—the Tower of London, Portsmouth, &c. The “guards” comprised the sovereign’s bodyguards (“the yeomen of the guard” and “gentlemen-at-arms,” who had existed since the times of Henry VII. and VIII.), and the regiments mentioned above. Even this small force, at first not exceeding 3000 men, was looked on with jealousy by parliament, and every attempt to increase it was opposed. The acquisition of Tangier and Bombay, as part of the dower of the infanta of Portugal, led to the formation of a troop of horse (now the 1st Royal Dragoons) and a regiment of infantry (the 2nd, now Queen’s R.W. Surrey, regiment) for the protection of the former; and a regiment of infantry (afterwards transferred to the East India Company) to hold the latter (1661). These troops, not being stationed in the kingdom, created no distrust; but whenever, as on several occasions during Charles’s reign, considerable armies were raised, they were mostly disbanded when the occasion ceased. Several regiments, however, were added to the permanent force, including Dumbarton’s regiment (the 1st or Royal Scots, nicknamed Pontius Pilate’s Bodyguard)—which had a long record of service in the armies of the continent, and represented the Scots brigade of Gustavus Adolphus’s army—and the 3rd Buffs, representing the English regiments of the Dutch army and through them the volunteers of 1572, and on Charles’s death in 1685 the total force of “guards and garrisons” had risen to 16,500, of whom about one-half formed what we should now call the standing army.
63. James II., an experienced soldier and sailor, was more obstinate than his predecessor in his efforts to increase the army, and Monmouth’s rebellion afforded him the opportunity. A force of about 20,000 men was maintained in England, and a large camp formed at Hounslow. Eight cavalry and twelve infantry regiments (the senior of which was the 7th “Royal” Fusiliers, formed on a new French model) were raised, and given the numbers which, with few exceptions, they still bear. James even proposed to disband the militia, which had not distinguished itself in the late rebellion, and further augment the standing army; and although the proposal was instantly rejected, he continued to add to the army till the Revolution deprived him of his throne. The army which he had raised was to a great extent disbanded, the Irish soldiers especially, whom he had introduced in large numbers on account of their religion, being all sent home.
The condition of the army immediately engaged the attention of parliament. The Bill of Rights had definitely established that “the raising or keeping of a standing army within the kingdom, unless it be by the consent of parliament, is against the law,” and past experience made them very jealous of such a force. But civil war was imminent, foreign war certain; and William had only a few Dutch troops, and the remains of James’s army, with which to meet the storm. Parliament therefore sanctioned a standing army, trusting to the checks established by the Bill of Rights and Act of Settlement, and by placing the pay of the army under the control of the Commons. An event soon showed the altered position of the army. A regiment mutinied and declared for James. It was surrounded and compelled to lay down its arms; but William found himself without legal power to deal with the mutineers. He therefore applied to parliament, and in 1689 was passed the first Mutiny Act, which, after repeating the provisions regarding the army inserted in the Bill of Rights, and declaring the illegality of martial law, gave power to the crown to deal with the offences of mutiny and desertion by courts-martial. From this event is often dated the history of the standing army as a constitutional force (but see Fortescue, British Army, i. 335).
64. Under William the army was considerably augmented. The old regiments of James’s army were reorganized, retaining, however, their original numbers, and three of cavalry and eleven of infantry (numbered to the 28th) were added. In 1690 parliament sanctioned a force of 62,000 men, further increased to 65,000 in 1691; but on peace being made in 1697 the Commons immediately passed resolutions to the effect that the land forces be reduced to 7000 men in England and 12,000 in Ireland. The War of the Spanish Succession quickly obliged Great Britain again to raise a large army, at one time exceeding 200,000 men; but of these the greater number were foreign troops engaged for the continental war. Fortescue (op. cit. i. 555) estimates the British forces at home and abroad as 70,000 men at the highest figure. After the peace of Utrecht the force was again reduced to 8000 men in Great Britain and 11,000 in the plantations (i.e. colonies) and abroad. From that time to the present the strength of the army has been determined by the annual votes of parliament, and though frequently the subject of warm debates in both houses, it has ceased to be a matter of dispute between the crown and parliament. The following table shows the fluctuations from that time onward—the peace years showing the average peace strength, the war years the maximum to which the forces were raised:—
| Peace. | War. | ||
| Year. | Number. | Year. | Number. |
| 1750 | 18,857 | 1745 | 74,187 |
| 1793 | 17,013 | 1761 | 67,776 |
| 1822 | 71,790 | 1777 | 90,734 |
| 1845 | 100,011 | 1812 | 245,996 |
| 1857 | 156,995 | 1856 | 275,079 |
| 1866 | 203,404 | 1858 | 222,784 |
Note.—Prior to 1856 the British forces serving in India are not included.