The History of England, from the Accession of James the Second - Volume 1 by Thomas Babington Macaulay (diy ebook reader .txt) π
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round them in seasons of danger;
and, within a few hours after a Spanish sail had been discovered
in the Channel, or after a thousand Scottish mosstroopers had
crossed the Tweed, the signal fires were blazing fifty miles off,
and whole counties were rising in arms. But many years had now
elapsed since the beacons had been lighted; and they were
regarded rather as curious relics of ancient manners than as
parts of a machinery necessary to the safety of the state.43
The only army which the law recognised was the militia. That
force had been remodelled by two Acts of Parliament, passed
shortly after the Restoration. Every man who possessed five
hundred pounds a year derived from land, or six thousand pounds
of personal estate, was bound to provide, equip, and pay, at his
own charge, one horseman. Every man who had fifty pounds a year
derived from land, or six hundred pounds of personal estate, was
charged in like manner with one pikemen or musketeer. Smaller
proprietors were joined together in a kind of society, for which
our language does not afford a special name, but which an
Athenian would have called a Synteleia; and each society was
required to furnish, according to its means, a horse soldier or a
foot soldier. The whole number of cavalry and infantry thus
maintained was popularly estimated at a hundred and thirty
thousand men.44
The King was, by the ancient constitution of the realm, and by
the recent and solemn acknowledgment of both Houses of
Parliament, the sole Captain General of this large force. The
Lords Lieutenants and their Deputies held the command under him,
and appointed meetings for drilling and inspection. The time
occupied by such meetings, however, was not to exceed fourteen
days in one year. The Justices of the Peace were authorised to
inflict severe penalties for breaches of discipline. Of the
ordinary cost no part was paid by the crown: but when the
trainbands were called out against an enemy, their subsistence
became a charge on the general revenue of the state, and they
were subject to the utmost rigour of martial law.
There were those who looked on the militia with no friendly eye.
Men who had travelled much on the Continent, who had marvelled at
the stern precision with which every sentinel moved and spoke in
the citadels built by Vauban, who had seen the mighty armies
which poured along all the roads of Germany to chase the Ottoman
from the Gates of Vienna, and who had been dazzled by the well
ordered pomp of the household troops of Lewis, sneered much at
the way in which the peasants of Devonshire and Yorkshire marched
and wheeled, shouldered muskets and ported pikes. The enemies of
the liberties and religion of England looked with aversion on a
force which could not, without extreme risk, be employed against
those liberties and that religion, and missed no opportunity of
throwing ridicule on the rustic soldiery.45 Enlightened patriots,
when they contrasted these rude levies with the battalions which,
in time of war, a few hours might bring to the coast of Kent or
Sussex, were forced to acknowledge that, dangerous as it might be
to keep up a permanent military establishment, it might be more
dangerous still to stake the honour and independence of the
country on the result of a contest between plowmen officered by
Justices of the Peace, and veteran warriors led by Marshals of
France. In Parliament, however, it was necessary to express such
opinions with some reserve; for the militia was an institution
eminently popular. Every reflection thrown on it excited the
indignation of both the great parties in the state, and
especially of that party which was distinguished by peculiar zeal
for monarchy and for the Anglican Church. The array of the
counties was commanded almost exclusively by Tory noblemen and
gentlemen. They were proud of their military rank, and considered
an insult offered to the service to which they belonged as
offered to themselves. They were also perfectly aware that
whatever was said against a militia was said in favour of a
standing army; and the name of standing army was hateful to them.
One such army had held dominion in England; and under that
dominion the King had been murdered, the nobility degraded, the
landed gentry plundered, the Church persecuted. There was
scarcely a rural grandee who could not tell a story of wrongs and
insults suffered by himself, or by his father, at the hands of
the parliamentary soldiers. One old Cavalier had seen half his
manor house blown up. The hereditary elms of another had been
hewn down. A third could never go into his parish church without
being reminded by the defaced scutcheons and headless statues of
his ancestry, that Oliver's redcoats had once stabled their
horses there. The consequence was that those very Royalists, who
were most ready to fight for the King themselves, were the last
persons whom he could venture to ask for the means of hiring
regular troops.
Charles, however, had, a few months after his restoration, begun
to form a small standing army. He felt that, without some better
protection than that of the trainbands and beefeaters, his palace
and person would hardly be secure, in the vicinity of a great
city swarming with warlike Fifth Monarchy men who had just been
disbanded. He therefore, careless and profuse as he was,
contrived to spare from his pleasures a sum sufficient to keep up
a body of guards. With the increase of trade and of public wealth
his revenues increased; and he was thus enabled, in spite of the
occasional murmurs of the Commons, to make gradual additions to
his regular forces. One considerable addition was made a few
months before the close of his reign. The costly, useless, and
pestilential settlement of Tangier was abandoned to the
barbarians who dwelt around it; and the garrison, consisting of
one regiment of horse and two regiments of foot, was brought to
England.
The little army formed by Charles the Second was the germ of that
great and renowned army which has, in the present century,
marched triumphant into Madrid and Paris, into Canton and
Candahar. The Life Guards, who now form two regiments, were then
distributed into three troops, each of which consisted of two
hundred carabineers, exclusive of officers. This corps, to which
the safety of the King and royal family was confided, had a very
peculiar character. Even the privates were designated as
gentlemen of the Guard. Many of them were of good families, and
had held commissions in the civil war. Their pay was far higher
than that of the most favoured regiment of our time, and would in
that age have been thought a respectable provision for the
younger son of a country squire. Their fine horses, their rich
housings, their cuirasses, and their buff coats adorned with
ribands, velvet, and gold lace, made a splendid appearance in
Saint James's Park. A small body of grenadier dragoons, who came
from a lower class and received lower pay, was attached to each
troop. Another body of household cavalry distinguished by blue
coats and cloaks, and still called the Blues, was generally
quartered in the neighbourhood of the capital. Near the capital
lay also the corps which is now designated as the first regiment
of dragoons, but which was then the only regiment of dragoons on
the English establishment. It had recently been formed out of the
cavalry which had returned from Tangier. A single troop of
dragoons, which did not form part of any regiment, was stationed
near Berwick, for the purpose of keeping, the peace among the
mosstroopers of the border. For this species of service the
dragoon was then thought to be peculiarly qualified. He has since
become a mere horse soldier. But in the seventeenth century he
was accurately described by Montecuculi as a foot soldier who
used a horse only in order to arrive with more speed at the place
where military service was to be performed.
The household infantry consisted of two regiments, which were
then, as now, called the first regiment of Foot Guards, and the
Coldstream Guards. They generally did duty near Whitehall and
Saint James's Palace. As there were then no barracks, and as, by
the Petition of Right, it had been declared unlawful to quarter
soldiers on private families, the redcoats filled all the
alehouses of Westminster and the Strand.
There were five other regiments of foot. One of these, called the
Admiral's Regiment, was especially destined to service on board
of the fleet. The remaining four still rank as the first four
regiments of the line. Two of these represented two brigades
which had long sustained on the Continent the fame of British
valour. The first, or Royal regiment, had, under the great
Gustavus, borne a conspicuous part in the deliverance of Germany.
The third regiment, distinguished by fleshcoloured facings, from
which it had derived the well known name of the Buffs, had, under
Maurice of Nassau, fought not less bravely for the deliverance of
the Netherlands. Both these gallant bands had at length, after
many vicissitudes, been recalled from foreign service by Charles
the Second, and had been placed on the English establishment.
The regiments which now rank as the second and fourth of the line
had, in 1685, just returned from Tangier, bringing with them
cruel and licentious habits contracted in a long course of
warfare with the Moors. A few companies of infantry which had not
been regimented lay in garrison at Tilbury Fort, at Portsmouth,
at Plymouth, and at some other important stations on or near the
coast.
Since the beginning of the seventeenth century a great change had
taken place in the arms of the infantry. The pike had been
gradually giving place to the musket; and, at the close of the
reign of Charles the Second, most of his foot were musketeers.
Still, however, there was a large intermixture of pikemen. Each
class of troops was occasionally instructed in the use of the
weapon which peculiarly belonged to the other class. Every foot
soldier had at his side a sword for close fight. The musketeer
was generally provided with a weapon which had, during many
years, been gradually coming into use, and which the English then
called a dagger, but which, from the time of William the Third,
has been known among us by the French name of bayonet. The
bayonet seems not to have been then so formidable an instrument
of destruction as it has since become; for it was inserted in the
muzzle of the gun; and in action much time was lost while the
soldier unfixed his bayonet in order to fire, and fixed it again
in order to charge. The dragoon, when dismounted, fought as a
musketeer.
The regular army
and, within a few hours after a Spanish sail had been discovered
in the Channel, or after a thousand Scottish mosstroopers had
crossed the Tweed, the signal fires were blazing fifty miles off,
and whole counties were rising in arms. But many years had now
elapsed since the beacons had been lighted; and they were
regarded rather as curious relics of ancient manners than as
parts of a machinery necessary to the safety of the state.43
The only army which the law recognised was the militia. That
force had been remodelled by two Acts of Parliament, passed
shortly after the Restoration. Every man who possessed five
hundred pounds a year derived from land, or six thousand pounds
of personal estate, was bound to provide, equip, and pay, at his
own charge, one horseman. Every man who had fifty pounds a year
derived from land, or six hundred pounds of personal estate, was
charged in like manner with one pikemen or musketeer. Smaller
proprietors were joined together in a kind of society, for which
our language does not afford a special name, but which an
Athenian would have called a Synteleia; and each society was
required to furnish, according to its means, a horse soldier or a
foot soldier. The whole number of cavalry and infantry thus
maintained was popularly estimated at a hundred and thirty
thousand men.44
The King was, by the ancient constitution of the realm, and by
the recent and solemn acknowledgment of both Houses of
Parliament, the sole Captain General of this large force. The
Lords Lieutenants and their Deputies held the command under him,
and appointed meetings for drilling and inspection. The time
occupied by such meetings, however, was not to exceed fourteen
days in one year. The Justices of the Peace were authorised to
inflict severe penalties for breaches of discipline. Of the
ordinary cost no part was paid by the crown: but when the
trainbands were called out against an enemy, their subsistence
became a charge on the general revenue of the state, and they
were subject to the utmost rigour of martial law.
There were those who looked on the militia with no friendly eye.
Men who had travelled much on the Continent, who had marvelled at
the stern precision with which every sentinel moved and spoke in
the citadels built by Vauban, who had seen the mighty armies
which poured along all the roads of Germany to chase the Ottoman
from the Gates of Vienna, and who had been dazzled by the well
ordered pomp of the household troops of Lewis, sneered much at
the way in which the peasants of Devonshire and Yorkshire marched
and wheeled, shouldered muskets and ported pikes. The enemies of
the liberties and religion of England looked with aversion on a
force which could not, without extreme risk, be employed against
those liberties and that religion, and missed no opportunity of
throwing ridicule on the rustic soldiery.45 Enlightened patriots,
when they contrasted these rude levies with the battalions which,
in time of war, a few hours might bring to the coast of Kent or
Sussex, were forced to acknowledge that, dangerous as it might be
to keep up a permanent military establishment, it might be more
dangerous still to stake the honour and independence of the
country on the result of a contest between plowmen officered by
Justices of the Peace, and veteran warriors led by Marshals of
France. In Parliament, however, it was necessary to express such
opinions with some reserve; for the militia was an institution
eminently popular. Every reflection thrown on it excited the
indignation of both the great parties in the state, and
especially of that party which was distinguished by peculiar zeal
for monarchy and for the Anglican Church. The array of the
counties was commanded almost exclusively by Tory noblemen and
gentlemen. They were proud of their military rank, and considered
an insult offered to the service to which they belonged as
offered to themselves. They were also perfectly aware that
whatever was said against a militia was said in favour of a
standing army; and the name of standing army was hateful to them.
One such army had held dominion in England; and under that
dominion the King had been murdered, the nobility degraded, the
landed gentry plundered, the Church persecuted. There was
scarcely a rural grandee who could not tell a story of wrongs and
insults suffered by himself, or by his father, at the hands of
the parliamentary soldiers. One old Cavalier had seen half his
manor house blown up. The hereditary elms of another had been
hewn down. A third could never go into his parish church without
being reminded by the defaced scutcheons and headless statues of
his ancestry, that Oliver's redcoats had once stabled their
horses there. The consequence was that those very Royalists, who
were most ready to fight for the King themselves, were the last
persons whom he could venture to ask for the means of hiring
regular troops.
Charles, however, had, a few months after his restoration, begun
to form a small standing army. He felt that, without some better
protection than that of the trainbands and beefeaters, his palace
and person would hardly be secure, in the vicinity of a great
city swarming with warlike Fifth Monarchy men who had just been
disbanded. He therefore, careless and profuse as he was,
contrived to spare from his pleasures a sum sufficient to keep up
a body of guards. With the increase of trade and of public wealth
his revenues increased; and he was thus enabled, in spite of the
occasional murmurs of the Commons, to make gradual additions to
his regular forces. One considerable addition was made a few
months before the close of his reign. The costly, useless, and
pestilential settlement of Tangier was abandoned to the
barbarians who dwelt around it; and the garrison, consisting of
one regiment of horse and two regiments of foot, was brought to
England.
The little army formed by Charles the Second was the germ of that
great and renowned army which has, in the present century,
marched triumphant into Madrid and Paris, into Canton and
Candahar. The Life Guards, who now form two regiments, were then
distributed into three troops, each of which consisted of two
hundred carabineers, exclusive of officers. This corps, to which
the safety of the King and royal family was confided, had a very
peculiar character. Even the privates were designated as
gentlemen of the Guard. Many of them were of good families, and
had held commissions in the civil war. Their pay was far higher
than that of the most favoured regiment of our time, and would in
that age have been thought a respectable provision for the
younger son of a country squire. Their fine horses, their rich
housings, their cuirasses, and their buff coats adorned with
ribands, velvet, and gold lace, made a splendid appearance in
Saint James's Park. A small body of grenadier dragoons, who came
from a lower class and received lower pay, was attached to each
troop. Another body of household cavalry distinguished by blue
coats and cloaks, and still called the Blues, was generally
quartered in the neighbourhood of the capital. Near the capital
lay also the corps which is now designated as the first regiment
of dragoons, but which was then the only regiment of dragoons on
the English establishment. It had recently been formed out of the
cavalry which had returned from Tangier. A single troop of
dragoons, which did not form part of any regiment, was stationed
near Berwick, for the purpose of keeping, the peace among the
mosstroopers of the border. For this species of service the
dragoon was then thought to be peculiarly qualified. He has since
become a mere horse soldier. But in the seventeenth century he
was accurately described by Montecuculi as a foot soldier who
used a horse only in order to arrive with more speed at the place
where military service was to be performed.
The household infantry consisted of two regiments, which were
then, as now, called the first regiment of Foot Guards, and the
Coldstream Guards. They generally did duty near Whitehall and
Saint James's Palace. As there were then no barracks, and as, by
the Petition of Right, it had been declared unlawful to quarter
soldiers on private families, the redcoats filled all the
alehouses of Westminster and the Strand.
There were five other regiments of foot. One of these, called the
Admiral's Regiment, was especially destined to service on board
of the fleet. The remaining four still rank as the first four
regiments of the line. Two of these represented two brigades
which had long sustained on the Continent the fame of British
valour. The first, or Royal regiment, had, under the great
Gustavus, borne a conspicuous part in the deliverance of Germany.
The third regiment, distinguished by fleshcoloured facings, from
which it had derived the well known name of the Buffs, had, under
Maurice of Nassau, fought not less bravely for the deliverance of
the Netherlands. Both these gallant bands had at length, after
many vicissitudes, been recalled from foreign service by Charles
the Second, and had been placed on the English establishment.
The regiments which now rank as the second and fourth of the line
had, in 1685, just returned from Tangier, bringing with them
cruel and licentious habits contracted in a long course of
warfare with the Moors. A few companies of infantry which had not
been regimented lay in garrison at Tilbury Fort, at Portsmouth,
at Plymouth, and at some other important stations on or near the
coast.
Since the beginning of the seventeenth century a great change had
taken place in the arms of the infantry. The pike had been
gradually giving place to the musket; and, at the close of the
reign of Charles the Second, most of his foot were musketeers.
Still, however, there was a large intermixture of pikemen. Each
class of troops was occasionally instructed in the use of the
weapon which peculiarly belonged to the other class. Every foot
soldier had at his side a sword for close fight. The musketeer
was generally provided with a weapon which had, during many
years, been gradually coming into use, and which the English then
called a dagger, but which, from the time of William the Third,
has been known among us by the French name of bayonet. The
bayonet seems not to have been then so formidable an instrument
of destruction as it has since become; for it was inserted in the
muzzle of the gun; and in action much time was lost while the
soldier unfixed his bayonet in order to fire, and fixed it again
in order to charge. The dragoon, when dismounted, fought as a
musketeer.
The regular army
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