The universal obligation to military service in the Shire levy was long established in England and extended to Wales, and its legal basis was updated by two acts of 1557 (4 & 5 Ph.

Conduct money was recovered from the government, but replacing the weapons issued to the levies from the militia armouries was a heavy cost on the counties.

[6][14][15] When open war broke out between the King and Parliament, neither side made much use of the trained bands beyond securing the county armouries for their own full-time troops.

Most of Wales was under Royalist control for much of the war, and was a recruiting ground for the King's armies until Parliament captured Montgomery Castle in September 1644.

[6][20][21][22] In Montgomeryshire there was a reluctance to muster and some refusals to pay the high levy to replace worn-out weapons with new ones sourced from a great distance away from the remote county.

[6] In 1697 the county had 364 men under the command of Colonel Sir John Pryce, 3rd Baronet[24] and 56 horse under Captain Mathew Price.

An adjutant and drill sergeants were to be provided to each regiment from the Regular Army, and arms and accoutrements would be supplied when the county had secured 60 per cent of its quota of recruits.

[33] The problem was less with the other ranks raised by ballot than the shortage of men qualified to be officers, even after the requirements were lowered for Welsh counties.

Cholmondeley was replaced as lord lieutenant by the 1st Earl of Powis in 1761 and the Montgomeryshire Militia was finally raised on 11 May 1763 (the date its weapons were issued from the Tower of London) at Welshpool under the command of Sir John Powell Pryce, 6th Baronet.

Here the completely raw militia were exercised as part of a division alongside regular troops while providing a reserve in case of French invasion of South East England.

It spent the winter in quarters at Ashford and Wye in Kent, where in January and April 1780 it received parties of recruits sent from Mellington and Welshpool in Montgomeryshire.

[41] Eight officers and 10 other ranks claimed leave to go home to vote in the 1780 general election[43] Then the whole regiment was ordered back to Montgomeryshire, arriving at Bishop's Castle on 2 November and taking up quarters at Montgomery, Welshpool and Newtown.

[8][34][41] In its disembodied state the regimental headquarters (HQ) and armoury in Welshpool were manned by the permanent staff of sergeants, corporals and drummers under the adjutant and sergeant-major.

In August 1797 the regiment was serving in the Dover Garrison (providing large working parties for the modernisation of the defences) and in the autumn it was manning the Dungeness forts.

Early in 1804 the regiment crossed the River Tamar to Maker Camp to assist the RA manning the forts covering Plymouth, with a detachment at the Yealm Batteries on the eastern side.

The Royal Navy's victory at Trafalgar in October 1805 reduced the likelihood of invasion, and the role of the militia changed, with less emphasis on coast defence and more as a reserve for the Regulars.

On 30 August 1852 Sir John Conroy, 1st Baronet, the former comptroller of Queen Victoria's household, was appointed Lt-Col Commandant, the seven elderly officers resigned and were replaced, and the adjutant and staff sergeant quickly began recruiting.

Soon they had assembled three companies:[69] The regiment was the first in Wales (and the second in the whole of the UK) to be completed, and Conroy called it out for 20 days' training at Welshpool on 25 October.

Next month it completed a fourth company and on 26 April it assembled at Welshpool for 28 days' training, including the revised drill for a rifle regiment.

Conroy died in 1854 and on 1 May 1854 the Hon Henry Hanbury-Tracy was promoted to Lt-Col Commandant with John Edward Harryman Pryce, formerly a captain in the 2nd Foot, as his major.

The regiment began its annual training on 3 May, still armed with the old 'Brown Bess' smoothbore musket, which they fired on an 80 yards (73 m) range behind the armoury.

On 25 June 1855 Maj Pryce succeeded Lt-Col Hanbury-Tracy, with Capt George Beadnell, formerly a lieutenant with the 37th Bengal Native Infantry, as his major.

The riot was suppressed by the officers and duty piquets with drawn swords and fixed bayonets; afterwards no blame was attached to the Royal Montgomeryshire Rifles.

A brigade depot was established at Copthorne Barracks, Shrewsbury, though the Royal Montgomeryshire Rifles remained at Welshpool for the rest of its existence.

However, the grouping at Shrewsbury was broken up, the 43rd leaving and being replaced by the 85th Foot, which merged with the 53rd to form the King's Shropshire Light Infantry (KSLI) on 1 July 1881.

[36][70][92] As a battalion of the South Wales Borderer it adopted that regiment's red uniform with white facings (changed to grass green in 1905).

[70][93] The officers' gilt shoulder-belt plate ca 1800 had a silver design of the Prince of Wales's feathers and coronet inside a crown garter inscribed 'MONTGOMERY MILITIA'.

The officer's plate in 1867-81 was now silver and the design was a French bugle-horn inside a circle inscribed 'ROYAL MONTGOMERY RIFLES', all in the centre of a Maltese cross and wreath, surmounted by the Prince of Wales's feathers, coronet and motto.

The black metal badge of the other ranks' 'pork pie' undress cap of ca 1850 had a light infantry bugle-horn with a scroll beneath inscribed 'ROYAL MONTGOMERY'.

In that year the King drew the lots and the resulting list remained in force with minor amendments until the end of the militia.