ABSTRACT
The militia was raised in the first instance 'to keep the county quiet' or if it must engage the enemy, 'to do so by securing passes, by harassing the Rebels in small parties'. Traditionally the eighteenth-century militia has been dismissed, too, with remarks such as 'Until 1757 it remained a decayed and little used force' or being deemed 'a gravely neglected and most useless force'. When the Jacobite army came into view, according to Patten, 'they broke up their camp in the utmost Confusion, shifting every one for themselves as well as they could, as is generally the Case of an arm'd, but undisciplin'd Multitude'. Sir George Warrender wrote that regular troops were needed to act alongside the militia. The volunteer forces in Yorkshire and Lancashire in 1745 were spread throughout the county, as were the Cumberland and Westmorland companies in 1715, presumably as a method of emphasizing that the Crown was still in control.
