The universal obligation to military service in the Shire levy was long established in England and was extended to Wales.

In April 1588, ahead of the Spanish Armada crisis, Radnorshire mustered 200 'trayned men reduced into bandes under Captaines and soarted with weapons'.

Radnorshire earned the government's displeasure for recruiting men from prison, but mainly because they were so 'naked and bare' that the royal treasury was forced to fit them out and sent the bill to the county for settlement.

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

[17][18] The Radnorshire Trained Bands of 1638 consisted of 200 men, 112 armed with muskets and 88 'Corslets' (body armour, signifying pikemen).

These pressed men rioted at Presteigne and the Trained Bands had to step in to prevent them murdering their captain, whom they claimed to be a 'Papist'.

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.

Under the Commonwealth and Protectorate the militia received pay when called out, and operated alongside the New Model Army to control the country.

[30] As Lord President, the Duke of Beaufort carried out a tour of inspection of the Welsh militia in 1684, when the Radnorshire units consisted of one Troop of horse and a regiment of three-foot companies 'who gave a good volley'.

An adjutant and drill sergeants were to be provided to each regiment from the Regular Army, and arms and accoutrements would be supplied when the county had secured 60 per cent of its quota of recruits.

It did, however, carry out peacetime training in the following years, putting on a field day under the command of the Lord Lieutenant (Edward Harley, 4th Earl of Oxford & Mortimer) for the King's birthday in 1771.

[45] Later that year an inspecting officer found the Radnorshires to be notably lacking in training, but this was because the corps consisted largely of recruits.

[48] In the spring of 1779, organised as two companies under the command of Major John Jones, the regiment was marched to Kent to join Coxheath Camp near Maidstone.

This was the army's largest training camp, where the militia were exercised as part of a division alongside regular troops while providing a reserve in case of French invasion of South East England.

[52] In February 1781 the regiment formed part of the garrison of Landguard Fort, in Suffolk, and in May that year was at Greenwich (then in Kent).

Under the command of Maj John Beavan, the Radnorshires were exercised for 28 days in 1787, embodied again in 1788, then carried out annual training in each of the following years.

[54][55] The French Revolutionary Wars saw a new phase for the English and Welsh 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.

[43][44][63][64][65][b] During the summer of 1805, when Napoleon was massing his 'Army of England' at Boulogne for a projected invasion, the regiment (131 men in 3 companies under Col Walsham Garbett) was deployed with the artillery reserve at Canterbury Barracks and on the coast of Kent.

These were raised to counter the declining numbers of Volunteers, and if their ranks could not be filled voluntarily the Militia Ballot was employed.

Although officers continued to be commissioned into the militia and ballots were still held until 1831, the regiments were rarely assembled for training and the permanent staffs of sergeants and drummers were progressively reduced.

[68][76] In 1840 J. Barnes was major-commandant of the regiment,[77] and John Abraham Whitaker of Newcastle Court, Old Radnor, formerly a captain in the 28th Foot, was appointed on 21 March 1846.

The county JPs were told they should repair the building and provide a proper pigsty (it appears that the sergeant in charge kept his pig in the magazine), but they were reluctant to pay out of local taxation.

[83] In 1861 the War Office ordered the amalgamation of the small Welsh militia quotas to form larger regiments.

[67] The Royal Radnor Militia's buttons of 1803 bore a design of the Prince of Wales's feathers, coronet and 'Ich Dien' motto, with the letter 'R' either side of the plume and 'M' beneath.

[44] The Shako plate of 1868 had a Maltese cross and wreath, in the centre of which was the Prince of Wales's insignia within a circle inscribed 'ROYAL RADNOR RIFLES'.

[44][67] During the War of American Independence the order of precedence of county militia regiments was determined by an annual ballot.

In 1833 the King drew the lots for individual regiments, those raised between 1763 and 1783 receiving places 48–69; the Royal Radnor was 50th and retained this position when the list was revised in 1855.