Trained Bands were companies of part-time
militia
A militia ( ) is a military or paramilitary force that comprises civilian members, as opposed to a professional standing army of regular, full-time military personnel. Militias may be raised in times of need to support regular troops or se ...
in
England
England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...
,
Wales
Wales ( ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by the Irish Sea to the north and west, England to the England–Wales border, east, the Bristol Channel to the south, and the Celtic ...
and the Americas.
[Jonathan Worton: Ludlow's Trained Band: A Study of Militiamen in Early Stuart England, ''Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research'', Vol. 91, No. 365 (Spring 2013), pp. 4–23, , last accessed 27 Oct 2018: "Two dozen militiamen—12 equipped as musketeers, 12 as pikemen—who dutifully assembled at Ludlow for the muster on 8 May 1632 constituted the town's Trained Band, a unit maintained at the charge of Ludlow's inhabitants with its ranks filled by local men."] first organized in the 16th century and dissolved in the 18th. The term was used after this time to describe the
London
London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...
militia.
In England and Wales, organised by
county
A county () is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposesL. Brookes (ed.) '' Chambers Dictionary''. Edinburgh: Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, 2005. in some nations. The term is derived from the Old French denoti ...
, they were supposed to drill on a regular basis, although this was rarely the case in practice. The regular army was formed from the Trained Bands in the event of war, though the inability or unwillingness of many of the bands to serve outside of their home regions often left the army short on manpower compared to the paper strength implied by the Trained Bands rolls. They later became common in the
American colonies, where they are normally referred to as Trainbands. Similar organisations include the Dutch
Schutterij
Schutterij () refers to a voluntary city guard or citizen militia in the medieval and early modern Netherlands, intended to protect the town or city from attack and act in case of revolt or fire. Their training grounds were often on open spaces w ...
, and the
Swiss militia, elements of which remain in existence today.
Etymology
The exact derivation and usage is not clear. A nineteenth-century dictionary says, under "Train":
The issue is whether the men "received training" in the modern sense, or whether they were "in the train" or retinue or were otherwise organized around a
military "train" as in horse-drawn artillery.
Trained Bands in England and Wales
Founded in 1572, and organised by county, it was not until the 'Exact Militia Programme' of 1625 that they began to have regular training and weapons drill. Even then, standards varied considerably, and depended on the level of financial support by the local gentry. Although
Charles I tried to assemble armies of around 30,000 militia for the 1639 and 1640
Bishops' Wars
The Bishops' Wars were two separate conflicts fought in 1639 and 1640 between Scotland and England, with Scottish Royalists allied to England. They were the first of the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, which also include the First and Second En ...
, there was considerable reluctance to serve outside their counties, and a proportion were armed only with
longbow
A longbow is a type of tall bow that makes a fairly long draw possible. Longbows for hunting and warfare have been made from many different woods in many cultures; in Europe they date from the Paleolithic era and, since the Bronze Age, were mad ...
s. In 1588, the Trained Bands consisted of 79,798 men, categorized by their primary weapon: 36% arquebusiers, 6% musketeers, 16% bowmen, 26% pikemen, and 16% billmen.
[J. Tincey and R. Hook, ''The Armada Campaign'' (1996), p. 47.]
A standard drill book was issued in February 1638, which was used throughout the 1639 to 1653
Wars of the Three Kingdoms
The Wars of the Three Kingdoms were a series of conflicts fought between 1639 and 1653 in the kingdoms of Kingdom of England, England, Kingdom of Scotland, Scotland and Kingdom of Ireland, Ireland, then separate entities in a personal union un ...
, together with a muster roll by county. This shows large variations in size, equipment and training; the largest was
Yorkshire
Yorkshire ( ) is an area of Northern England which was History of Yorkshire, historically a county. Despite no longer being used for administration, Yorkshire retains a strong regional identity. The county was named after its county town, the ...
, which had 12,000 men, then
London
London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...
, with 8,000, increased in 1642 to 20,000. Counties like
Shropshire
Shropshire (; abbreviated SalopAlso used officially as the name of the county from 1974–1980. The demonym for inhabitants of the county "Salopian" derives from this name.) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the West M ...
or
Glamorgan
Glamorgan (), or sometimes Glamorganshire ( or ), was Historic counties of Wales, one of the thirteen counties of Wales that existed from 1536 until their abolishment in 1974. It is located in the South Wales, south of Wales. Originally an ea ...
had fewer than 500 men.
In the early stages of the 1642 to 1646
First English Civil War
The First English Civil War took place in England and Wales from 1642 to 1646, and forms part of the 1639 to 1653 Wars of the Three Kingdoms. An estimated 15% to 20% of adult males in England and Wales served in the military at some point b ...
, the Trained Bands provided the bulk of the forces used by both
Royalists and
Parliamentarians, but were often unwilling to serve outside their home areas. They were rapidly replaced by more professional bodies, the most important being the
New Model Army
The New Model Army or New Modelled Army was a standing army formed in 1645 by the Parliamentarians during the First English Civil War, then disbanded after the Stuart Restoration in 1660. It differed from other armies employed in the 1639 t ...
.
American train bands
In the early American colonies the trained band was the most basic tactical unit.
[Allan R. Millett and Peter Maslowski: ''For the common defense: A military history of the United States of America'', New York: Free Press; London: Collier Macmillan, 1984, Library of Congress bibliographic record, http://catdir.loc.gov/catdir/samples/simon052/94005199.html, last accessed 27 Oct 2018: "Although the basic tactical unit in all the colonies was the company, or trainband, regional variations and changes over time were as important as the superficial uniformity. No standardized company size existed, some companies containing as few as sixty-five men and others as many as two hundred. Some trainbands elected their officers, but in others the governors appointed them. Southern colonies, with widely dispersed populations, often organized companies on a countywide basis, while in New England, with its towns and villages, individual communities contained their own trainbands. As populations increased and the number of trainbands grew, colonies organized companies into regiments to preserve efficient management."] However, no standard company size existed and variations were wide. As population grew these companies were organised into regiments to allow better management.
[Allan R. Millett and Peter Maslowski: ''For the common defense: A military history of the United States of America'', New York: Free Press; London: Collier Macmillan, 1984, Library of Congress bibliographic record, http://catdir.loc.gov/catdir/samples/simon052/94005199.html, last accessed 27 Oct 2018: "Although the basic tactical unit in all the colonies was the company, or trainband, regional variations and changes over time were as important as the superficial uniformity. No standardized company size existed, some companies containing as few as sixty-five men and others as many as two hundred. Some trainbands elected their officers, but in others the governors appointed them. Southern colonies, with widely dispersed populations, often organized companies on a countywide basis, while in New England, with its towns and villages, individual communities contained their own trainbands. As populations increased and the number of trainbands grew, colonies organized companies into regiments to preserve efficient management."] But trainbands were not combat units. Generally, upon reaching a certain age a man was required to join the local trainband in which he received periodic training for the next couple of decades. In wartime,
military forces were formed by selecting men from trainbands on an individual basis and then forming them into a fighting unit.
In the 17th century
New England
New England is a region consisting of six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York (state), New York to the west and by the ...
colonial militia units were usually referred to as "train bands" or, sometimes, "trained bands".
Typically, each town would elect three officers to lead its train band with the ranks of captain, lieutenant and ensign. As the populations of towns varied widely, larger towns usually had more than one train band. In the middle of the 1600s train bands began to be referred to as companies.
On December 13, 1636 the Massachusetts Militia was organised into three regiments - North, South and East. As there are National Guard units descendants of these regiments, this date is used as the "birthday" of the
National Guard
National guard is the name used by a wide variety of current and historical uniformed organizations in different countries. The original National Guard was formed during the French Revolution around a cadre of defectors from the French Guards.
...
, despite the fact that citizen militias in the American Colonies date back to the
Jamestown settlement
Jamestown Settlement is a living history museum operated by the Commonwealth of Virginia, created in 1957 as Jamestown Festival Park for the 350th anniversary celebration. Today it includes a recreation of the original James Fort (c. 1607 to 16 ...
in 1607.
References
Sources
*
* Mark Charles Fissell, ''The Bishops' Wars: Charles I's campaigns against Scotland 1638–1640'', Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994, .
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External links
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{{Authority control
Military units and formations established in 1572
Military units and formations disestablished in the 18th century
Infantry units and formations
Militia of England
Militia of the United States