A SURREY MILITIA REGIMF,NT.*
A MILITIAMAN is "made a little lower" than a soldier, and intended to raise himself to that condition, by dint of sympathy and imitation, as a mortal hopes to rise when he has professed to be "on the side of the angels." If these objects are not to some extent kept in view, the mortal may well be, as Pope affirms, "in doubt to deem himself a god or brute ;" while the militia- man, though he retains some chance of doing credit to himself
whenever a Battle of Dorking may be lost or won, occupies a position which it is hard to defend from such ridicule as Dryden's, in whose view the whole force was,—
" In peace a charge, in war a weak defence : Stout once a month they march, a blustering band, And over, but in time of need, at hand."
But there can be nothing better written for such probationers than a book like Captain Davis's, in which the register of their marches, reviews, promotions, and occasional jollities is con- stantly brought into juxtaposition with the most brilliant achieve- ments of our Regular forces in all parts of the world, such
reflections continually presenting themselves as are conveyed in the following paragraph :-
"The year 1769 was a memorable one in our history. The battle of Minden and the taking of Quebec were great blows to the French, and the brilliant victory of Wolfe added imperishable lustre to our soldiers. The services of the Militia, although the numbers did not reach in this year much more than half of the reduced quota as fixed by the Lords, allowed more of the Regular troops to be free for our interests on the Continent ; this helped materially to insure the success of our arms."
Furthermore, our author's historical introduction enables us, by an easy stretch of the imagination, to identify our present Militia with the national force maintained by the Anglo-Saxon Kings, which was not, as far as we know, liable to serve beyond the seas, but was called upon to defend our hearths and altars against the more than probable inroads of the Danes and Celts. We may even find it identified with the levies of magnanimous Britons that opposed the invasion of Julius Ca3sar. For many centuries after the Norman Conquest we had a feudal army, but the Saxon Fyrd, our "old constitutional force," still remained in being, or was soon revived, as we are told, under the name of the "posse comitatus." The trained bands of London, &c., were "a militia under another name," • Historical Record, of the S•cond Royal Surrey, or Eleventh Royal Regiment of Militia. With Introductory Chapters, compiled by John Davis, Esq., Captain In the Regiment. London: Ward and Co. 1877.
though the City appears to have furnished Edward
and Henry VIII. with archers and men-at-arms from such a body to serve in France. The term "militia" only came into vogue under the Stuarts ; the modern character of the force was de- termined by the standing armies of Charles II., and its present organisation dates from the French war of 1757 to 1763. But at this period, we observe with much pleasure that the roll of officers of the Second Surrey Regiment, or more strictly speaking, the Second Independent Battalion of the then Surrey Regiment (the two were united after the peace), was adorned with one name that has been immortalised in our literature ; he was probably not a model militiaman in all respects, but we know by the testimony of a true poet that he would rather have " fa'n than fled ;" we know that he was an inestimable boon companion, and witty him- self, as we feel that he was "the cause of wit in others," besides which, be is represented as an antiquarian of prodigious research and penetration. The readers of Burns will remember the name of Captain Francis Grose, and will perhaps be aware that his in- quiries about the Ayrshire popular legends helped to bring about the _composition of "Tam o' Shanter." All the appointments Grose received in his early days, as captain, adjutant, &c., a com- plete list of his works, all the other information that can be collected about him, all the passages in which Burns's cordial esteem for the man is disguised under volleys of good-humoured raillery at his obesity or his eccentric habits, besides an anony- mous poetical " sketch " of him, which is by no means devoid of humour and interest,—all this matter the good-luck and dis- cretion of our present author has led him to set down with a punctuality for which he deserves the gratitude of general readers, and much more of the militiamen of the Second Royal Surrey Regiment. Besides this, Captain Davis has accepted the guid- ance of Grose as an antiquarian in exploring the ancient regulations under which our Militia, as he calls it, used to be armed and mustered from the earliest periods of our history. It is not, as far as we can see, positively substantiated that William the Conqueror, while depending for the defence of his power upon the feudal system, still kept the " Fyrd " in opera- tion, only calling it out for service when the nation was in great peril. But a law of Henry IL, 1181, requires all freemen and burgesses to provide themselves with arms, in specified proportions to their means. Another law of Edward L contains similar pro- visions, and declares the persons concerned to be bound to pro- duce their arms, twice a year, for an inspection to be made by two constables out of every hundred. How the liabilities imposed by such laws werelimited may be understood from the language of Edward III. :— " The King wills that no man from henceforth shall be charged to arm himself otherwise than he was wont in the times of our progenitors, Kings of England ; and that no man may be compelled to go out of his shire but whore necessity requireth, and sudden coming of strange enemies into the realm ; and it should be done as bath been used in times past, for the defence of the realm."
In our author's second chapter, on " Military Events and Levies in Surrey to 1757," he describes a formal report of a" veue and musters of able men, harness and weapons," in four or five of the hundreds of Surrey, but of no earlier date than 1539 (30 Henry VIII). In each hundred two or three of the commissioners of our sovereign lord by his letters patent (for the county) enumerate the able men furnished by each parish, under the two heads of archers and billmen, and the harness (equipments) analogously ; thus the borough of Reigate furnished 17 archers and 38 billmen, that is, 55 able men, but harness for 6 only, viz., 3 archers and 3 billmen ; we do not know how or whence such discrepancies were compensated. We have totals for hundreds, but not for the entire county. A contemporary document from Guildford con- tains the names of the persons within the town who were to provide, in their own hands or in those of substitutes, a harness, with a bill, or else with a bow and arrows, a sword and a dagger ; the list is headed by the mayor himself. In a muster under Queen Elizabeth, 1577, the county is still provided with 702 bows, but also with qualibers (calivers) and other novel accoutrements. Due mention is made of the Queen's proclamation at the time of the Spanish Armada, the sensation produced by her speech at Tilbury, and so on. The force of the county begins here to be divided, for the most part, into footmen, light horse- men, and demi-lances. In the time of James I. we find an order that 100 of the trained bands of Surrey should be placed on guard in various parts near London, on the day of the coronation. In the first year of Charles L, the Earl of Notting- ham petitions the King, on behalf of himself and of the Lord- Lieutenant of Surrey (the Earl of Holderness), with whom he Lad taken several musters of the trained bands, that a certificate hereof may not be required before a specified day (about two months later), as "by reason of the great infection in Southwark, many of them were either dead or departed thence," a sort of statement destined to be often repeated. There is nothing defi- nite to record of the Surrey levies during the Commonwealth, or in the first years of the Restoration. The Militia Acts of Charles II., in 1672 and the following year, abolished all remaining feudal tenures, and introduced a more regular method into the govern-
ment of the force. But the regimental muster for four days and the four-company musters for two days each in a year made up, as we find remarked, an utterly inadequate time for the training of a soldier, so that this system, besides the formation of a standing army, tended gradually to reduce the force in importance and efficiency. But we must remember, at the same time, how England was be- coming a geographical expression, and that it was no longer necessary to be prepared for an invasion from the Welsh or Scottish border (though in point of fact we sustained some unexpected alarms from the Highlanders in the eighteenth century). But Captain Davis's last record of the old Surrey Militia is a complete list furnished in the general muster of 1697, when the county fur- nished 1,209 and Southwark 910 men, exclusive of two troops of horse, amounting to 132, from the former. "A new regulation
at about this time fixed the number of foot soldiers in Surrey at 1,000 men ;" this is stated on the authority of the Gentleman's Magazine. The reader may possibly wish to know whether Surrey produced more or fewer foot-soldiers and equipments than some
other counties in proportion to her population and resources, but we cannot enter into this subject till the other counties have had compilers, whose information will run parallel to that which Captain Davis has collected respecting his own regiment. To the attention of such persons we may fairly commend the industry and punctuality with which he has copied the succession of the officers from 1759 (which is indexed), the "marching orders," and "present localisation," &c., besides his woodcuts and descriptions of uniforms ; and last, not least, his memoir of Captain Grose, if any other county regiment should have been so lucky as to comprise an equally worthy and remarkable man. We may conclude with one or two of the trivial incidents which Captain Davis has sometimes recorded with discreet pleasantry :—
"During one of the marches out [from the camp at Aldershot in 1856], while the regiment was passing through Farnham, a goat, out of a flock that was being driven through the town, was so attracted by the band and the splendid appearance of the drum-major, that it could not be persuaded to 'march away' with its kith and kin ; so it was bought by the officers for 10s.; and ever after, during the embodiment, took its place by the drum-major in marches past, &c., until killed by some malicious person. The Queen used to notice the animal frequently."
We are sorry that its rare sensibility did not give it a more permanent advantage in the struggle for existence. Shortly after this, the General commanding the camp was pleased to state that the Second Royal Surrey was one of the cleanest and most steady regiments of Militia under arms that he had inspected—a testi- mony particularly pleasing to them, because when they had left Guildford, "the bells of the church of the Holy Trinity were rung in joy at their departure,"—an untoward event, for which the respectable inhabitants of the town, even including the Rector and the Mayor, very promptly apologised in a courteous letter.
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