Surrey Trained Bands

The universal obligation to military service in the Shire levy was long established in England and its legal basis was updated by two Acts of 1557, covering musters and the maintenance of horses and armour, which placed the county militia under a Lord Lieutenant appointed by the monarch, assisted by the Deputy Lieutenants and Justices of the Peace. The entry into force of these Acts in 1558 is seen as the starting date for the organised county militia in England.[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8]

Although the militia obligation was universal, it was clearly impractical to train and equip every able-bodied man (in 1574 Surrey had 6000 able men, of whom 1800 were armed, and 96 Demi-lancers with half-armour), so after 1572 the practice was to select a proportion of men for the Trained Bands, who were mustered for regular drills.[9][10][11][12][13][14]

When war broke out with Spain training and equipping the militia became a priority. From 1584 counties were organised into groups for training purposes, with emphasis on the invasion-threatened 'maritime' counties including Surrey. These counties were given precedence for training by professional captains under the Lord Lieutenant. In compensation for paying for this training, these counties received a lower quota of men to fill, which meant that they provided a smaller but better-trained force. Surrey's quota was initially set at a crippling 2000 men, later reduced to 1000 divided into four equal companies.[15][16][17]

In the 16th Century little distinction was made between the militia and the troops levied by the counties for overseas expeditions. However, the counties usually conscripted the unemployed and criminals rather than the Trained Bandsmen – in 1585 the Privy Council ordered the impressment of able-bodied unemployed men in Surrey (100) and Sussex (150) for the expedition to the Netherlands, but the Queen ordered 'none of her trayned-bands to be pressed'. Replacing the weapons issued to the levies from the militia armouries was a heavy cost on the counties.[18][19]

The Armada Crisis in 1588 led to the mobilisation of the trained bands on 23 July, and eight Surrey companies were present at the camp at Tilbury where Queen Elizabeth gave her Tilbury speech on 9 August. Surrey furnished 1900 militiamen in total, of whom 1522 were trained (500 of these were stationed to defend the Isle of Wight). They were variously armed with calivers, muskets, corslets (pikemen's armour), longbows or bills, with the highest proportion of old-fashioned bows and bills among the untrained men. After the defeat of the Armada, the army was dispersed to its counties to avoid supply problems, but the men were to hold themselves in readiness. In the continuing war against Spain, the Surrey Trained Bands were called out to London in 1594 and to a new camp at Tilbury in 1596 (when they consisted of eight lancers, 39 light horsemen and 1000 footmen).[20][15][21][22][23]

The trained bands could also be called out to guard against civil disorder. The Surrey Trained Bands were camped outside London during the trial and execution of Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex. Similarly, the accession of King James I saw 100 Surrey trained bandsmen summoned to help guard the City of Westminster during the coronation.[24]

Sir Richard Onslow (1601–64), MP, 'The Red Fox of Surrey'.

The Trained Bands declined during the following decades until James's son King Charles I attempted to reform them into a national force or 'Perfect Militia' answering to the monarch rather than local officials.[25] In 1638 the reformed Surrey Trained Bands totalled 1500 men, with 604 muskets and 896 corslets (pikemen wearing back-and-breast plates), 63 mounted Cuirassiers and 66 mounted Harquebusiers. They were organised as follows:[26]

• East Division Trained Band
• Middle Division Trained Band
• West Division Trained Band
• Surrey Auxiliaries (raised in 1642)
• Surrey Trained Band Horse

Sir Richard Onslow of Clandon Park was Colonel of the Surrey Trained Band Horse from 1626 to 1642 and also commanded the Surrey Auxiliaries.[26][27]

Trained bands were called out in 1639 and 1640 for the Bishops' Wars. Surrey was not affected in 1639, but in March 1640 the county was ordered to send 800 picked men to rendezvous at Gravesend to embark for the forthcoming campaign in the north. There was considerable resistance from the southern counties and from the men, and many of those who were actually sent by the counties were untrained hired substitutes.[26][28][29]

Control of the militia was one of the major points of dispute between Charles I and Parliament that led to the First English Civil War.[30][31][32] Early in 1641 Royalist lords lieutenant were appointed to command the trained bands: on 12 February Charles Howard, 2nd Earl of Nottingham (lord-lieutenant since 1621) was confirmed in command of the Surreys.[22] As the crisis worsened, the London Trained Bands did duty at Westminster for long periods, for example during the trial of the Earl of Strafford, and Parliament arranged for the Middlesex and Surrey Trained Bands under command of the 3rd Earl of Essex to relieve them. On his return to London in November, Charles dismissed them and replaced them with the more Royalist Westminster Trained Bands.[33][34] As the crisis deepened, Lord Digby and Sir Thomas Lunsford began raising Royalist volunteers and gathering arms and armour at Kingston upon Thames. On 17 January 1642 Sir Richard Onslow, Member of parliament (MP) and Deputy Lieutenant for Surrey, raised the Trained Bands of the county, dispersed Digby's men at Kingston, and seized the county magazine for Parliament. He also put men into Farnham to watch the Portsmouth Road.[26][27][35][36]

In August and September 1642, the Surrey Trained Bands left their county and marched to take part in the Siege of Portsmouth. In November they were back at Kingston, part of the force defending its bridge while the Battle of Brentford was fought nearby.[26][37][38]

Once the Civil War developed, neither side made much further use of the Trained Bands except as a source of recruits and weapons for their own full-time regiments.[39][40][41] The Southern Association of Hampshire, Kent, Surrey and Sussex raised regiments for Sir William Waller's army; Surrey's initial quota was 400 men. Sir Richard Onslow, for example, raised the Surrey Redcoats, which served as the garrison of Guildford, and he commanded all the Surrey troops at the Siege of Basing House, with four or five companies of his regiment.[26][38][42][lower-alpha 1]

After the Restoration of the Monarchy, the English Militia was re-established by the Militia Act of 1661 under the control of the king's lords-lieutenant,[lower-alpha 2] the men to be selected by ballot. This was popularly seen as the 'Constitutional Force' to counterbalance a 'Standing Army' tainted by association with the New Model Army that had supported Cromwell's military dictatorship, and almost the whole burden of home defence and internal security was entrusted to the militia.[46][68][69][70][31][71]

There is little information on the uniforms of the Trained Bands. Onslow's Surrey Redcoats may have carried their coats over from his Surrey Auxiliaries. The Southwark White Auxiliaries gained their name from their ensigns rather than their coats. Green coats are mentioned for the Surrey Trained Bands at Farnham in 1643. Under Cromwell's Protectorate the Militia adopted the Army's standard red coat.[38][20]

When Southwark mustered two regiments in 1642, one had white ensigns with red devices to indicate the captains' seniority, the other red with yellow devices. In September 1643 the single Southwark regiment bore white ensigns with blue devices, but was still known as the Yellow Regiment. The Southwark Auxiliaries carried white ensigns when they were raised in 1644, but these had changed to black by 1645 (probably after a change of colonel).[45]