in a notable writ for enforcing Watch and Ward and the Assize of Arms, he extended the obligation of service to villans and lowered the age limit to fifteen. Edward I reaffirmed these new departures in his well-known Statute of Winchester (1285), in which it is enacted that "every man have in his house harness for to keep the peace after the ancient assize, that is to say, every man between fifteen years of age and sixty years." Further, he enlarged the armoury of the militiaman by including among his weapons the axe and the bow.[11]

The long, aggressive wars of Edward I in Wales and Scotland, and the still longer struggles of the fourteenth century in France, could not, of course, be waged by means of the national militia. Even the feudal levy was unsuited to their requirements. They were waged mainly by means of hired professional armies. Parliament—a new factor in the Constitution—took pains in these circumstances to limit by statute the liabilities of the old national forces. An Act of 1328 decreed that no one should be compelled to go beyond the bounds of his own county, except when necessity or a sudden irruption of foreign foes into the realm required it.[12] Another Act, 1352, provided that the militia should not be compelled to go beyond the realm in any circumstances whatsoever without the consent of Parliament.[13] Both these Acts were confirmed by Henry IV in 1402.[14] But the old obligation of universal service for home defence remained intact. It was, in fact, enforced by Edward IV in 1464, when, on his own authority, he ordered the Sheriffs to proclaim that "every man from sixteen to sixty be well and defensibly arrayed and ... be ready to attend on his Highness upon a day's warning in resistance of his enemies and rebels and the defence of this his realm."[15] This notable incident carries us to the end of the Middle Ages, and shows us the Old English principle in vigorous operation.

IV. TUDOR AND STUART DEVELOPMENTS

The Wars of the Roses, so fatal to the feudal nobility, left the national militia the only organized force in the country. The Tudor period, it is true, saw the faint foreshadowing of a regular army in Henry VII's Yeomen of the Guard, and the nucleus of a volunteer force in the Honourable Artillery Company, established in London under Henry VIII. But these at the time had little military importance, and England remained dependent for her defence throughout the sixteenth century, that age of unprecedented prosperity and glory, upon her militant manhood. Hence the Tudor monarchs paid great attention to the maintenance and equipment of the militia. The practice (which had grown up in the later Middle Ages) of limiting the normal call to arms to a certain quota of men from each county was revived. If the required numbers were not forthcoming compulsion was employed. Statutes were passed making discipline more rigid. Lords Lieutenant were instituted to take over the command, with added powers, from the Sheriffs. An important Mustering Statute (1557) was enacted, graduating afresh the universal liability to service, and making new provision for weapons and organization.[16] William Harrison, writing in 1587, said: "As for able men for service, thanked be God! we are not without good store; for by the musters taken 1574-5 our numbers amounted to 1,172,674, and yet were they not so narrowly taken but that a third part of this like multitude was left unbilled and uncalled."[17] This from a population estimated at less than six million all told! Such was the host on which England relied for safety in 1588, if by chance the galleons of Spain should elude the vigilance of Drake and should land Parma's hordes upon our shores. Well might the country feel at ease behind such a fleet and with such a virile race of men to second it.

The Stuarts did not take kindly to the English militia. It was too democratic, too free. James I, in the very first year of his reign, conferred upon its members the seductive but fatal gift of exemption from the burden of providing their own weapons.[18] As he himself took care not to provide them too profusely, the force speedily lost both in efficiency and independence. The Civil War hopelessly divided it, as it did the nation, into hostile factions. The Royalist section was ultimately crushed, while the Parliamentary section was gradually absorbed into that first great standing army which this country ever knew, the New Model of 1645. For fifteen years the people groaned under the dominance of this arbitrary,