Middlesex Militia
The English militia was descended from the Anglo-Saxon Fyrd, the military force raised from the freemen of the shires under command of their Sheriff.
[22][24] Control of the trained bands was one of the major points of dispute between Charles I and Parliament that led to the English Civil War.
[25][26] There is an often-repeated story that when Charles I returned from his Scottish campaign in October 1641 he ordered the guards on Parliament sitting at Westminster, which were provided by the City, Surrey and Middlesex TBs under command of the Puritan Robert Devereux, 3rd Earl of Essex, to be replaced by the Westminster Trained Bands (many of whose tradesmen members were purveyors to the Royal Court) under the command of the Royalist Lord Lieutenant of Middlesex, the Earl of Dorset, and that subsequently there were clashes between the new guards and the London apprentices.
[30][31] 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.
[32] The main exception was the London area, where the LTBs together with the suburban regiments constituted Parliament's reserve, available for short campaigns.
In November 1642 the TBs reinforced the Earl of Essex's army and helped to repulse the Royalists at the Battle of Turnham Green.
During the Edgehill campaign the citizens had erected breastworks across all the streets leading to open country and set up guard posts manned by the LTBs – 20 companies were on duty each night.
Then in the winter of 1642–3 volunteer work gangs of citizens constructed a massive entrenchment and rampart round the City and its suburbs, enclosing the whole of Westminster and the Tower Hamlets and several other Middlesex parishes.
Thus the Committee for Middlesex only had a single regiment commanded by Sir Gilbert Gerard, 1st Baronet of Harrow on the Hill, Member of Parliament (MP) for the county.
Despite cries of 'Home, Home' from the trained bandsmen, the brigade remained with Waller's army, and the Westminsters took part in the storming of Alton on 13 December.
Too late for Cropredy Bridge, and already losing individuals and whole units to desertion, Browne went to capture Greenland House on the River Thames near Henley, using the county TBs, including Gerard's Middlesex regiment.
[47][22][62][63][64][65] When the Parliamentary leaders ordered a new concentration of forces to face the King's victorious army on its return from the west, London provided a fresh brigade under Harington including the Westminster Liberty Regiment, recently at Abingdon.
However, after the Battle of Naseby in 1645, the New Model Army advanced into the West Country, and the Middlesex TBs were ordered to a rendezvous at Romsey in June.
However, when the Army reached Hounslow the London and suburban TBs refused to muster, the politicians caved in, and the New Model marched in.
[74][75][76] Under the Commonwealth and Protectorate the militia received pay when called out, and operated alongside the New Model Army to control the country.
[77] During the Worcester campaign of the Third English Civil War in 1651, the Middlesex Militia was ordered to rendezvous at St Albans while the LTBs remained guarding London.
[92] Newcastle held meetings in 1758 and 1759 but insufficient numbers of qualified persons put themselves forward for commissions in the Middlesex Militia, and he suspended the execution of the Act in the county in both years.
[93][94] However, opinion in the county shifted and the deputy lieutenants and MPs applied to Parliament to revoke the suspension, forcing Newcastle to act.
[96] There were again three regiments (Eastern, Western and Westminster) and arms and accoutrements were supplied from the Tower of London on 7 and 12 August when the county had secured 60 per cent of its quota of recruits.
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.
[89][106] Middlesex remained one of the 'black spots' for militia recruitment: in August 1793 the Western Regiment was 90 men short of the number it should have embodied.
The Earl of Mansfield, colonel of the Eastern Regiment, complained in November 1798 that he had only received 120 of the supplementary men instead of over 700 he was due, and half of them were unfit.
[109] In January 1796 the colonel of the Westminster Regiment, John Fenton-Cawthorne, MP, was court-martialled for withholding money he was due to have paid his men, and forcing them to pay for clothing (from his contractor) that they did not need.
Nevertheless, numbers of Volunteer units remained high in London and Middlesex, and the Local Militia Act was not enacted in the county.
The West Middlesex provided a large detachment to a Provisional Battalion in a militia brigade that arrived at Bordeaux just as the war was ending.
Although militia officers continued to be commissioned and ballots were still held, the regiments were rarely assembled for training and the permanent staffs of sergeants and drummers were progressively reduced.
All five Middlesex regiments served, and the Royal Westminster LI volunteered for garrison duty overseas, spending 1855–56 in Corfu, for which it was awarded the Battle Honour Mediterranean.
[125][134] Under the 'Localisation of the Forces' scheme introduced by the Cardwell Reforms of 1872, militia regiments were brigaded with their local regular and Volunteer battalions.
[12][99][102][103][104][128] 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 all five Middlesex battalions were called out.
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.
