From their formal organisation as Trained Bands in 1558 until their final service in the Special Reserve, the Militia regiments of the county carried out internal security and garrison duties at home and overseas in all of Britain's major wars.

[6] When invasion threatened in 1539, Henry VIII held a Great Muster of all the counties, recording the number of armed men available in each hundred and tithing.

When the army marched north, Colonel Sir John Beaumont's regiment of West Countrymen from Wiltshire, Somerset and Bristol marauded through Derbyshire, being encouraged by the local inhabitants to break down the hated enclosures, destroying a mill belonging to the unpopular former Secretary of State, Sir John Coke and threatening to burn down his house.

[20][26] During the turmoil over the Restoration of the Monarchy in 1661, the Wiltshire Militia were deployed to seize arms and secure suspected persons, with two companies of foot at Malmesbury and a troop of horse at Devizes.

In 1661 the deputy lieutenants of Wiltshire were urged to organise their militia quickly and asked for additional DLs to be appointed, because so many of them were officeholders in London and frequently absent from the county.

[5][25][28][29][30] When the Dutch carried out a Raid on the Medway in June 1667, Wiltshire was ordered to send three foot companies and a troop of horse to bolster the defences of the Isle of Wight.

[31] The hundreds of Wiltshire were traditionally organised into four 'divisions' centred on Salisbury (or 'Sarum'), Marlborough, Devizes and Warminster, and after the Restoration each division provided a regiment of foot and a troop of horse.

As his rebels mustered, the government of James II responded by declaring him a traitor and calling out the militia on 13 June, while the regulars of the Royal army were assembled.

Under Pembroke's command it then marched 49 miles (79 km) in three days via Market Lavington and Chippenham (where it was met by the King's commander-in-chief, the Earl of Feversham with a detachment of the Horse Guards) to Bath, where the Royal army was concentrating.

[40][41][42] Hearing that Frome had declared for Monmouth, Pembroke marched out from Trowbridge on 25 June with Penruddocke's, Willoughby's, and Maskelyn's troops of Militia Horse, with 36 musketeers of the Red Regiment mounted behind some of the troopers.

On arrival he found a large number of rebel recruits who had come in from Warminster and Westbury, some armed with pistols or pikes, others with scythes and clubs.

[42][43][44] On the same day Monmouth had crossed the River Avon at Keynsham between Bath and Bristol but was attacked from north and south by bodies of Royal horse.

Oglethorpe launched his regular troopers into Keynsham, causing casualties and great confusion among the rebel army, then withdrew, covered by Talbot's men who had been posted for the purpose.

The whole army camped around Westonzoyland on the night of 5/6 July, with the three Wiltshire foot regiments bivouacked at Middlezoy and Othery, while the rebels were billeted in Bridgwater.

Drummer Adam Wheeler of the Colonel's Company beat the alarm and the regiment fell in and marched up to Westonzoyland, where it formed a three-deep line ready to engage.

The Wiltshire Militia remained in reserve and took no active part in the Battle of Sedgemoor, which lasted two hours and resulted in the total rout of Monmouth's rebel army.

[54] However, when William of Orange landed in the West Country in 1688 he was virtually unopposed by the army or the militia, and deposed James II in the Glorious Revolution.

[34][55][56] After the naval defeat at the Battle of Beachy Head in 1690, when the king was absent with most of the regular army campaigning in Ireland, the whole of the militia was called out, and the Wiltshire regiments formed part of a camp of 20,000 men near Portsmouth until the crisis was over.

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.

The Lord Lieutenant, Henry Herbert, 10th Earl of Pembroke, held his meetings with his DLs in the Old Town Hall at Devizes and organised the parish ballots.

[5] By September the regiment was in camp, and Wiltshire landowner William Beckford complained to the government that a man a day was falling sick as the weather deteriorated.

[79] 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.

[68][83] The Wiltshire Regiment of Supplementary Militia was embodied at Salisbury in 1797 under the command of the Duke of Somerset as colonel and Sir William à Court, 1st Baronet, as lieutenant-colonel.

In 1835, in common with other militia regiments, the Wiltshires returned all their weapons to Ordnance Stores except those of the permanent staff, which had been reduced to an adjutant, sergeant-major, 12 sergeants and 6 drummers.

The Royal Wiltshire was embodied on 10 June 1854 and borrowed NCOs from the Coldstream Guards to drill the farm boys and shepherds who gathered in Devizes.

Initial drill was carried out on a hired field near Devizes wharf, regimental HQ and the armoury were in the Bear Inn, and the officers' mess was in the Golden Lion.

[16][5][58][67] After serving at Cork the battalion volunteered for overseas service and was stationed on St Helena to guard Boer prisoners of war held there.

There were moves to reform the Auxiliary Forces (Militia, Yeomanry and Volunteers) to take their place in the six Army Corps proposed by the Secretary of State for War, St John Brodrick.

However, in May the 8th Wiltshires returned to Dorset to join the 8th Reserve Brigade at Wareham, where it trained drafts for the 5th, 6th and 7th (Service) Bns of the regiment serving in Mesopotamia, on the Western Front and at Salonika.

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.