English Army

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English Army
royal arms of England
Active1660–1707
Country Kingdom of England
AllegianceEnglish monarchy
TypeArmy
Engagements
Commanders
Captain-GeneralGeorge Monck, John Churchill
Notable
commanders
Prince Rupert, James Scott, James Butler, Henri de Massue, James Stanhope

The English Army existed while

Restoration of the monarchy, Charles II kept a small standing army, formed from elements of the Royalist army in exile and elements of the New Model Army, from which the most senior regular regiments of today's British Army can trace their antecedence. Likewise, Royal Marines can trace their origins back to the formation of the English Army's "Duke of York and Albany's maritime regiment of Foot" at the grounds of the Honourable Artillery Company on 28 October 1664.[1]

Introduction

Primitive steps towards standing armed forces began in the Middle Ages: the Assize of Arms of 1252 issued by King Henry III provided that small landholders should be armed and trained with a bow, and those of more wealth would be required to possess and be trained with sword, dagger and longbow. That Assize referred to a class of Forty shilling freeholders, who became identified with 'yeomanry', and states "Those with land worth annual 40s–100s will be armed/trained with bow and arrow, sword, buckler and dagger".[2]

Tudor and Stuart organisation

Henry VIII of England on Horseback by Hans Liefrinck (between 1561 and 1599.)
Edward III Crossing the Somme by Benjamin West (1788). English armies campaigned intermittently in France from the 14th century to the mid-16th century.[3]

Prior to the

men-at-arms and yeomanry
, in return for his right to occupy land).

In practice,

Lord Lieutenants and other officers to draw their pay and allowances, and by the troops as an excuse for a drink after perfunctory drill.[6]

English Civil War

In 1642, at the start of the English Civil War both the Royalists (

posse comitatus. In effect, both sides assembled local forces wherever they could do so by valid written authority.[7]

Thomas Fairfax (commander of the New Model Army) by Robert Walker and studio.

After two years of ruinous but indecisive military campaigning, Parliament passed the

Sir Thomas Fairfax
, was appointed its Lord General.

The New Model Army proved supreme in field, no more so than in the Second English Civil War which was succinctly described by Sir Winston Churchill:

The Story of the Second English Civil War is short and simple. King, Lords and Commons, landlords, merchants, the City and the countryside, bishops and presbyters, the Scottish army, the Welsh people, and the English Fleet, all now turned against the New Model Army. The Army beat the lot![10]

From its foundation, the New Model Army adopted social and religious policies which were increasingly at odds with those of Parliament. The Army's senior officers (the "

Grandees") formed another faction, opposed both to Parliament and to the more extreme radicals (Levellers and dissenting Nonconformist sects) within the lower ranks.[8]

In the aftermath of the Second English Civil War, Parliament was made subservient to the wishes of the

The next two years saw the New Model Army invade

then Scotland defeating their armies and occupying their territory. The New Model Army with the aid of English militias easily defeated a predominantly Scottish Royalist army under the command of Charles II at the Battle of Worcester on 3 September 1651 bringing the Civil War to an end.[13]

Interregnum

A 1656 Samuel Cooper portrait of Oliver, Lord Protector.

During the Interregnum (1649–1660) the power of all the republican experiments in governance relied on the military might of the New Model Army, which, whenever it was called upon, was easily able to meet the challenges of its enemies, both foreign and domestic.[14]

Two particularly notable events of the interregnum were to have long-lasting effects. The first was political; the army's complete seizure of power when Cromwell dissolved the Rump Parliament in 1653 is the closest to a coup d'état that England has had,

red-coats[16] astonished both their French allies and Spanish enemies by the stubborn fierceness of their assault up a sand-hill 150 feet (46 m) high and strongly defended by Spanish veterans who were forced to retreat.[17]

It was only after the death of

George Monck of the New Model Army that the restoration of the monarchy took place in 1660.[14]

Stuart Asquith argues:

Many authorities quote the Restoration of 1660 as the birth date of our modern British Army. While this may be true as far as continuity of unit identity is concerned, it is untrue in a far more fundamental sense. The evidence of history shows that the creation of an efficient military machine and its proving on the battlefield, predates the Restoration by 15 years. It was on the fields of Nasby, Dunbar and Dunes that the foundations of the British professional army were laid.[14]

Restoration

On 26 January 1661, Charles II issued the Royal Warrant that created the first regiments of what would become the British Army,

Irish Army also existed in the Kingdom of Ireland
.

Head and shoulders portrait of Charles with heavy jowls. He wears a wig of long black curls and a suit of armour.
Charles II (c. 1680–1685) by John Riley.

For some of his enforced exile

Gentlemen Pensioners and the Yeomen of the Guard formed in those days a sort of transition between the system of accidental armies and permanent armies.[19][20]

This latter state of things was however so contrary to the constitutional customs of England that Charles II introduced it by degrees, gradually filling up the cadres of his battalions and, although contemporary writers considered it a formidable army, it did not exceed 5,000 men.[19]

King Charles put into these regiments those

Monck), the Royal Scots (formed from the Scotch guard in France), and the Second Queen's Royals.[19]

Gilt statue
A 1676 statue of Charles II in ancient Roman dress by Grinling Gibbons has stood in the Figure Court of the Royal Hospital Chelsea since 1692.

It will thus be seen that the military system prevailed in England almost at the same time as in France; the two people, however, hailed in a very different manner an innovation, which changed, especially in time of peace, the character of the armed force. In France, under the absolute rule of Louis XIV, it does not appear that the establishment of standing armies met with the shadow of opposition. This was not the case in free England. Pamphleteers wrote tracts voicing the fear of a people who within living memory had experienced the

Eleven Years' Tyranny" of Charles I and feared that a standing army under royal command would allow monarchs in the future to ignore the wishes of Parliament.[21]

Army of the King or Parliament?

Many of the English were not fully reconciled to the need for a standing army until the reign of

Mutiny Act, laid down the restrictions which, whilst respecting the rights of the sovereign, were likewise to shield the liberty of the people. It did this by making the standing army conditional on an annually renewed act of parliament.[23]

Command and control

Supreme command of the English Army was vested in the sovereign, though monarchs (with the notable exception of King William III) seldom led their forces in battle after 1660. Instead, executive command was generally delegated, in time of war, to a soldier.

restoration and was given wide-ranging powers. Following his death in 1670 command was vested in a committee of colonels for a time; subsequently, individuals were from time to time appointed commander-in-chief with regard to particular actions or particular geographical areas, and the Duke of Monmouth served briefly as captain general from 1678 to 1679. A captain general was not appointed either by James II or William III; but in 1702 Queen Anne appointed her husband generalissimo and the Duke of Marlborough
captain general.

Privy Council.[24] By the early the eighteenth century, the power to raise an army, to issue marching orders and to administer army pay and finances lay with the Secretary at War, a member of the Government. (In origin the Secretary at War had been secretary to the captain general; but at times when no captain general or Commander-in-Chief was appointed the Secretary took on greater importance, gaining access to the sovereign and counter-signing orders; until, even when a new captain general was appointed, the Secretary at War retained distinct responsibilities and functioned independently.) An earlier official, the Treasurer at War, did not outlast the Interregnum.[24]

The captain general was assisted by a number of 'general officers' in the wake of the Restoration (called 'general' officers to distinguish them from those with 'particular' responsibility, e.g. to a regiment, rather than to the army as a whole):

judge advocate general (1666); these were later joined by the adjutant-general (from 1680), the quartermaster-general (1686), the Provost marshal general and others.[24]

In 1679, the captain general being absent, a

brigadeers-general). The first appointment of a full general (apart from the captain general) was in 1689.[25]

Operations

English Army troops (in red) at the Battle of Malplaquet.

The Second Anglo-Dutch War was predominately a maritime war but English army soldiers were involved in Holmes's Bonfire (19–20 August 1666), the Raid on the Medway (June 1667), the Battle of Landguard Fort (2 July 1667), the Capture of Cayenne (1667), and Recapture of Fort Zeelandia (1667).

The Third Anglo-Dutch War (1672–1674) was a maritime war, but English soldiers and officers (including John Churchill (the future Duke of Marlborough) saw service under French command (for example at the Siege of Maastricht (1673)).[26] The Blackheath Army of freshly-raised regiments was intended to take part an expedition to Zeeland in 1673, but this had to be abandoned following the naval defeat at the Battle of Texel (August 1673).[27]

After the marriage of

Duke of Monmouth. The English force saw little action but some British units saw action at the Battle of Saint-Denis (the last battle of the war). During the battle, a Scottish regiment under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Dougles attacked the French camp and the Anglo-Dutch Brigade fought in the vanguard of the Dutch Spanish army suffering many casualties.[28]

The Monmouth Rebellion and the Battle of Sedgemoor (6 July 1685).

War of the Spanish Succession (1701–1714)

Amalgamation into the British Army

Shortly after the Act of Union in 1707 the English and Scottish armies were amalgamated to form the British Army.[29]

The order of seniority for the most senior line regiments in the British Army is based on the order of seniority in the English army. Scottish and Irish regiments were only allowed to take a rank in the English army from the date of their arrival in England or the date when they were first placed on the English establishment. For example, in 1694 a board of general officers was convened to decide upon the rank of English, Irish, and Scots regiments serving in the Netherlands, when the regiment that became known as the

Scots Greys was designated as the 4th Dragoons because there were three English regiments raised prior to 1688, when the Scot Greys were first placed on the English establishment. In 1713, when a new board of general officers was convened to decide upon the rank of several regiments, the seniority of the Scots Greys was reassessed and was based on their entry into England in June 1685. At that time, there was only one English regiment of dragoons, so after some delay the Scots Greys obtained the rank of 2nd Dragoons in the British Army.[30]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ "Origins of Royal Marines". Archived from the original on 22 October 2016. Retrieved 2 October 2015.
  2. ^ Delbrück 1990, p. 177.
  3. ^ Bartlett 1995, p. 3.
  4. ^ Mallinson 2009, p. 8.
  5. ^ Barker 2005, p. [page needed].
  6. ^ Young & Holmes 2000, p. 30.
  7. ^ a b Atkinson 1911, 1. First Civil War (1642–46).
  8. ^ a b Gardiner 2010, p. 188.
  9. ^ Mallinson 2009, p. 17.
  10. ^ Churchill 1956, p. 200.
  11. ^ Underdown 1985.
  12. ^ Mallinson 2009, p. 23.
  13. ^ Atkinson 1911, pp. 418–421.
  14. ^ a b c Asquith 1981, p. 3.
  15. ^ Wilson 2013, p. 204.
  16. ^ This first battle in which uniformed regiments from the British Isles on the European mainland wore this colour (Chisholm 1911, p. 248).
  17. ^ Chisholm 1911, p. 248.
  18. ^ Mallinson 2009, p. 30.
  19. ^ a b c Colburn 1860, p. 566.
  20. Gentlemen at Arms; they are now a ceremonial of body guard who attend at great public ceremonies. The "Yeomen of the Guard" (officers of the King's household) do duty at the Palaces in a uniform of the time of Henry VIII (Colburn 1860
    , p. 566).
  21. ^ Colburn 1860, pp. 566–567.
  22. ^ "English Bill of Rights 1689". Yale Law. 31 December 2008. Retrieved 22 August 2013.
  23. ^ Colburn 1860, p. 567.
  24. ^ a b c d Roper, Michael (1998). The Records of the War Office and Related Departments, 1660–1964. Kew, Surrey: Public Record Office.
  25. ^ a b c Walton, Colonel Clifford (1894). History of the British Standing Army AD 1660–1700. London: Harrison & Sons.
  26. ^ Konstam 2011, p. 7.
  27. ^ Childs 2013, pp. 181–182.
  28. ^ Childs 2013, pp. 185–190.
  29. ^ On the experience of the Scottish soldiers see Victoria Henshaw, Scotland and the British Army, 1700–1750: Defending the Union (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2014), ch 3
  30. ^ Royal Scots Greys 1840, pp. 56–57.

References

Attribution

Further reading