e 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, conscientious, and very expensive
force. Then, in 1660, came the Restoration, and with it the disbanding
of the New Model and the re-establishment of the militia. The country
went wild with joy at the recovery of its freedom.

Charles II, however, was bent on securing for his own despotic purposes
a standing army. Hence he obtained permission from Parliament to have a
permanent bodyguard, and he gradually increased its numbers until he had
some 6,000 troops regularly under his command. James II increased them
to 15,000, and by their means tried to overthrow the religion and the
liberties of the nation. He was defeated and driven out; but his effort
to establish a military despotism made the name of "standing army" stink
in the nostrils of the nation. "It is indeed impossible," said one of
the leading statesmen of the early eighteenth century, "that the
liberties of the people can be preserved in any country where a numerous
standing army is kept up."[19] The national militia continued, as of
old, to stand for freedom and self-government. The voluntarily enlisted
standing army was regarded as the engine and emblem of tyranny.

FOOTNOTES:

[16] 4-5 P. and M., c. 2.

[17] Harrison, W. _Elizabethan England_, chap. xxii.

[18] 1 Jac. I, c. 25.

[19] Speech by Pulteney, A.D. 1732: See _Parl. Hist._, vol. viii, p.
904.

V. THE LAST TWO CENTURIES

The eighteenth century saw a constant struggle on the part of
constitutionalists to get rid of the standing army altogether. Army
Acts, which recognized and regulated the new force, were limited in
their operation to a year at a time, and were passed under incessant
protest. Grants to maintain the army were similarly restricted.