The Cambridgeshire Militia was an auxiliary military regiment in the English county of Cambridgeshire and the Isle of Ely. From their formal organisation as Trained Bands and their service during the Armada Crisis and in the English Civil Wars, the Militia of Cambridgeshire served during times of international tension and all of Britain's major wars. The regiment provided internal security and home defence but sometimes operated further afield, relieving regular troops from routine garrison duties and acting as a source of trained officers and men for the British Army. It later became a battalion of the Suffolk Regiment until its final disbandment in 1908.
Early history 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. It continued under the Norman and Plantagenet kings and was reorganised under the Assizes of Arms of 1181 and 1252, and again by the Statute of Winchester of 1285.Fortescue, Vol I, p. 12.Fissell, pp. 178–80.Hay, pp. 14–7.Hay, pp. 60–2.Maitland, pp. 162, 276. Under the Tudors the legal basis of the militia was updated by two acts of 1557 covering musters (4 & 5 Ph. & M. c. 3) and the maintenance of horses and armour (4 & 5 Ph. & M. c. 2), which placed the county militia under a Lord Lieutenant appointed by the monarch and assisted by deputy lieutenants. The entry into force of these acts in 1558 is seen as the starting date for the organised county militia in England.Beckett, p. 20.Boynton, Chapter II.Fissell, pp. 184–5.Fortescue, Vol I, p. 125.Hay, p. 88.Maitland, pp. 234–5, 278.
Cambridge Trained Bands
Although the militia obligation was universal, it was clearly impractical to train and equip every able-bodied man, so after 1572 the practice was to select a proportion of men for the Trained Bands (TBs), who were mustered for regular training. The cost was borne by the counties: Cambridgeshire estimated that it cost 8 pence a day for a musketeer's ammunition, so the three musters a year would cost 13 shillings and 8 pence for each of its 200 'shot'. In 1584 the county also had 100 bowmen and 200 'corslets' (signifying armoured pikemen). The Armada Crisis in 1588 led to the TBs being mustered in April. Cambridgeshire produced 1000 armed foot, of whom 500 were trained, and 170 mounted men: 50 lancers, 40 light horse and 80 'petronels' (the petronel was an early cavalry firearm).Boynton, pp. 13–7, 91–3, Appendix I.Fissel, pp. 187–8.[https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=hvd.32044015608839&seq=101 Hay, pp. 93, 96.Hay, pp. 273–4.
In the 16th Century little distinction was made between the militia and the troops levied by the counties for overseas expeditions. However, the counties usually conscripted the unemployed and criminals rather than send the trained bandsmen. Between 1585 and 1602 Cambridgeshire supplied 572 men for service in Ireland, 150 for France and 450 for the Netherlands. The men were given 'conduct money' to get to the ports of embarkation. Conduct money was recovered from the government, but the cost replacing the weapons issued to the levies from the militia armouries was a heavy charge on the counties.Cruickshank, pp. 25–7, 61–2, 126; Appendix 3.
With the passing of the threat of invasion, the TBs declined in the early 17th Century. Later, King Charles I attempted to reform them into a national force or 'Perfect Militia' answering to the king rather than local control.Beckett, pp. 33–9.Fissel, pp. 174–8. In 1638 the Cambridge TBs mustered 1000 foot armed with 540 muskets and 460 corslets, and 80 mounted men consisting of 30 carabiniers and 50 dragoons.Cambridge TBs at BCW Project Regimental Wiki.
Bishops' Wars The TBs were called upon to send contingents for the First Bishops' War in 1639, and Sir Simon Harcourt's Regiment of Foot was drawn from the Cambridgeshire, Essex and Suffolk TBs. The King's commander, the Marquis of Hamilton, complained that the Cambridge and Essex men were almost entirely untrained and improperly armed. The officers were inexperienced, and Hamilton had too few trained TB men to provide enough non-commissioned officers (NCOs). In April 1639 Harcourt's regiment was one of those shipped to the Firth of Forth and landed on the island of Inchcolm. However, the Covenanters onshore were too strong for Hamilton to attempt a landing. In May the regiments were re-embarked and sailed back to anchor off Dunbar, later continuing to Holy Island, where they arrived on 28 May. They marched to Berwick-upon-Tweed and in June were present at the final stand-off between the armies between Birks and Duns Law on the border. After that the army was dispersed to its homes.Fissel, pp. 22–3, 30, 83–4, 205–6, 252–5.Harcourt's Foot at BCW Project Regimental Wiki.
In March 1640 Cambridgeshire was ordered to send 300 men to Great Yarmouth to be shipped to Newcastle upon Tyne for the Second Bishops' War. The campaign collapsed when the English army was defeated at the Battle of Newburn.Fissel, pp. 53–61, 207–8.
Civil Wars Control of the TBs 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, or as auxiliary units for garrisons.Beckett, pp. 42–3.Maitland, pp. 325–6. Cambridgeshire was firmly under Parliamentary control as part of the Eastern Association. In July 1643 Oliver Cromwell was appointed Governor of the Isle of Ely and given command of the TB unit (of 8 companies) called out to garrison the city of Ely. This may have been an 'auxiliary' unit called out for extended garrison service, rather than the normal TBs who only served for short periods. The regiment may have been represented at the taking of Sleaford and Crowland in October 1643. These towns were lost to the Royalists again in 1644, and Cromwell's TB regiment may have been involved in the siege of Crowland in October. that year. A Royalist relieving force was defeated at Grantham and Crowland surrendered in December. Lieutenant-Colonel Dodson of Cromwell's TB was placed in command of the garrison in January 1645 with 80 foot and 20 horse. Francis Russell took over from Cromwell as colonel of the regiment in August 1645, when it was ordered to be 500 foot and 100 dragoons. He in turn was succeeded in command by Col Valentine Walton in 1648. After the end of the First Civil War the regiment continued to garrison the Isle of Ely in 1646–7, when its strength was 464–477 foot and 42 dragoons.Rogers, pp. 117, 192.
As Parliament tightened its grip on the country after the First English Civil War it passed new Militia Acts in 1648 and 1650 that replaced lords lieutenant with county commissioners appointed by Parliament or the Council of State. From now on the term 'Trained Band' began to disappear in most counties. Under the Commonwealth and Protectorate the militia received pay when called out, and operated alongside the New Model Army to control the country.Hay, pp. 99–104.Ive, pp. 205–11. During the Scottish invasion of the Third English Civil War in 1651, English county militia regiments were called upon to supplement the New Model Army. On 1 August Col Valentine Walton (by now governor of King's Lynn) was ordered to assemble a regiment of 1000 men, five companies to be drawn from the regular garrisons the other five from the Militia of Norfolk, Suffolk and the Isle of Ely, with their militia weapons. Under the command of Major Blake the regiment marched towards a rendezvous at Barnet, north of London, then was redirected towards Northampton and then Buckingham. It then took part in the Battle of Worcester. Meanwhile the rest of the Cambridgeshire Militia had been ordered to a militia rendezvous at Oxford, but was not present at Worcester.Ive, pp. 90-1, 212–4.Militia of the Worcester Campaign 1651 at BCW Project.
Restoration Militia
After the Restoration of the Monarchy, the English Militia was re-established by the Militia Act of 1661 under the control of the king's lords lieutenant, the men to be selected by ballot. This was popularly seen as the 'Constitutional Force' to counterbalance a 'Standing Army' tainted by association with the New Model Army that had supported Cromwell's's military dictatorship, and almost the whole burden of home defence and internal security was entrusted to the militia.Fortescue, Vol I, pp. 294–5.Hay, pp. 104–6.Ive, pp. 219–20.Holmes, pp. 94–100.Webb, pp. 422–3.Western, pp. 3–16. James Howard, 3rd Earl of Suffolk, was re-appointed Lord Lieutenant of Cambridgeshire (and Suffolk), having previously held the post in 1640–42. He personally held the colonelcy of the Suffolk regiment of horse militia, and was also governor of Landguard Fort at Felixstowe.
The Cambridge Militia were called out in 1666 when a Dutch invasion was threatened, and again the following year when the Dutch carried out a devastating Raid on the Medway in June. The distinguished soldier Lord Berkeley of Stratton was appointed Lieutenant-General of Militia for Suffolk, Cambridgeshire and the Isle of Ely, and by 13 June he and his staff had established the regional defence headquarters at Harwich. After the Medway raid, the Dutch fleet cruised off the Suffolk coast before landing to attack Landguard Fort on 2 July. A Troop of Cambridgeshire Militia Horse was present with two Suffolk troops, and came under fire from small cannon when they threatened the Dutch beachhead. The Earl of Suffolk used them to harry the Dutch retreat and evacuation from the beach after the failed attack on Landguard, though the Dutch flank guard in the hedges prevented the horse from coming to close quarters. The Earl of Suffolk discharged the militia, both horse and foot, to their homes on 10 July, even though some Dutch warships could still be seen off the coast until 21 July when peace was signed.Hussey, pp. 53–74, 98–111.Western, pp. 38, 42–3.
The militia continued to function fitfully during the rest of the century, being called out during an invasion scare in 1690.Western, pp. 27–8 53. In 1697 the counties were required to submit detailed lists of their militia. Cambridgeshire and the Isle of Ely had five independent companies of foot and three troops of horse:British Library, Egerton MSS 1626, summarised in Hay, p. 128; Illustrated Naval & Military Magazine, Vol VI, January–June 1887, pp. 317–8; and Camden Miscellany, 1953, Vol 20, pp. 8–10. Cambridge (town): 1 Company East Division: 1 Company + 1 Troop West Division: 1 Company + 1 Troop Wisbech: 1 Company Ely: 1 Company + 1 Troop A total of 677 foot and 1561 horse.
The Militia passed into virtual abeyance during the long peace after the Treaty of Utrecht in 1712, although elements were called out during the Jacobite risings of 1715 and 1745.Fortescue, Vol II, p. 133.Webb, p. 424.
1759 reforms