Gloucestershire Militia
The English Militia was descended from the Anglo-Saxon Fyrd, the military force raised from the freemen of the shires under command of their Sheriff.
Edward I regularly summoned the shire levies of Gloucestershire to fight in neighbouring Wales during his Welsh Wars, but they were not required for his Scottish campaigns.
[1][2][3][4][5][6] However, his grandson Edward III, did employ the Gloucestershire levies in Scotland, for example at the Siege of Berwick and Battle of Halidon Hill in 1333.
Rather than 1000 men, the Gloucestershire contingent serving from 23 June to 23 August 1335 was a more manageable body of 218 longbowmen (16 of them mounted), commanded by two ductores (constables) and 11 vintenars.
Although the Trained Bands were exempt from foreign service, they were frequently employed in Ireland, Gloucestershire again providing large contingents.
[25] Charles I had attempted to reform the Trained Bands into a national force or 'Perfect Militia' answering to the king rather than local control.
[26][27] On 12 February 1641 a firm Royalist supporter, George Brydges, 6th Lord Chandos, was entrusted with organising the Militia of the County and City of Gloucester.
[21][28] The Gloucester Trained Bands may have been organised as:[24] Control of the militia was one of the major points of dispute between Charles I and Parliament that led to the English Civil War in 1642.
Elements of the Gloucester TBs may have been part of the Parliamentarian force at the skirmish at Shepton Mallet in August 1642,[24] but with a few exceptions neither side made much use of the militia during the war beyond securing the county armouries for their own full-time troops.
[29][30][31] Later in the war some Gloucester TB troops may have formed part of the Parliamentarian garrison of Sudeley Castle in 1647 under Col Richard Aylworth.
Many militia regiments were called out in 1651 during the Scottish invasion (the Worcester campaign) and the Gloucestershire were part of a concentration ordered at Gloucester.
[38] Faced with another invasion in 1688, this time by his son-in-law, William of Orange, King James II called out the militia, and a detachment of the Gloucestershires intercepted Lord Lovelace and 70 followers at Cirencester en route to join the invader.
However, most of James's regular army and many militia regiments rallied to William, whose takeover (the Glorious Revolution) was otherwise virtually bloodless.
[38][47][48][49] The Gloucestershire Militia, horse and foot under the Lord Lieutenant, the Earl of Macclesfield, and Sir John Guise, 2nd Baronet of Elmore Court, were assembled for a month's summer training in 1690 during the crisis when William and the army were in Ireland and the French had won temporary command of the English Channel.
However, when the French fleet failed to follow up the Battle of Beachy Head, Macclesfield and Guise were ordered to send their men to their homes to help with the harvest.
By then Viscount Dursley was Lord Lieutenant of both the County of Gloucestershire and the City of Bristol, and he controlled the following regiments, though there is no mention of any training being carried out:[21][38][51][52] After the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713 the militia was allowed to dwindle.
[54] Nathaniel Wade, who had served as a major under Monmouth at Sedgemoor, commanded the Bristol Militia against the riotous coal miners of Kingswood in 1714,[55] and there was a flurry of activity in Gloucestershire at the time of the Jacobite rising of 1715.
[41][57][58][59][60][61][62][63] Despite anti-ballot riots at Cirencester, Cricklade and Lechlade, Gloucestershire was one of the first counties to meet the bulk of its quota (incorporating the vestiges of the old regiments) and was ready to issue them with arms on 15 May 1759.
[69][72][73] The Seven Years War ended with the Treaty of Paris on 10 February 1763 and the two battalions of Gloucestershire militia were disembodied, but not before they became separate South and North regiments on 20 April.
was passed to 'Enable His Majesty to call out and assemble the Militia in all cases of Rebellion in any part of the Dominion belonging to the Crown of Great Britain'.
In the event the militia was called out in its traditional role when Britain was threatened with invasion by the Americans' allies, France and Spain.
[77] In view of the worsening international situation the militia was embodied for service in 1792, even though Revolutionary France did not declare war on Britain until 1 February 1793.
[21][64][66][69][72][71][78][79] The French Revolutionary Wars saw a new phase for the English militia: they were embodied for a whole generation, and became regiments of full-time professional soldiers (though restricted to service in the British Isles), which the regular army increasingly saw as a prime source of recruits.
[83] In 1796 Gloucestershire had to find an additional 1757 militiamen for the Supplementary Militia, though unlike some counties these were apparently incorporated into the two existing regiments.
They resumed the routine of summer camps and winter quarters around the country, undergoing training, suppressing smuggling and guarding prisoners, all the while being depleted by men volunteering for the regulars: the RNG supplied a large number of recruits to the 9th Foot.
The two Gloucestershire regiments came together again in August 1808, when a large militia camp was held near Brighton, the excuse being the birthday of the Prince of Wales, but the opportunity being taken to carry out collective manoeuvres.
The quota for Gloucestershire was set at 1993 men and the Lord Lieutenant was instructed to recruit the two moribund regiments up to this strength over the next two years.
[71][104][106][107][108] Although often referred to as brigades, the sub-districts were purely administrative organisations, but as a continuation of the Cardwell Reforms a mobilisation scheme began to appear in the Army List from December 1875.
[113][114] When the Second Boer War drew away most of the Regular Army, the Militia were called out for home defence and to garrison certain overseas stations.
