The Leicestershire Militia was an auxiliary military force in Leicestershire in the East Midlands of England. From their formal organisation as Trained Bands in 1558 the Militia of Leicestershire served during times of international tension and all of Britain's major wars. They provided internal security and home defence but sometimes operated further afield, including Ireland and France, relieving regular troops from routine garrison duties, and acting as a source of trained officers and men for the Regular Army. The regiment later became a battalion of the Leicestershire Regiment, served in the Second Boer War, and trained thousands of reservists and recruits during World War I. It maintained a shadowy existence until final disbandment in 1953.
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 kings, notably at the Battle of the Standard (1138). The force was reorganised under the Assizes of Arms of 1181 and 1252, and again by King Edward I's Statute of Winchester of 1285.Fissell, pp. 178–80.Fortescue, Vol I, p. 12.Hay, pp. 60–1, 75.Holmes, pp. 90–1.
Under this statute 'Commissioners of Array' would levy the required number of men from each shire. The usual shire contingent was 1000 infantry commanded by a millenar, divided into companies of 100 commanded by centenars or constables, and subdivided into platoons of 20 led by vintenars. (John E. Morris, the historian of Edward's Welsh Wars writing in 1901, likened this process to calling out the Militia Battalion of the county regiment.) King Edward I made use of this mechanism in his Welsh and Scottish campaigns. As an inland county Leicestershire avoided most of these demands, but King Edward II called the first national levy in July 1322 for his failed Scottish campaign. Thereafter Leicestershire provided soldiers for all six national levies between 1322 and 1338 for service in Scotland or Flanders.Morris, pp. 92–7.Fissel, p. 218.Traquair, pp. 227–9.
Threatened with invasion in 1539, King Henry VIII ordered a 'Great Muster' in every shire. The records for Leicestershire are fragmentary, but the town of Melton Mowbray mustered 61 archers and billmen, Groscote Hundred 552 men, and 'other places' in the county another 575.Fissel, pp. 178–80.Steppler, p. 3.
Leicestershire Trained Bands The legal basis of the militia was updated by two Acts of 1557 covering musters and the maintenance of horses and armour. The county militia was now under the Lord Lieutenant, assisted by the Deputy Lieutenants and Justices of the Peace (JPs). The entry into force of these Acts in 1558 is seen as the starting date for the organised county militia in England. This mechanism was used to raise troops to suppress the Rising of the North in 1569. Although the militia obligation was universal, this assembly confirmed that it was impractical to train and equip every able-bodied man. After 1572 the practice was to select a proportion of men for the Trained Bands (TBs). They were trained by professional captains and muster-masters for up to 10 days each year. Musters were held about every three years when the arms and armour were inspected.Beckett, p. 20.Boynton, pp. 13–7, 91–2, Appendix I.Cruickshank, pp. 17, 24–5, 130–4.Fissel, pp. 183–90.Fortescue, Vol I, p. 125.Hay, p. 88.Hay, pp. 289–92.
The threat of invasion during the Spanish War led to an increase in training. At first the government emphasised the 17 'maritime' counties most vulnerable to attack, and it was not until 1586 that inland counties were placed under lords-lieutenant, ordered to appoint captains and muster-masters and to intensify training.Boynton, p. 96. The TBs were placed on alert in April 1588 and brought to an hour's notice in June. When warning of the invasion Armada arrived the TBs were mobilised on 23 July. The Leicestershire TB foot (500 men) joined Lord Hunsdon's army at Tilbury defending the Queen and were formed with the Worcestershire, Warwickshire and Huntingdonshire TBs into Sir Henry Goodere's Regiment, 2100 strong.Holden, p. 4. However, the army was broken up shortly after Queen Elizabeth gave her Tilbury speech on 9 August, the danger having passed.Beckett, pp. 24–5.
In the 16th Century little distinction was made between the militia and the troops levied by the counties for overseas expeditions, and between 1585 and 1601 Leicestershire supplied 547 levies for service in Ireland and 150 for France. However, the counties usually conscripted the unemployed and criminals rather than the Trained Bandsmen – in 1585 the Privy Council had ordered the impressment of able-bodied unemployed men, and the Queen ordered 'none of her trayned-bands to be pressed'. Replacing the weapons issued to the levies from the militia armouries was a heavy burden on the counties.Cruickshank, pp. 25–9, 113, 126, Appendix 3.
With the passing of the threat of invasion, the trained bands 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 Leicester TBs consisted of 290 musketeers and 210 corslets (body armour, signifying pikeman); in addition the TB Horse comprised 38 lancers and 62 light horse.Leicestershire TBs at BCW Project Regimental Wiki.
Civil Wars In 1639 and 1640 Charles attempted to employ the TBs for the Bishops' Wars in Scotland. However, many of those sent on this unpopular service were untrained replacements and conscripts, and many officers were corrupt or inefficient. For the Second Bishops' War of 1640 Leicestershire was ordered to march 400 men to Newcastle upon Tyne. Together with the contingents from Worcestershire and Gloucestershire they formed a regiment roughly 1200 strong commanded by Viscount Grandison. Once again, it seems that many of the trained bandsmen nationwide escaped service and raw substitutes were sent in their place. More than two-thirds of Leicestershire's men were labourers, the county declining to take men away from agriculture before the harvest. As well as the trained bandsmen providing substitutes to serve for them, some of the Leicestershire conscripts succeeded in bribing their conducting officer to release them. The Scottish campaign ended in failure.Fissel, pp. 207–8, 212, 225, 230–1, 241, 247–50, 260–3.
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. Captain Devereaux Wolseley led his company of the Leicester TBs to Nottingham to support the King when he raised his banner there in August 1642. However, once open warfare had broken out 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. Devereaux Wolseley commanded both a regiment of horse and a regiment of foot for the Royalists. Otherwise the TBs might be used as auxiliary units for garrisons. When the Royalists from Oxford attacked Leicester on 31 May 1645, 900 armed townsmen, probably including trained bandsmen, unsuccessfully defended the town, which was stormed and pillaged. Lord Grey of Groby raised men in Leicestershire in 1648 to oppose the Scottish invasion.Beckett, pp. 42–3.Fortescue, Vol I, pp. 198–9.
As Parliament tightened its grip on the country after the Second 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.Holmes, pp. 94–100. During the campaign of 1651, the Leicestershire Militia was ordered to rendezvous at Northampton, and may have formed Lord Grey of Groby's regiment that fought at the Battle of Worcester.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 1661 under the control of the king's lords lieutenants, 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 military dictatorship, and almost the whole burden of home defence and internal security was entrusted to the militia. For example, the Leicestershire Militia were 'drawn out' in June 1666 to meet the threatened Dutch invasion.Fortescue, Vol I, pp. 294–5.Hay, pp. 104–6.Steppler, pp. 4–5.Western, pp. 3–16, 33–4, 72.
There was a general muster of the militia in 1685 after the Duke of Monmouth landed at Lyme Regis on 11 June, launching the Monmouth Rebellion against King James II. The West Country militia were engaged, including at the Battle of Sedgemoor, but James deliberately belittled their performance to bolster plans for a large army under his own control. After the suppression of the rebellion he suspended militia musters and planned to use the counties' weapons and militia taxes to equip and pay his expanding Regular Army, which he felt he could rely upon, unlike the locally commanded militia. When William of Orange landed in the West Country in 1688 and marched against James, the militia did not stir against him in the 'Glorious Revolution'.
The militia continued their defence role under William. In 1697 the counties were required to submit detailed lists of their militia. Under the Earl of Rutland as Lord-Lieutenant, Leicestershire had three Troops of horse totalling 175 men under Col Lord Roos (eldest son of the Earl of Rutland), and a foot regiment of six companies, 609 men, commanded by Col Richard Lister. The militia continued mustering for annual training until the Treaty of Utrecht and the accession of King George I, but after the Jacobite Rising of 1715 they passed into virtual abeyance.Fortescue, Vol II, p. 133.Western, p. 73.
1757 Reforms
Under threat of French invasion during the Seven Years' War a series of Militia Acts from 1757 reorganised the county militia regiments, the men being conscripted by means of parish ballots (paid substitutes were permitted) to serve for three years. In peacetime they assembled for 28 days' annual training. There was a property qualification for officers, who were commissioned by the lord lieutenant. 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.Fortescue, Vol II, pp. 288, 299–302.Hay, pp. 136–44.Western, pp. 124–57, 251.
Leicestershire was assessed to raise 560 men in one regiment, and the issue of weapons to the regiment was ordered on 19 April 1760. It was embodied for permanent service at Leicester on 9 July following. The militia was disembodied in 1762 as the war was coming to an end, and continued with their annual training thereafter.Frederick, pp. 235–7.Steppler, pp. 7–9.Western, Appendices A & B.Western, pp. 125, 194–6.
American War of Independence The militia was embodied in March 1778 during the War of American Independence when the country was threatened with invasion by the Americans' allies, France and Spain. In addition to their balloted men, regiments were permitted to augment their strength by a company recruited from volunteers. It became common to assemble the militia in summer training camps alongside Regular forces.Steppler, pp. 10–12.Western, p. 209. In the summer of 1781 the Leicestershire regiment, 520 strong, formed part of the 2nd Brigade of the Plymouth garrison, accommodated in camp at Roborough Down.Haarmann.