The Royal Buckinghamshire Militia (King's Own), originally the Buckinghamshire Militia, was an auxiliary military force in Buckinghamshire in South East England. From their formal organisation as Trained Bands in 1558 the Militia of Buckinghamshire 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 Oxfordshire Light Infantry, but was disbanded 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 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. The main threats were from Scotland, Wales or France: as an inland county in southern England, Buckinghamshire avoided most of the demands. Nevertheless, it was required to send an officer and 16 mounted archers on the Scottish expedition of 1335, and sometimes provided troops to garrison Portsmouth when it was threatened by the French. Although Buckinghamshire did supply some troops for overseas campaigns, these were paid men or feudal retinues.Beckett, Buckinghamshire: Military History, Chapter 1: Origins to 1603.Fortescue, Vol I, p. 12.Fissel, pp. 178–80.Hay, pp. 60–1.Holmes, pp. 90–1.Nicholson, Appendix VI.

Buckinghamshire 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. Buckinghamshire was one of the southern counties called upon to send 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. In 1577, 3580 men out of 4302 able-bodied men in Buckinghamshire had no weapons. Only 200 out of the 722 armed men were selected to be trained.Beckett, Amateur Tradition, p. 20.Boynton, pp. 13–7, 91–2, Appendix I.Cruickshank, p. 25.Fissell, pp. 183–90.Fortescue, Vol I, p. 125.Hay, p. 88.

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 the inland counties were placed under lords-lieutenant (Lord Grey de Wilton was re-appointed for Buckinghamshire), ordered to appoint captains and muster-master corporals 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. Buckinghamshire assembled 600 trained infantry, comprising 120 pikemen, 240 with calivers, 180 bowmen and 60 billmen. There were also 18 lancers, 83 light horsemen and 20 with 'Petronels' (an early cavalry firearm). The Buckinghamshire horsemen were immediately sent to join Lord Hunsdon's army deployed at Brentford to defend the Queen, while the foot were ordered to join the Earl of Leicester's field army at Stratford-le-Bow by 6 August. A Troop of volunteer horse from the county also joined the Queen's army. However, on 3 August the inland counties were directed to hold back the foot, and Leicester's army was broken up shortly after Queen Elizabeth gave her Tilbury speech on 9 August, the danger having passed.Beckett, Amateur Tradition, pp. 24–5.Hay, pp. 361–2.

There were later invasion scares, including one in 1599 when Buckinghamshire was ordered to send 100 horse and 500 foot under Captains Thomas Pigott, Alexander Hampden and William Borlase to the army assembling at Brentford. The Buckinghamshire TBs also reinforced the London Trained Bands in 1601 to guard against disorder during the Earl of Essex's trial and subsequent execution. In 1603 the Buckinghamshire TBs joined those of Hertfrdshire and Surrey in armed camps in the London suburbs to ensure a peaceful transition on the Queen's death, when James I succeeded to the throne.Beckett, Wanton, pp. 25–7.Davis, pp. 61–2.

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 Buckinghamshire supplied 636 levies for service in Ireland, 380 for France and 675 for the Netherlands. Another 100 men were sent to garrison Jersey in 1590. 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'. The men were paid 'conduct money' to get to the embarkation port: the journey from Buckingham to Chester for the Irish levies was reckoned at 11 days. Replacing the weapons issued to the levies from the militia armouries was a heavy burden on the counties. Buckingham was unique in establishing a hospital for maimed ex-soldiers in 1598.Cruickshank, pp. 25–9, 62, 113, 182, Appendix 3.

With the passing of the threat of invasion, the trained bands declined in the early 17th Century. Training for the TBs dropped to two days a year from 1601. Those assessed for taxes or horses in the shires also lobbied to have the burden reduced: Buckinghamshire mustered 78 lancers, 48 demi-lancers (half-armoured horsemen) and 28 petronels at Aylesbury in 1615, but this declined to 47 lancers, 38 light horse and 17 petronels in 1619 and 1620. At the 1619 muster the county's 600 selected foot comprised 400 musketeers, 160 pikemen and 40 billmen, indicating the gradual modernisation of the TBs' weaponry. These were organised into four equal bands of foot, each representing a group of Hundreds. Each band had three carts attached, and there were in addition 50 pioneers. From 1623 TB training was stepped up, and this was pursued enthusiastically by King Charles I who attempted to reform them into a national force or 'Perfect Militia' answering to the crown rather than local control.Beckett, Amateur Tradition, pp. 33–9.Beckett, Wanton, Table 3, p, 34.Fissel, pp. 174–8. In 1638 the Buckinghamshire TBs consisted of 400 musketeers and 200 corslets (body armour, signifying pikemen); in addition the TB Horse comprised 47 lancers and 55 light horse.Buckinghamshire 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 First Bishops' War in 1639 Buckinghamshire was ordered in February to send 300 trained bandsmen to the royal army in Yorkshire, though only 187 actually arrived at the rendezvous at Selby in April, many of them substitutes. For the Second Bishops' War of 1640 Buckinghamshire was ordered to march 500 men to Harwich in Essex to be shipped to Scotland, but there was considerable opposition in the county. Once again, it seems that many of the trained bandsmen nationwide escaped service and raw substitutes were sent in their place. The Scottish campaign ended in failure.Beckett, Buckinghamshire: Military History, Chapter 2: 1603–1660.Beckett, Wanton, pp. 32–5.Fissel, pp. 207–8, 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.Beckett, Amateur Tradition pp. 42–3.Beckett, Wanton, pp. 37–42.Fortescue, Vol I, pp. 198–9. Parliament appointed its own lords-lieutenant, including Lord Paget in Buckinghamshire. He called a muster in May 1642, when 150 of the trained bandsmen (a quarter) had turned out, but there were 160 volunteers, and another 100 TBs and 150 volunteers were expected for the next muster. The county's militia funds were used to equip and train men for Parliament. These arrangements were thrown into disarray when Paget fled to join the King, but the muster went ahead under the deputy lieutenants at Aylesbury on 17–24 June with the TBs and perhaps 1000 volunteers turning out. The TBs petitioned Parliament for a new lord lieutenant and Lord Wharton was sent. When open warfare broke out in the summer 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 using the TBs as auxiliary units for garrisons.Beckett, Wanton, pp. 42–4, 53–7. Henry Bulstrode, Governor of Aylesbury, formed such a regiment in 1642. Because of its geographic location between London, Oxford and the North, Buckinghamshire was a battleground for these 'marching regiments' and garrisons throughout the First Civil War.Beckett, Wanton, pp. 105–15, 136–42.

Once Parliament had re-established full control it passed new Militia Acts in 1648 and 1650 that replaced lords lieutenant with county commissioners appointed by Parliament or the Council of State. At the same time the term 'Trained Band' began to disappear.Hay, pp. 99–104.Western, p. 8. The February 1650 militia commissions for Buckinghamshire called for two 60-man troops of horse (later reduced to one troop of 100) under Major John Deverell and a foot regiment of seven 100-man companies commanded by Colonel George Fleetwood, Member of Parliament (MP) for Buckinghamshire. A number of the officers had returned to the militia after serving in the Parliamentary army. During the Scottish invasion of 1651 the Bucks Militia was sent to help secure London, but unlike many others among the revived county militias it did not serve in the Worcester Campaign.Beckett, Wanton, pp. 145.

Under the Commonwealth and Protectorate the militia operated alongside the New Model Army to control the country. Buckinghamshire was one of the counties placed under the control of Major-General Charles Fleetwood, a kinsman of Col George Fleetwood. In 1656 a smaller 'select militia' of politically trustworthy mounted troopers available to serve anywhere at 48 hours' notice was organised to support the army. In Buckinghamshire this consisted of a troop of 80 men but the select militia lapsed the following year. It was reformed by the Rump Parliament in May–June 1659 at the time of Booth's Uprising but was finally disbanded in September that year.Beckett, Wanton, pp. 148–53. The Convention Parliament that restored Charles II to the throne enacted a new Militia Act that returned the militia to local control, and the committee for Buckinghamshire set the county's strength at two troops of horse and a regiment of foot commanded by Sir Richard Temple, 3rd Baronet.Beckett, Wanton, pp. 153–4.Beckett, Decline.

Restoration Militia