Tracing Your Ancestors in County Records: A Guide for Family and Local Historians

LORD LIEUTENANTS AND THE MILITIA

Lord Lieutenants were first appointed by Henry VIII. Commissions placed Sheriffs (see Chapter 2), who held titular command of county forces, under the command of the Lieutenancy. The earliest were issued in June 1545, ‘to endure until Michaelmas’. Lord John Russell, as one of the earliest Lieutenants, found himself commanding the Crown’s forces against the Prayer Book Rebellion in 1549. Queen Elizabeth only made intermittent appointments, until the threat of Spanish invasion prompted appointments for most counties in 1585.

Henceforward, the office was normally held for life. Frequently, several counties were included in one Commission. Lieutenants’ jurisdictions generally included boroughs and liberties otherwise exempt from county authorities. The actual title, Lord Lieutenant, was used for the first time in an Act of 1557–8. Commissions were frequently – but not always – issued by letters patent, under the Great Seal. They can be found on the Patent Rolls (National Archives series C 66). Justices of the Peace were placed under the Lieutenancy; they had to be ‘attendante, aydinge, assistinge, counsellinge, helpinge, and at the [Lieutenant’s] commandement’.¹ In 1559, even the Assize judges took instructions from the Lord Lieutenant of London.²

The raison d’être of the Lieutenancy was defence. Most routine duties connected with the Militia were undertaken by deputies (see below). Lord Lieutenants were the principal representatives of the Crown in the counties, and expected to represent the interests of their county to the Crown. Until the Civil War, they were frequently more attentive to localist demands than to those of the Crown. They mediated quarrels between gentlemen in their Lieutenancies; the government was determined that ‘they would at all costs not allow quarrelling among those who served them’.3 It was too dangerous. They directed the campaign against Roman Catholicism (see Chapter 9), and supervised the punishment of vagabonds (see Chapter 8). They administered forced loans, such as those imposed by Elizabeth in 1589⁴ and by Charles I in 1626.⁵ Militia rates and purveyance were under their supervision.⁶ They assisted the government’s abortive attempt to introduce a native silk industry.⁷ The Deputy Lieutenants of Northamptonshire were even asked to sell lottery tickets to raise money for the plantation of Virginia!⁸ In the 1680s, Lieutenants played a leading role in purging borough corporations of radical elements.

John Russell, Earl of Bedford, one of the first Lord Lieutenants.

The position of Lord Lieutenant was a senior appointment, usually held by a member of the Privy Council or the nobility. Under Elizabeth, Lord Burghley himself served for Hertfordshire. The appointment of peers to the office was royal acknowledgement of their dominance in society, giving them greater status, power and patronage. They influenced the appointment of Justices of the Peace, and the election of Members of Parliament.

Their position, however, depended heavily on the Crown’s favour. When the interests of Crown and county clashed, as they began to do in the 1630s, Lord Lieutenants had an unresolvable problem. The impossibility of meeting the expectations of both Crown and county during the 1639 Bishops’ War against Scotland reduced the Lieutenancy to total ineffectuality. Control of the Militia was the critical issue in 1642, as the country divided into Royalists and Parliamentarians. Under the Militia Ordinance, Parliament appointed its own Lord Lieutenants,⁹ who promptly raised an army. Between 1655 and 1657 Lieutenants were replaced by the Major Generals, chosen for their loyalty to the regime, and funded by the hated decimation tax on Royalists.

After the Restoration, the gentry recognised that strong government was their best defence against the return of the Commonwealth. The Lieutenancy received more support, and was able to put the interests of the Crown before local interests. Charles II chose his Lieutenants primarily for their loyalty, rather than their social standing (although that remained important), and deputies became more diligent. The Militia Acts of 1661 and 1662 gave Lieutenants Parliamentary authority to levy horse and foot, with arms and ammunition, from property owners.¹⁰ They had summary jurisdiction over military matters, and could direct Justices of the Peace. Militia defaulters were regularly summoned before Deputy Lieutenants and fined, rather than reported to the Privy Council. Many fines are recorded in Lieutenancy order books.

Restoration Lieutenants became the channel through which Crown patronage was distributed, replacing the Assize judges (see Chapter 12). They nominated men for appointment to office, and supported their clients wishing to purchase Crown lands. They were, however, unwilling to relax anti-Catholic measures. Their reluctance to sound out the gentry on Catholic emancipation led James II to purge his Lieutenancy – and fatally weaken it.¹¹ His attempt to replace Royalist Anglicans with Roman Catholics proved disastrous: the gentry felt sidelined, the government was weakened, and the King lost his crown.

Lord Lieutenants gradually became remote figureheads. Their control was frequently both distant and intermittent, given their other duties in government. Their routine work was normally undertaken by Deputy Lieutenants, and by other Justices of the Peace. Deputies were first appointed in 1569. Lieutenants generally chose their deputies personally, subject to the Crown’s approval. Warrants for appointments are in The National Archives, series SP 44. Appointments were gazetted in the London Gazette from 1665.¹² Deputy Lieutenants only served for one county. They were leading gentry, usually Justices of the Peace. Many were Members of Parliament. By c.1600, there were usually four or five in each county. Numbers tripled or quadrupled under the later Stuarts, as political patronage became an increasingly important element in their appointment. The work was frequently coordinated by a single Deputy, such as Lord Poulett in pre-Civil War Somerset. The position was prestigious, but onerous. One complained that ‘if aught were well done the Lieutenant has the praise and thanks though all the charge and travail is borne by us, but if any business has ill success, the blame is laid upon us’.¹³ Their basic tasks were to recruit and train the Militia, and to keep tabs on disaffection – a particularly important task after the Restoration, when there was thought to be a serious threat from the ‘Good Old Cause’.

Everyone was liable for military service, and expected to provide their own weapons.¹⁴ Men were required (at least until c.1600) to regularly practise archery at the butts erected in every parish. Noblemen, bishops, the gentry, and wealthy yeomen, were expected to maintain their own private armouries. Increasingly, public county, borough and parish armouries were provided, necessitated by the soaring cost of providing ammunition for practice. Centralised armouries equipped the Trained Bands, and were drawn on by men being sent overseas.

Deputies conducted musters, ensured that beacons were maintained, assessed their fellow gentry’s liability to supply arms and horse, imposed Militia rates, and paid coat and conduct money to troops raised for overseas service for their clothing and travel. They appointed officers of horse and foot, and clerks to keep records. In Derbyshire, a clerk was paid £13 13s 4d for ‘attendinge the musters, writing manie warrants, inrolinge & certifieinge all the forces, & altering & keeping theire muster bookes’.15 Clerks wrote warrants to summon musters, collect the lists of able men that constables compiled, prepared certificates for the Lord Lieutenant and the Privy Council, and copied them into the Lieutenancies’ own muster books. Routine administration took up a considerable amount of time, to the detriment of any personal involvement by the Deputies in training.

There were two types of musters. General musters, sometimes with several points of assembly, were regularly held. Attendance was compulsory. Horse and foot might be mustered separately. ‘All hable persons’ aged between sixteen and sixty were summoned to appear. Arms and men had to be ‘shown’: the word ‘muster’ derives from the Latin monstrare – to show. High constables took men’s names, and assessed their wealth to determine their liability to bear arms. Many papers relating to their assessments can be found in Lieutenancy letter books. After 1662, those with an income of £500 per annum, or an estate valued at £6,000, had to provide a horse. An armed foot soldier was required from those who had £50 per annum, or an estate valued at over £600.

A ‘reasonable number’ of those who attended musters were chosen to be trained, armed and taught how to handle weapons and horses. Others, able to serve as labourers or pioneers, carpenters or smiths, were listed. Those who appeared were paid by a rate on their parish; allowances were paid to the wives of pressed men.

Securing attendance could be difficult. Men were frequently unwilling to appear, and the tardiness and prevarication of unwilling parish constables, responsible for ensuing they did so, could render musters almost pointless. However, defaulters could be compelled to enter a recognizance¹⁶ to do so, and were sometimes indicted at Quarter Sessions.

Special musters were training sessions for small units, sometimes held monthly, weekly, or even daily. In 1573, the government ordered ‘a convenient and sufficient number of the most able to be chosen and collected’ for training; these formed the Trained Bands. The training was in the new art of gunnery. Bandsmen were recruited from the more prosperous householders and yeoman farmers; in Wiltshire, it was ordered in 1617 that only those who had £2 in land for life, or £40 in goods, should serve.17

The Trained Bands provided more effective training than general musters. In 1639, when the Privy Council sent inspectors to report on the Lancashire Militia, Captain Threlwall reported that the footsoldiers of the Trained Bands were ‘reasonably well exercised … and all able bodied men’, and that defects in their armour and weapons were slight. However, he also reported that the horse were neither very able, nor well armed.¹⁸ The latter had probably only attended general musters. The horse were generally the most unsatisfactory part of the Militia, as gentlemen could easily evade service.

A Trained Band Soldier, From Charles Knight. Old England a Pictorial Museum. 1845.

Special musters have left little trace in the records. Training was left to professional muster masters, who were frequently outsiders, doubly disliked because the gentlemen they trained objected to taking orders from men of less exalted social rank. Their work inevitably suffered from political interference, and from disputes over fees. Elizabethan parsimony required counties to pay them, rather than the Exchequer. Justices frequently refused payment, regarding it as unconstitutional.

Non-commissioned officers frequently had considerable experience of Continental campaigns. Many were maimed soldiers, sometimes given pensions conditional on appearing at musters (see Chapter 7). Deputy Lieutenants were very solicitous of the rights of maimed soldiers; their letters are frequently found amongst Quarter Sessions records endorsing requests for pensions.

After 1589, Lord Lieutenants also appointed Provost Marshalls. They exercised a disciplinary role, apprehending and punishing defaulting soldiers, and dealing with vagrants and other ‘masterless men’.19

Sometimes, troops had to be raised for actual fighting. In Cambridgeshire, the work of raising 500 foot soldiers and fifty horse for service against a threatened Spanish invasion in 1599 can be traced in the letters of the Lieutenancy. The proceedings of the Devon Lieutenancy when it was ordered to provide 2,000 men to march against Scotland in 1639 can be traced amongst SP series in The National Archives.²⁰ Indentures listing troops raised for overseas service are in series E101.

During the Interregnum, the Militia was reduced to cavalry reserves for the army, under Cromwell‘s Major Generals. After the Restoration, the old distinction between the Trained Bands and the rest of the Militia ceased. Personal service from wealthier individuals ceased to be required; they could instead pay £10 per annum. The Militia became primarily an agency for promoting Royalism and repressing survivors of the ‘Good Old Cause’. Loyalty was required above all else. The Militia Act of 1662 directed the removal of all those who refused the oaths of allegiance and supremacy. Servants sent in the place of their masters had to be ‘well affected’. These precautions were partially successful. When the Duke of Monmouth landed at Lyme Regis (Dorset) in 1685, the Militia succeeded in blocking his route, even though many men deserted to his cause rather than actually fighting him. The officers remained loyal.

Many Tudor and Stuart muster rolls have survived. Some pre-date the establishment of Lord Lieutenancies. The earliest to be noticed here were compiled in 1522, when Cardinal Wolsey used the pretext of a muster to make an in-depth valuation of property, and to assess a forced loan. The 1522 rolls made the customary returns of able-bodied men, arms and harness (body armour), but also made some additions. All men over the age of sixteen ‘and whom they belong to’ were listed. Occupations were sometimes given. Clergy and aliens were included. So were landowners, with, crucially for Wolsey, the value of their lands. The 1522 rolls enabled the Crown to identify defaulters, who could be compelled to purchase the correct armour; they also identified those able to make ‘loans’.²¹ Defence required not just men and arms, but also money.

Muster rolls sent to the Privy Council sometimes list all able-bodied men in a parish. Where they record trades, they may enable us to determine the occupational structure of particular communities. The rolls for 1539, 1542 and 1569 are particularly notable, although they continued to be compiled right up until the Civil War. Occasionally, there were separate rolls for clergy. Sixteenth- and seventeenth-century muster rolls may be found in The National Archives, amongst the State Papers, and in series E 36 and E 101.22 Many Civil War muster rolls and related documents can be found in series SP 28. SP 16 has muster rolls from the Bishops’ War in 1639. Other rolls are in local record offices. In some instances, these may have been used to compile those sent to the Privy Council. A few published rolls with useful introductions are listed below.

Apart from the muster rolls, no provision was made for the preservation of early Lieutenancy records; few survive for the Tudor period, although in some counties copies of important papers were made for deputy lieutenants. Better provision was made by the post-Restoration Norfolk Deputy Lieutenants, who ordered a clerk to attend them and ‘to enter all such our transactions into our common journal booke’.²³ Many Lieutenancy orders, letter books and journals have been preserved with Quarter Sessions records, and amongst private papers held in institutions such as the British Library, the Bodleian Library and local record offices. Others have been preserved in the Privy Council registers (series PC 2),²⁴ and amongst the State Papers (SP), in The National Archives. There are printed calendars for many of these series. Some relevant record society publications with useful introductions are listed below. These records provide much information, not only on the Militia, but on subjects as diverse as recusancy, vagrancy, purveyance and economic history.

The early eighteenth-century Militia was largely moribund, except during times of emergency such as the rebellions of 1715 and 1745. However, the threat of Continental war led to the Militia Act of 1757. Militia regiments were to be recruited by conscription, unless sufficient volunteers came forward. Liability to provide men was placed on the parish, rather than on owners of property as previously. Each county had to provide a specific number of men: Middlesex and Devon were both required to raise 1,200, but Rutland a mere 120.²⁵ Parish constables held ballots to select men liable to serve, unless sufficient volunteers came forward. Substitutes could be sent if those chosen did not wish to serve. Service was for three years; men underwent training for twenty-eight days every year. Militiamen were not liable for service overseas, although some regiments were embodied for prolonged service when war with France broke out in 1778, and again in 1793.

Between 1757 and 1831, the constables’ Militia ballot lists listed all adult able-bodied men. Age limits were eighteen to fifty between 1758 and 1762, eighteen to forty-five between 1762 and 1831. There were certain exemptions, varying over time: men such as clergy, apprentices, magistrates, constables, serving soldiers, men under 5 feet 4 inches tall, the infirm, and fathers with a large family to support. The information given on the lists also varied. Originally, only names and infirmities were given. After 1758, occupations were required, and after 1802 descriptions and the number of children had to be entered. Other information, such as ages, may also be included. Before ballots took place, lists were displayed on church doors, so that objections to the inclusion or exclusion of particular names could be made. Those conscripted took the oath of allegiance, and their names were entered on a Militia roll. They were then organised into regiments, battalions and companies.

Substantial numbers of Militia ballot lists survive in local record offices. Researchers can frequently rely on them as full censuses of ablebodied adult males. The 1777 list for Northamptonshire has been described as ‘the nearest approach to an occupational census’ available for the county.26 However, the exempt, such as clergy and apprentices, who should have been listed, were frequently omitted. They were used to compile a variety of other lists. From 1802, Schedule A lists included both the names of householders aged over forty-five, and women. From these, Schedule B lists were compiled, omitting the two latter categories. After magistrates had heard any appeals against inclusion on these lists, yet more lists were compiled, omitting those exempt from serving. These formed the basis of ‘Militia liable books’. Ballots were held not just for the regular Militia, but also for various supplementary forces, such as the 1803–4 Army of Reserve. Separate lists survive for these ballots.

Conscription by ballot was universally hated, and met much opposition. It was suspended in 1829. Militia ballot lists were subsequently compiled in an attempt to reintroduce balloting. However, the ballot was cancelled before it could be held. Henceforward, the Militia consisted of volunteers only.

Militia ballot lists should not be confused with the Posse Comitatus lists of 1798, and the Levée en Masse lists of 1803–4. These were not compiled for recruitment to the Militia. Rather, the Posse Comitatus lists recorded the names, parishes and occupations of all able-bodied men who were not serving, but could be called upon in case of invasion. They were to assist with the evacuation of the civilian population, to remove cattle and crops from the path of the invader, to transport and supply food to troops, and to harry the enemy where possible. These lists provide the researcher with fairly full occupational censuses. Beckett’s edition of the Buckinghamshire Posse Comitatus27 has a full listing of the small number of surviving returns nation-wide, and includes a useful critique of the returns.

Levée en Masse lists provided comprehensive listings of men aged from seventeen to fifty-five, with names, occupations and infirmities, arranged in categories according to age, marital status, and number of children aged under ten. Exact ages were sometimes given. The lists included all householders, with their occupations, ages and the numbers of males and females in each household; it identifies Quakers and aliens. Non-combatants needing to be evacuated, including women, children, the old and the infirm, were also listed. Their names, and sometimes their occupations and ages, were noted. Lists of those able to serve as pioneers and special constables were compiled; there were also separate listings of various categories such as millers and waggoners, together with schedules listing cattle, corn and fodder. Few of these lists survive.

Men enlisted served for three years until 1786, five years thereafter. In peacetime, they lived at home, except whilst training. In wartime, they could be stationed anywhere, and usually served outside of their home county. Men are listed on regimental muster and pay lists (National Archives, series WO 13), and on enrolment lists (WO 68 – these include casualty lists). Militia musters 1781–2 (WO 13) have been indexed on CD; for details, visit Family History Indexes – www.fhindexes.co.uk/Militia.htm.

More records survive relating to forces raised during the Napoleonic Wars. The Lieutenancy became involved in the raising of a multitude of voluntary local auxiliary forces, such as Fencibles and Yeomanry. These could be raised and disbanded at will; men joined and left as they wished. Most volunteers were paid only whilst they were in training. The regimental archives of both Volunteers, and of the regular Militia, may now be held in regimental museums or county record offices. Many records are held by The National Archives. Muster rolls and pay lists, 1778 to 1887 are in series WO 13. Related material, such as enrolment and casualty books, are in WO 68. Militia attestation papers, 1806 to 1915, are in WO 96. Much relevant correspondence is in WO 50. For the period after 1815, little survives.

Militia records are invaluable sources. Military and economic historians can learn much from their enumerations of equipment, of the occupations of recruits, and of taxes and loans levied. Demographers may obtain at least minimal estimates of population. In Monmouthshire, they have been used to demonstrate the way in which Welsh patronymic surnames gradually developed.28 Family historians can use them to trace surnames across entire counties.

Lord Lieutenants continued to hold a powerful office into the twentieth century. In 1838, it was said that ‘if fires and riots grow alarming the Justices of the Peace wait for the Lord Lieutenant. He may be an aged or inactive man, or he may not be resident in the county, but till the Lord Lieutenant comes forward the magistrates do nothing collectively.’²⁹ As late as 1866, the Privy Council used the influence of Lord Lieutenants to encourage compliance with the controversial provisions of the Cattle Diseases Prevention Act 1866.³⁰ However, control of the Militia was removed from them in 1871, and the introduction of elected county councils in 1888 weakened their powers. Appointees increasingly became local worthies, rather than figures of national significance. Ceremonial functions gradually became their raison d’être, although they continued to nominate Justices of the Peace until 1910 (Clerks of the Peace in practice increasingly directed appointments),³¹ and played important roles in raising forces during the First World War. They continue to represent the Queen to this day.

FURTHER READING

An introduction to the history of the Lieutenancy is provided by:

• Jebb, Miles, The Lord-Lieutenants and their Deputies. (Phillimore, 2007).

For the early Lieutenancy, see:

• Thomson, Gladys Scott. Lords Lieutenants in the Sixteenth Century: A Study in Tudor Local Administration. (Longmans Green & Co., 1923).

• Stater, Victor L. Noble Government: the Stuart Lord Lieutenancy and the Transformation of English Politics. (University of Georgia Press, 1994).

Deputy Lieutenants are discussed by:

• Thomson, Gladys Scott. ‘The origin and growth of the office of deputy lieutenant’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 4th series, 5, 1922, pp.150–67.

For the history of the Militia, see:

• Boynton, Lindsay. The Elizabethan Militia, 1558-1638. (David & Charles, 1971).

• Western, J.R. The English Militia in the Eighteenth Century: the Story of a Political Issue, 1660-1802. (Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1965).

• Fortescue, J.W. The County Lieutenancies and the Army, 1803-1814. (Macmillan, 1909).

The names of Lord Lieutenants are listed in:

• Sainty, J.C. Lieutenants of Counties, 1585-1642. (Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research special supplement 8, 1970). Continued for 1660–1974 in List and Index Society special series 12, 1974.

The above discussion of surviving Militia lists and muster rolls draws heavily on two Gibson guides, which provide much greater detail, and list surviving records:

• Gibson, Jeremy, & Dell, Alan. Tudor and Stuart Muster Rolls: a Directory of Holdings in the British Isles. (Federation of Family History Societies, 1989).

• Gibson, Jeremy, & Medlycott, Mervyn. Militia Lists and Musters 1757-1876: a Directory to Holdings in the British Isles. (5th ed. Family History Partnership, 2013).

On the 1522 muster (in addition to the county volumes listed below), see:

• Cornwall, Julian. ‘A Tudor domesday: the musters of 1522’, Journal of the Society of Archivists 3(1), 1965, pp.19–24.

• Goring, J.L. ‘The general proscription of 1522’, English Historical Review 86(341), 1971, pp.681–705.

A detailed guide to Militia records, post-1757, is provided by:

• Spencer, William. Records of the Militia & Volunteer Forces, 1757-1945, including Records of the Volunteers, Rifle Volunteers, Yeomanry, Imperial Yeomanry, Fencibles, Territorials, and the Home Guard. (Rev ed. PRO Publications, 1997).