A commission of array was a commission given by English sovereigns to officers or gentry in a given territory to muster and array the inhabitants and to see them in a condition for war, or to put soldiers of a country in a condition for military service.
[citation needed] Commissions of array developed from the ancient obligation of all free men to defend their tribal lands.
Commissioners were usually experienced soldiers, appointed by the crown to array able bodied men from each shire.
By the time of the Wars of the Roses, conscript levies were less important than troops raised by indenture.
[citation needed] Although long obsolete by the 17th century, the system was revived by King Charles I in 1642 at the start of the Civil War, in an unconstitutional manner, that is to say without Parliament having been consulted, in order to counteract the equally unconstitutional Militia Ordinance enacted by Parliament in 1642 without the usual Royal Assent.