Suffolk Militia

Suffolk was ordered to assign 2000 men to defend the county's ports and landing places and to send 2500 into Essex to join the Queen's army at Tilbury.

[22] Control of the trained bands was one of the major points of dispute between Charles I and Parliament that led to the First English Civil War.

When open warfare broke out between the King and Parliament, neither side made much use of the TBs beyond securing the county armouries for their own full-time troops who would serve anywhere in the country, many of whom were former trained bandsmen.

[23][24][25] However, when the Second English Civil War broke out in 1648, the whole county force of Suffolk was called out to oppose the Royal army that had invaded Essex.

The two militia companies stationed at Southwold were stood down, then on 10 July the Dutch appeared off the town, and the troops there had to be hurriedly reinforced.

Next day the inhabitants of Aldeburgh were frightened by the appearance of Dutch warships, having only '35 ill-disciplined men of the trained band and 20 guns, but not enough to manage them'.

[38] After the success at the St James's Day Battle, and with peace negotiations in progress, the British government became complacent and to save money it did not commission all its warships for the 1667 campaign.

However, in June the Dutch fleet carried out a devastating raid on the River Medway, destroying a partly-built fort at Sheerness and burning or capturing many of the warships laid up in the estuary.

Reports of the approaching Dutch came on 19 June, and the available troops were moved south, the Essex Militia to the coast and the Suffolk towards Landguard, leaving Aldeburgh, Lowestoft, Southwold and Dunwich unguarded.

Then on 1 July the Dutch fleet off Harwich disappeared northwards, only to come back close inshore next day, having received reinforcements for its landing force.

Meanwhile, five companies of the Yellow Regiment of Suffolk Militia under Major Holland had been ordered to march out of Old Felixstowe down to Landguard Fort.

[41][42][43][44] The Dutch anchored off Felixstowe about midday and the landings began in the afternoon about 2 miles (3.2 km) north of Landguard Fort.

The garrison of the fort consisted of a company of the Lord High Admiral's Regiment under Captain Nathaniel Darell, bolstered to about 200 by Major Holland and some of his men.

The attacking force consisted of three storming parties each of about 200 musketeers, equipped with grenades, fascines (to throw into the fort's ditch) and scaling ladders.

English observers attributed this final Dutch withdrawal to their seeing the colours of the Suffolk Militia displayed above them along Felixstowe cliff.

The town was garrisoned by two troops of horse and four companies of Rous's militia regiment under Lt-Col Sir Robert Brooke, MP.

Next day the deputy lieutenants of Suffolk ordered the rest of Rous's regiment to assemble at Beccles or Blythburgh, but no further landing was made and the Dutch left.

The Suffolk Militia was called out to reinforce Landguard Fort in 1673, but the Earl was still complaining of the discontinuance of musters when the war ended in 1674.

[47] The Earl of Suffolk was one of a number of lords lieutenant removed from office for their political views during the Exclusion Crisis late in the reign of Charles II.

Both regiments spent the rest of their embodied service in their home county, apart from June 1762, when the East Suffolks attended a training camp at Sandheath, near Ripley.

At these encampments the completely raw Militia were exercised as part of a division alongside Regular troops while providing a reserve in case of French invasion.

[6][62][71] 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.

[6][62][77] Lord Euston reported from Suffolk that substitutes would be unwilling to serve if their families were not eligible for the allowances given to balloted men, and so they were included in the Militia Bill before Parliament.

[78] 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.

The West Suffolks served there from April 1813 until September 1814, when they returned to Bury St Edmunds to be disembodied at the end of the Napoleonic War.

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.

[104][108] 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.

[101][105][102][109] 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.

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.

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.