With control of the "army" (the militia), the colony's Royalists deposed the Governor, Captain Thomas Turner, elected John Trimingham to replace him, and exiled many of its Parliamentary-leaning Independents to settle the Bahamas under William Sayle as the Eleutheran Adventurers.

Bermuda's defences (coastal artillery batteries and forts, as well as its militia) were too powerful for the task force sent in 1651 by Parliament under the command of Admiral Sir George Ayscue to capture the Royalist colonies.

Although the local Government accepted instructions that arrived at the same time from the Virginia Company regarding the appointment of Governor, it remained staunchly Royalist, prosecuting traitors against the our Soveraigne Lord the Kinge.

[4] Alongside Bermuda's militia (as in England, a conscripted infantry force) was a standing body of volunteers (and some convicts, sentenced to carrying out military service) trained as artillery men to garrison the forts and batteries built by the local government.

In addition to the full-time artillerymen, all of the colony's men of military age were obliged to turn out for militia training and in case of war.

Regular soldiers invalided from continental battlefields as part of the Royal Garrison Battalion had been stationed in Bermuda between 1778 and 1784 during the American War of Independence, but were withdrawn following the Treaty of Paris.

As a result, following the American War of Independence the Admiralty began purchasing land around Bermuda, especially at the under-developed West End, with a view to establishing a dockyard and naval base there.

Prior to 1784, the Bermuda Garrison had been placed under the military Commander-in-Chief America in New York during the American War of Independence, but was subsequently to become part of the Nova Scotia Command until the 1860s (in 1815, Lieutenant-General Sir George Prevost was Captain-General and Governor-in-Chief in and over the Provinces of Upper-Canada, Lower-Canada, Nova-Scotia, and New~Brunswick, and their several Dependencies, Vice-Admiral of the same, Lieutenant-General and Commander of all His Majesty’s Forces in the said Provinces of Lower Canada and Upper-Canada, Nova-Scotia and New-Brunswick, and their several Dependencies, and in the islands of Newfoundland, Prince Edward, Cape Breton and the Bermudas, &c. &c. &c. Beneath Prevost, the staff of the British Army in the Provinces of Nova-Scotia, New-Brunswick, and their Dependencies, including the Islands of Newfoundland, Cape Breton, Prince Edward and Bermuda were under the Command of Lieutenant-General Sir John Coape Sherbrooke.

A much larger naval and military force, 2,500 soldiers under Major-General Robert Ross aboard HMS Royal Oak, three frigates, three sloops and ten other vessels, was sent to Bermuda in 1814, following British victory in the Peninsular War.

[8] This campaign had been called for by Lieutenant-General Sir George Prévost (the Captain-General and Governor-in-Chief in and over the Provinces of Upper-Canada, Lower-Canada, Nova Scotia, and New-Brunswick, and their several Dependencies, Vice-Admiral of the same, Lieutenant-General and Commander of all His Majesty’s Forces in the said Provinces of Lower-Canada and Upper-Canada, Nova Scotia and New-Brunswick, and their several Dependencies, and in the islands of Newfoundland, Prince Edward, Cape Breton and the Bermudas, &c. &c. &c) in retribution for the "wanton destruction of private property along the north shores of Lake Erie" by American forces under Col. John Campbell in May 1814, the most notable being the Raid on Port Dover[9]) to draw United States forces away from the Canadian border.

All who were conversant with the interests of our West-Indian and North American possessions must know that Bermuda was one of our most important posts—a station where the navy could be refitted with the greatest ease, where during the last war we had about 2,000,000l.

For a long time even after the determination of the sympathisers in the United States to attack us had been known, the force at Bermuda was never greater than a small battalion of 480 or 500 men, perfectly inadequate to do the duties of the station.

Considering that this post was one of great consequence, that immense sums had been expended upon it, and that the efficiency of the navy in those seas was chiefly to be secured by means of it, it was indispensable, that it should be in safe keeping.

From Gibraltar, perhaps, one battalion more could be squeezed, if they could bring themselves to inflict great additional hardship on the troops now in garrison there, It really appeared to him absolutely necessary, that Government should look to the state of the army—should fairly consider the amount of work done by it, and apply themselves to the question, whether it was their duty to increase the military force.

[16][17] The War Office, after 1854 and until the 1867 confederation of the Dominion of Canada, split the military administration of the British colonial and foreign stations into nine districts: NORTH AMERICA AND NORTH ATLANTIC; WEST INDIES; MEDITERRANEAN; WEST COAST OF AFRICA AND SOUTH ATLANTIC; SOUTH AFRICA; EGYPT AND THE SUDAN; INDIAN OCEAN; AUSTRALASIA; and CHINA.

Originally, most of the regular soldiers were deployed around St. George's, but with the development of the City of Hamilton in the central parishes, which had become the capital in 1815, and of the HM Dockyard at the West End, it became necessary to redeploy the army westwards as well.

Edison Studios' 1912 film The Relief of Lucknow was filmed in Bermuda, and extensive support was provided by the garrison, with personnel from the 2nd Battalion of the Queen's (Royal West Surrey) Regiment) appearing as extras, and parts of Prospect Camp providing sets (notably the clubhouse of the Garrison Golf Links, originally a private home added to Prospect Camp under the 1865 Defence Act and now a Bermuda National Trust property called Palmetto House).

Although the Roman Catholic Church began to operate openly in Bermuda in the 19th century, its priests were not allowed, at first, to conduct baptisms, weddings or funerals.

Bermuda's tourism had arisen without conscious planning, and the hotels at first available to the wealthy visitors who pioneered holidaying on the island were generally small and uninspiring.

For the remainder of the 19th Century, military personnel made up a quarter of Bermuda's population, and defence spending, not agriculture or tourism, was the central leg of the Bermudian economy.

[43][44][45][46][47] The inter-war period finally saw the significant reduction of the regular army components of the garrison, and the transfer of most of their roles to the part-time territorial units.

As the manpower requirements of the artillery had been reduced with the closure of most of the batteries, a new unit, the Bermuda Militia Infantry, was raised, grouped administratively with the BMA and likewise recruiting black soldiers, in 1939.

They were succeeded by the Canadian Army's Winnipeg Grenadiers in 1940, a company of the 4th Battalion, Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders (including future Major Donald Henry "Bob" Burns, MC, who would be a Second-in-Command of the Bermuda Regiment, Town Crier of St. George's, and Guinness world record holder for loudest human speaking voice) in 1942, and a company of the Canadian Pictou Highlanders from 1942 to 1946.

The regular army infantry company operated the headquarters of the Garrison at Prospect Camp, and took responsibility for patrolling and guarding in the central parishes.

Although air and naval units based in Bermuda played an active part in the War, the Axis Powers never launched a direct attack on the colony.

With the US entry into the war in 1942, as well as the decreased danger posed by German surface ships and submarines, the moratorium preventing local units sending drafts overseas was lifted in 1943.

The regular garrison continued to include a full infantry company of 250 soldiers, plus attachments to, and detachments from other corps ("atts and dets"), such as the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers.

However, during the Bermuda Conference of 4 to 8 December 1953, the Prime Minister, Sir Winston Churchill, met with the US President Dwight D. Eisenhower and French Premier Joseph Laniel in the colony to discuss the security of Western Europe.

Its expertise means it has been increasingly called on to provide similar relief in British Overseas Territories and Commonwealth countries in the West Indies which lack Bermuda's resources.

Teams of volunteers have been flown to a series of islands since the 1980s by Royal Air Force transport, helping to fulfill the British Government's obligations to territories throughout that region.