| Unit Name: | North York Rifle Militia 4th Battalion, Green Howards |
| Dates: | 1558–1908 |
| Country: | (1558–1707) (1707–1800)  United Kingdom (1801–1908) |
| Branch: | Militia |
| Role: | Infantry |
| Size: | 1–4 Regiments |
| Command Structure: | Green Howards |
| Garrison: | Richmond Castle |
| Nickname: | 'Hexham Butchers' |
| Battles: | Great Siege of Scarborough Castle Siege of Bolton Castle Hexham riot Second Boer War |
| Notable Commanders: | Sir William Pennyman, 1st Baronet Henry Belasyse, 2nd Earl Fauconberg Thomas Dundas, 1st Baron Dundas |
The North York Militia, later the North York Rifles, was an auxiliary military force raised in the North Riding of Yorkshire in Northern England. From their formal organisation as Trained Bands in 1558 the Militia regiments of the riding served in home defence and internal security in all of Britain's major wars. It was one of the first British units to include specialist riflemen. The regiment became a battalion of the Green Howards in 1881, and saw service in the Second Boer War. It was disbanded in 1908.
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. The universal obligation to serve continued under the Normans and the shire levies under the Sheriff of Yorkshire, Walter Espec, formed a large part of the army that defeated the invading Scots at the Battle of the Standard near Northallerton in 1138. The levies were reorganised under the Assizes of Arms of 1181 and 1252, and again by the Statute of Winchester of 1285. Now Commissioners of Array would levy the required number of men from each shire. The usual shire contingent was 1000 infantry commanded by a millenar, divided into companies of 100 commanded by constables or ductores, and subdivided into sections of 20 led by vintenars. The able-bodied men were equipped by their parishes and arrayed by the Wapentakes into which Yorkshire was divided.[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7]
Yorkshire was rarely called upon to supply men for the Plantagenet kings' campaigns in Wales, but its men were regularly summoned for expeditions to Scotland. For instance, Yorkshire levies were in the army at Berwick upon Tweed early in 1298, but a fresh levy later in the year apparently arrived too late for the Battle of Falkirk. For King Edward I's army of 1300 the ridings of Yorkshire were ordered to supply 5000 men, but they were over 2000 short and very irregularly arrayed, some 2900 gathering at Carlisle and then taking part in the short Siege of Caerlaverock.[8]
The shire levies of Yorkshire would have been among those called out to defend against the Scottish Great Raid of 1322 and again in the Weardale campaign of 1327, where the threat was so great that all men between 16 and 60 were called out in parts of Yorkshire. Levies from Yorkshire were summoned in October 1332 for defensive duties during the campaign by the Disinherited Scots, and again the following year for King Edward III's Siege of Berwick and subsequent Battle of Halidon Hill. For the Roxburgh Campaign in the winter of 1334–5 the three ridings of Yorkshire were ordered to send 1050 light horsemen and 5310 foot, but only a fraction of these arrived. Those of the North Riding were the last to join, but they were supplemented by a contingent from the Honour of Richmond. For the summer campaign of 1335 the North Riding contingent comprised 3 ductores, 15 vintenars, 54 mounted archers and 247 foot archers, serving from 25 June to 27 August.[9] Early in the reign of King Richard II the Scots were again harrying Northern England, and the men of the North Riding were arrayed three times between 1377 and 1380.[10] King Henry VIII enforced the statutes, and in 1535 the commissioners took a muster of the men of the wapentakes of Birdforth and Allertonshire on Bagby Moor, near Thirsk, recording the names of the men from each township and the 'harness' each man possessed, such as 'jacks' (padded coats), Sallet helmets and 'splents' (arm guards). Threatened by a French invasion in 1539, Henry held a muster of the whole country, with the following results in the North Riding:[11] [12] [13]
After Henry's death in 1547, the county and city of York were ordered to send 600 men to Alnwick in Northumberland. The North Riding supplied 227 of these, of whom 141 came from the wapentakes of Richmondshire. The deployment being outside their county, the men were issued with 'coat and conduct money' to supply them with a uniform coat and to pay for their journey.[14]
See main article: Trained band. The legal basis of the militia was updated by two acts of 1557 covering musters (4 & 5 Ph. & M. c. 3) and the maintenance of horses and armour (4 & 5 Ph. & M. c. 2). 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. Although the militia obligation was universal, it was impractical to train and equip every able-bodied man, and from 1572 the practice was to select a proportion of men for the Trained bands, (TBs) who were mustered for regular training.[15] [16] [17] [18] [19]
When war broke out with Spain training and equipping the militia became a priority. In 1584–85 the JPs of the North Riding were planning to equip and train 1000 men, 250 with corslets (armour, signifying pikemen), 400 with calivers (firearms), 200 archers and 150 billmen. The captains were to select four or more of the best shots in their companies as corporals, each to train 20–25 of the men in aimed fire at 150yd range. In 1586 the new Lord Lieutenant of Yorkshire, the Earl of Huntingdon, doubled the number of men due from the North Riding. The same proportions applied except that billmen were reduced in favour of pikemen, and Huntingdon ordered that the 'shot' should be concentrated in the wapentakes nearest the coast. Training should be held four times between 24 May and 22 July, the 'shot' being trained for three days on each occasion before the whole band was brought together, the powder and match to be supplied by the Lord Mayor of York and paid for by the wapentakes. In 1588 Captain Ralph Bosvile was appointed muster-master to oversee the training of the Yorkshire TBs. As the threat of invasion increased Huntingdon was ordered to raise 12,000 men in Yorkshire and County Durham, 3000 for coast defence, 6000 for the rest of the area, and 3000 as a mobile reserve. He reported that he had only 400 horse, but 6000 good foot and 2000 hardly inferior. When the Spanish Armada threatened to land the Duke of Parma's army on the coast of England, the captains, including Sir William Fairfax of the Bulmer and Ryedale companies (300 men) were alerted to have their bands in readiness. The threat disappeared with the defeat of the Armada at sea.[20] [21] [22] [23]
In the 16th Century little distinction was made between the militia and the troops levied by the counties for overseas expeditions. Between 1589 and 1601 Yorkshire supplied 1810 levies for service in Ireland, 400 for France and 400 for the Netherlands. 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'. Replacing the weapons issued to the levies from the militia armouries was a heavy cost on the counties.[24] [25]
With the passing of the threat of invasion, the TBs declined in the early 17th Century. Later, King Charles I attempted to reform them into a national force or 'Perfect Militia' answering to the king rather than local control.[26] In 1638 the Yorkshire TBs were the largest in the country, mustering 12,241 foot together with 365 Cuirassiers and 35 Dragoons.[27]
In November 1638, the King's relationship with Scotland moved towards outright hostilities (the First Bishops' War) and the counties were ordered to muster their TBs and keep them in readiness. As the King gathered an expeditionary force on the border in 1639, Yorkshire became an important staging-post, with the TBs ordered to rendezvous at York, though in practice many of the men sent were not trained bandsmen but untrained substitutes.[28]
Four regiments were assembled from the North Riding:[29] [30]
On 1 April the King ordered Pennyman and his regiment to march to reinforce Berwick, which was threatened by the Scots. The rest of the force at York marched north piecemeal until it concentrated at Newcastle upon Tyne and then moved up to camp at Birkhill west of Berwick on 30 May. The force was poorly trained and supplied; when a superior force of Scots Covenanters was arrayed on nearby Duns Law Charles negotiated the Treaty of Berwick and the army dispersed.[34]
When hostilities were renewed in 1640 (the Second Bishops' War) Charles's government attempted to form better regiments by combining TB contingents. The northern counties including Yorkshire were to provide the core of trained troops. It seems that in this campaign Pennyman's Langbaurgh regiment served to guard the crossings of the River Tees. Sir Hugh Cholmley had been dismissed from his county appointments in 1639, but his brother Lieutenant-Colonel Henry Cholmley commanded the Pickering Lythe regiment on its march north. But once again the trained men were outweighed by untrained, unpaid, unwilling substitutes, and there were widespread mutinies and disorders at York and elsewhere. Charles's generals were unwilling to commit this force to action on the border. The campaign was as much a failure as the previous year's.[30] [35] [36]
Control of the TBs was one of the main points of dispute between Charles I and Parliament that led to the First English Civil War. However, when open warfare broke out 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.[37] [38]
For example, Sir William Pennyman raised a Royalist Regiment of Foot that was largely recruited from the Yorkshire TBs and led by men from Yorkshire and Durham, several of them previously Yorkshire TB officers. This was the senior foot regiment in the King's army and fought at Edgehill in 1642, later forming part of the army at Oxford.[39] [40]
The Cholmley brothers supported Parliament, Sir Henry raising a regiment of foot that fought at Edgehill and Sir Hugh commanding regiments of horse and foot in the garrison of Scarborough Castle. But in 1643 Sir Hugh changed sides and thereafter held Scarborough for the King. It is probable that men of the Pickering Lythe TB Regiment served in the garrison. After the Battle of Marston Moor in 1644 Scarborough was the last important Royalist garrison and seaport in Yorkshire. It was besieged from February until 25 July 1645, when Cholmley surrendered on terms.[30] [32] [36] [41] [42] [43] [44] [45]
Colonel John Scrope and members of the Darcy family, with a party of the Richmondshire TBs, held Bolton Castle, which was intermittently under siege from July 1643 until its surrender in November 1645.[30] [46]
Once Parliament had 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. Under the Commonwealth and Protectorate the militia received pay when called out, and operated alongside the New Model Army to control the country.[47] [48] [49]
See main article: Militia (England). After the Restoration of the Monarchy, the English Militia was re-established by the Militia Act 1661 (13 Cha. 2 St. 1. c. 6) under the control of the king's lords lieutenant, the men to be selected by ballot. This was popularly seen as the 'Constitutional Force' to counterbalance a 'Standing Army' tainted by association with the New Model Army that had supported Cromwell's military dictatorship, and almost the whole burden of home defence and internal security was entrusted to the militia.[50] [51] [52]
The North York Militia regiments of foot were now commanded as follows:[53]
The militia were frequently called out during the reign of King Charles II; for example, when a plot was discovered in the West Riding in 1663, the North Riding militia was mustered and 300 foot placed on alert to march at the slightest warning. The North Riding men were warned for duty in 1665 and again in July 1666 because of French and Dutch invasion threats. In 1666 it was announced that any additional volunteers who presented themselves would be issued with weapons from reserve stocks if there was an invasion. The Dutch did mount an attack in 1667, raiding the Medway and Suffolk coast. Viscount Fauconberg as Lord Lieutenant of the North Riding (a new position since the Restoration), had been ordered in June to call out all his horse and foot to defend the coast, and when news of the rids arrived he deployed three Troops of Militia Horse along the coast: Viscount Fauconberg's at Whitby, Sir George Savile's at Bridlington, and Sir Thomas Slingsby's at Scarborough. After six weeks' paid service the men were stood down in anticipation of the signing of the Treaty of Breda on 31 July. By the 1670s there were complaints that the North Riding militia had not met for two, three or four years at a time[58] [59]
Colonel Conyers Darcy of the Richmondshire Regiment was elevated to the House of Lords in 1680 and the following year passed the colonelcy to his son, John Darcy, who was simultaneously a Major in the Queen's Troop of Horse Guards. During the crisis of the Rye House Plot in 1683, Fauconberg's Troop was marched to the vicinity of London at Croydon and Uxbridge and was later at Putney and Wandsworth. Yorkshire was not directly involved in the Monmouth Rebellion of 1685, but after its defeat at the Battle of Sedgemoor the deputy lieutenants of the North Riding used individual militia companies to hunt for the 'principal actors' and 'suspicious persons'. Despite these exertions, two of the conspirators made their escape from Scarborough.[60] [61]
After the rebellion's defeat, King James II disregarded the militia and concentrated on expanding the Regular Army, upon which he felt he could rely, unlike the locally commanded militia.[62] The Yorkshire Militia horse and foot had been regularly mustered from 1678 until the end of 1685, but not again except in single troops and companies, and the muster rolls were out of date. With a new invasion threatened, by William of Orange, Henry Cavendish, 2nd Duke of Newcastle was appointed Lord Lieutenant of all three Ridings of Yorkshire on 5 October 1688 and he immediately formed the eight independent troops of horse militia into a single regiment under his own command. Although the militia played almost no part in the overthrow of James II in the Glorious Revolution of 1688, one of the exceptions was the Yorkshire Militia. After William's landing in the West Country on 5 November, two of his leading supporters, the Earl of Danby and Viscount Lumley seized York. They were aided by Lt-Col Sir Henry Goodricke, 2nd Baronet of the West York Militia and Col John Darcy of the Richmondshire Militia (who had earlier been conveniently 'unable to find' Lumley when ordered to detain him). The conspirators seized the main guard and gates of the city, detained the Governor, Sir John Reresby, 2nd Baronet, disarmed and turned out the old soldiers of the garrison company and installed their militia in their place. The companies of the Richmondshire Regiment took turns to guard the magazine at Scarborough. The conspirators then arranged to continue paying the militia when their 14 or 21 days' service had expired. Afterwards a company of mounted grenadiers for service in William's Irish campaign was raised by Henry Belasyse with volunteers from the North York Militia (leading to a legend that the North York Militia had served there). Equipped with militia arms and horses, the company marched out of York on 16 December 1688.[61] [63] [64]
Colonel Darcy died early in 1689 and Sir William Chaytor, 1st Baronet, became colonel of the Richmondshire Regiment. In 1689 and 1690 the militia were alerted in case of French invasion, but the situation remained quiet during the remainder of the Nine Years' War. A national muster of the militia was called in 1697. There were now eight foot regiments in Yorkshire, of which three (together with three troops of horse) were in the North Riding:[12] [65] [66]
The militia were rarely mustered thereafter. In response to the Jacobite Rising of 1715 the lieutenancies of the northern shires were ordered on 16 September to prepare their militia, which meant quickly finding new officers and men. The Lord Lieutenant of the North Riding, Robert Darcy, 3rd Earl of Holderness, commissioned Thomas Worsley as Lt-Col of the Cleveland Regiment of Militia Foot, and the parishes did their best to supply the men and equipment. Although there was a Jacobite rising in Northumberland in October, the rebels did not threaten Yorkshire, instead moving towards Lancashire where they were defeated by Regular forces at the Battle of Preston.[67] The Yorkshire Militia seems to have played no part against the Jacobite rising of 1745 – though a volunteer regiments was raised and served without pay – and fell into abeyance like the rest of the militia in England.[68]
See main article: Militia (Great Britain). Under threat of French invasion during the Seven Years' War a series of Militia Acts from 1757 re-established county militia regiments, the men being conscripted by means of parish ballots (paid substitutes were permitted) to serve for three years. There was a property qualification for officers, who were commissioned by the lord lieutenant. An adjutant and drill sergeants were to be provided to each regiment from the Regular Army, and arms and accoutrements would be supplied from the Tower of London when the county had secured 60 per cent of its quota of recruits.[69] [70] [71] [72] [73] The North Riding was given a quota of 720 men to fill.[74] [75]
There was considerable opposition to the militia ballot and militia taxation, which broke out into rioting, with mobs attempting to destroy the magistrates' and parish constables' lists. Yorkshire was particularly affected, with a major riot in the Wapentake of Bulmer on 12 September 1757. The mob terrorised the magistrates and seized the lists, then moved on to York to prevent the meeting of the lieutenants, destroying the inn where they were to meet. Afterwards George Fox-Lane, the Lord Mayor of York formed a 500-strong body of armed citizens to mount guard. A lieutenancy meeting at Thirsk on 20 September was called off and the North Riding remained disturbed for some time, particularly around Whitby.[76] [77] [78] The Lord Lieutenant of the North Riding, Robert Darcy, 4th Earl of Holderness, was in a difficult position: he had voted against the Acts, but as Secretary of State for the Northern Department he was obliged to order the lords-lieutenant in Northern England to enforce them. Accordingly, he began lieutenancy meetings in the North Riding on 5 August 1758 to put the Acts into force. His political friends in the riding readily offered to take commissions. By the following summer he had formed two battalions each of nine companies, the Richmondshire on 3 July 1759, which was immediately embodied, and the Cleveland and Bulmer Battalion followed later in the year (though it was sometimes referred to as the 1st Battalion). The commissions of the two commanding officers (COs), Col Sir Ralph Milbanke, 5th Baronet of the Richmondshire and Col Thomas Duncombe, MP, of the Cleveland & Bulmer, were dated January 1759. Duncombe was a political opponent and had come under suspicion in 1745, but Holderness's friends did not think that he could be refused a commission. Holderness had originally re-appointed his uncle Sir Conyers Darcy as colonel of the Richmondshire battalion, but although Darcy helped to organise the regiments he had first held the colonelcy 50 years before and he died in December 1758.[12] [74] [75] [79] [80] [81] [82] [83] [84] [85] [86] Many of the men enlisted were substitutes for balloted men, the officers of the company raised in Ryedale collecting subscriptions from those liable to the ballot in order to pay the bounties promised to the volunteers.[87]
The Richmondshire Battalion marched to Newcastle on 2 August, where it was later joined by the Cleveland & Bulmer. They remained in the North-East for several years, alternating quarters between Newcastle, Gateshead, Durham, Berwick and Sunderland. Rioting against the militia ballot broke out in various towns in Northumberland in February 1761. On 7 March Col Duncombe sent two companies from each battalion of the North York Militia under Maj Christopher Crowe to Hexham. Next day a crowd of several thousand gathered in the town. The magistrates read the Riot Act and instructed them to disperse, but they attacked the militia, breaking into their ranks. One of the ringleaders seized a private's musket and shot him dead, and an ensign was shot in the back by a pistol from. the crowd. The militia were then ordered to open fire, which cleared the rioters, leaving 18 dead and six seriously wounded in the market place though it was believed that nearly 50 had died, some bodies being found in the fields. the Cleveland battalion had lost one private killed, the ensign who died of his wound, and three other privates wounded; the Richmond battalion had no casualties. The North York Militia were praised for their resolute action, but gained the nickname of the 'Hexham Butchers'. One of the wounded privates was granted an Out-Pension from the Royal Hospital Chelsea, one of the first awarded to a militiaman. (The militia contributed 5 per cent of their pay towards the cost of the hospital, the same as the Regulars).[12] [75] [88] [89] [90]
The two battalions spent the summer of 1761 and 1762 in Yorkshire, being quartered at various times at Hull, Richmond, Masham, Gilling and Beverley. In September 1762 they were moved out of their billets in Richmond to accommodate the crowds for a race meeting. On 2 October the two battalions returned to Newcastle. By now the term of service of the early recruits was nearing expiry, and the lieutenancy considered ways to keep up numbers, including amalgamating the two battalions. However, peace was concluded with France on 3 November, and on 3 December the two battalions were marched back to North Yorkshire so the men could be discharged near to the parishes where they had been balloted. Thereafter the militia did 28 days' training each year.[12] [79] [84] [86]