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

It was an important element in the country's defence at the time of the Spanish Armada in the 1580s, and control of the militia was one of the areas of dispute between King Charles I and Parliament that led to the English Civil War.

The Suffolk Trained Bands were active in the Siege of Colchester and Battle of Worcester, and later in controlling the country under the Commonwealth and Protectorate.

Ensign John Cobbold of the East Suffolks kept a diary of this march through Cambridge, Kettering, and Market Harborough to its assigned station at Leicester.

[24] With the Seven Years War drawing to a close, Grafton and Orwell were instructed on 20 December 1762 to disembody the two battalions, and the East Suffolks returned to Ipswich to carry this out.

At these summer encampments 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.

In November the regiment went into winter quarters in Essex, with 4 of its 8 companies at Romford and Hare Street, and the remainder distributed between Woodford, Epping, Ongar, Dagenham and Ilford.

The East Suffolks formed part of the Right Wing under Maj-Gen Staats Long Morris, an American Loyalist officer.

It was not until 20 October the following year that it returned to Suffolk for winter quarters, with headquarters and 4 companies at Beccles, lowestoft and Bungay, 2 distributed between Woodbridge, Wickham Market, Framlingham and Aldeburgh, and the remaining 2 across Blythburgh, Halesworth, Saxmundham and Southwold.

[15][14][24] 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.

[15][14][30] 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.

[10][31] On 7 February 1793 the East Suffolks deployed on the coast with 6 companies at Great Yarmouth in Norfolk and the other 2 at Lowestoft, then on 19 June it went to summer camp at Harwich, along with the Bedfordshire and West Kent Militia.

[30][32] With a French invasion possible, the Government augmented the strength of the embodied militia in early 1794: the East Suffolks by 59 men, recruited by voluntary enlistment and paid for by county subscriptions.

The regiment was dispersed across the county on 17 May, with 2 companies going to Tunbridge Wells, 2 to Penshurst, and 4 between Tonbridge, Malling, Mereworth, Teston and Yalding.

In May the East Suffolks marched to Dover Castle to relieve the West Yorkshire Militia, who took over their quarters at Ashford.

During the year nearly 300 men drawn from the East Suffolk and Montgomeryshire Militia were employed in constructing the modern defences at Dover Castle.

The purpose of the call-out was to replace militiamen who had volunteered to transfer to the Regular Army, and to augment the embodied militia for the possibility of serving in Ireland, the East Suffolks' new establishment being 1073 all ranks in 8 companies.

When the East Suffolks were inspected at Leeds in September 1800, the regiment mustered 32 officers and 459 ORs, reported as 'a serviceable body of men'.

On 8 April 1810 the regiment moved to Middlesex, first at Brentford, then on 14 May to Acton, Ealing and Hanwell; in June it sent a detachment to do duty at the Tower of London.

In addition, from November 1813 the militia were invited to volunteer for limited overseas service, primarily for garrison duties in Europe.

From the East Suffolks 2 officers and 83 ORs volunteered, serving in the 2nd Provisional Battalion under Lt-Col Edward Bayley of the Royal West Middlesex Militia.

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

[49][50][51] After the death of Marquess Cornwallis in 1823, Henry, Earl of Euston (later 5th Duke of Grafton), a half-pay Lieutenant in the 7th Hussars, was appointed colonel of the regiment on 23 September 1823.

He had served in the 16th Light Dragoons during the Peninsular War, being wounded at the Battle of Talavera, and had joined the East Suffolks as a major at the same time that the Earl of Euston became colonel, being promoted to lt-col on 24 May 1837.

[1][52][55] His second-in-command, also appointed on 3 May 1844, was Lt-Col Charles Blois of Cockfield Hall, who had served in the Royal Dragoons and been wounded at Waterloo.

[54][57][16][67] After the disasters of Black Week at the start of the Second Boer War in December 1899, most of the regular army was sent to South Africa, and many militia units were embodied to replace them for home defence and to garrison certain overseas stations.

[15][54][16] Under the more sweeping Haldane Reforms of 1908, the Militia was replaced by the Special Reserve (SR), a semi-professional force whose role was to provide reinforcement drafts for regular units serving overseas in wartime.

[17][59] When the unit became artillery militia in 1853 it adopted a similar uniform to the Regular RA, in blue with red facings and trouser stripe, but with silver/white lace and piping instead of gold/yellow.

[16][20] The officers' pouch flaps and sabretaches were embroidered with the Sea Holly (Eryngium maritimum) found growing on Landguard Common.

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