The regiment provided internal security and home defence but sometimes operated further afield, relieving regular troops from routine garrison duties and acting as a source of trained officers and men for the British Army.

Cambridgeshire produced 1000 armed foot, of whom 500 were trained, and 170 mounted men: 50 lancers, 40 light horse and 80 'petronels' (the petronel was an early cavalry firearm).

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

When open warfare broke out between the King and Parliament, neither side made much use of the TBs beyond securing the county armouries for their own full-time troops who would serve anywhere in the country, many of whom were former trained bandsmen, or as auxiliary units for garrisons.

The distinguished soldier Lord Berkeley of Stratton was appointed Lieutenant-General of Militia for Suffolk, Cambridgeshire and the Isle of Ely, and by 13 June he and his staff had established the regional defence headquarters at Harwich.

He appointed a political ally, Thomas Bromley, 2nd Baron Montfort, as Lieutenant-Colonel Commandant of the regiment,[a] but doubted that enough qualified men could be found in the county willing to accept commissions.

[53] n 1775 Montfort fled to Paris to avoid his creditors but retained command of the Cambridgeshire Militia because of the patronage he could bestow on his friends, and the prospect of pay if war broke out with the American Colonies.

[14][47] Led by the Member of Parliament (MP) for Cambridgeshire, Sir John Hynde Cotton, 4th Baronet, the Deputy Lieutenants met on 9 April and demanded the dismissal of Lord Montfort.

[58] In 1780 the regiment was marching towards St Albans in Hertfordshire en route to Tiptree in Essex when it was stopped at Hampstead to help suppress the Gordon Riots then raging in London.

[58] Following the agreement of the Treaty of Paris ending the war, the regiment was disembodied in 1783[14][47] From 1784 to 1792 the militia were supposed to assemble for 28 days' annual training, even though to save money only two-thirds of the men were actually called out each year.

The Act directs, that every Militia Man or Substitute, as well those who exercised last Year, as those who were dismissed, who shall not appear at the Time and Place appointed, shall be deemed a Deserter, and shall forfeit and pay the Sum of Twenty Pounds, or, in Default of Payment, shall be committed to Prison for Six Months, or until he shall have paid the said Penalty.

From 1802 the lieutenancies were empowered to hire or erect storehouses at county expense, giving the militia permanent headquarters and regimental depots for the first time.

[68][69] The improvement in the regiment after Philip Yorke took over had gained praise when it went through its exercises in 1792, but when it was embodied soon afterwards the officers were described as inadequate and the sergeants able to do little by themselves: a bayonet charge ended in confusion, and drill was only possible in open order.

Of pre-war officers, former Lt-Col Fell of the East Essex Militia, and Capt George Manby commissioned into the Cambridgeshires in 1788, proved physically unfit.

[51][70] 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.

[73] The argumentative Lt Tolver was made a financial offer to surrender the adjutancy, and Capt Charles Wale, a half-pay regular officer who had seen service at the Great Siege of Gibraltar, was appointed in his place on 4 December 1793.

[58][76] With a French invasion possible, the Government augmented the strength of the embodied militia in 1794, the men recruited by voluntary enlistment and paid for by county subscriptions.

Captain Hudleston in temporary command had to deal with anonymous letters concerning the meat supply, which revealed chronic insubordination in the regiment; Hardwicke and Wale offered rewards to catch the offenders.

After their trial Lt-Col Nightingale and his opposite number of the West Kents took out newspaper advertisements declaring that the honour of their men had been vindicated.

In 1798 Lehmann and the band refused to play as a string ensemble for an officers' ball, claiming lack of instruments but in reality seeking a gratuity.

[83] In the spring of 1797 the Cambridgeshires were stationed at the newly-constructed Prisoner-of-war camp at Norman Cross in Huntingdonshire, together with the badly-disciplined South Lincolnshire regiment.

[45][86][87][84][88] Charles Wale had by now left the regiment but returned on 25 April 1798 with the rank of major to command the Supplementary Militia of Cambridgeshire, with two other captains, indicating an augmentation of three companies.

[98] 'On Friday 26 July 1803 the barracks of the garrison at Landguard Fort took fire, assisted by the Cambridgeshire Militia encamped nearby, it was extinguished in a very short time, without doing any material damage.

[100][101] During the summer of 1805, when Napoleon was massing his 'Army of England' at Boulogne for a projected invasion, the regiment under Lt-Col Charles Yorke was stationed at Lympne Camp, with 472 men in 8 companies, forming part of Maj-Gen Sir John Moore's force.

[115][116][117] At the first annual training in 1809, disturbances in the Cambridgeshire Local Militia at Ely had to be put down by troops of the King's German Legion, and some militiamen were flogged, a procedure criticised by William Cobbett, resulting in his imprisonment for treasonous libel.

Although officers continued to be commissioned into the militia and ballots were still held during the long peace after the Battle of Waterloo, the regiments were rarely assembled for training and the permanent staffs of sergeants and drummers were progressively reduced.

Report states that about the same number of this corps, now doing garrison duty at the Royal Barracks, Dublin, have volunteered into regiments of the line about to embark for the Crimea.

[142] In 1878 the Militia Reserve was called out because of international tensions over the Russo-Turkish War, and 144 men did duty that summer with the 2nd Battalion, Suffolk Regiment at Gosport.

In July that year the West Suffolk and Cambridgeshire Militia were brigaded with the 2nd Battalion when it was inspected on Southsea Common by the Commander-in-Chief, the Duke of Cambridge.

From 1889 the 3rd and 4th Militia Bns adopted the Suffolk Regiment's custom of wearing roses on their caps, colours and drums on Minden Day and the Sovereign's birthday.