ABSTRACT
In the first place, there ~ the problem of manpower: where did England get the men to fight her wars? As European populations went, the country ranked low: her 3,500,000 (at a rough estimate) represented perhaps a quarter of the French nation. less than half that of Spain, and stood even below the numbers of the United Provinces (the rebellious Netherlands). She had no standing army. The old feudal levy had proved its futility, though Henry VIII, for instance, still tried to fight his wars by summoning the leading nobility and gentry with their tenants and retainers. Financial difficulties as well as national considerations forbade the hiring of mercenaries, the expedient which had helped Henry VII to establish his throne. There remained volunteers, an u.acertain and fluctuating source of supply, and the county militia, reorganised by statute in Mary's last year. All Englishmen between the ages of sixteen and sixty were liable to muster once a year for a review of the forces available, a check on equipment, and training. But exceptions were readily made; those of the militia that promised best-the 'trained bands'-were kept at home to defend the realm; and the armies overseas could be recruited only from the untrained men. In strict law the militia could not be compelled to serve overseas, though the government solved the legal problem by ignoring it and came down heavily on murmurings ill the 1590S when the burden of the war began to tell. When men were needed, the usual practice was to send special commissioners to the shire musters to take what they required; these might be experienced officers like Sir John Norris who went recruiting in 1589, or more commonly the lords lieutenants of the counties. Thus in driblets reckoned by hundreds the total force was gradually assembled at the ports of embarkation. The numbers available were not large: in 1591 it was calculated that the whole amounted to some 104,000 men of whom only 42,000 were both trained and equipped -and these, of course, had to await the Spaniard at home. Yet out of such unpromising circumstances the government produced, according to the best estimates, some 20,000 men for France (of whom barely half returned), rather more than that for the Netherlands, perhaps 25,000 for Ireland, and new levies for the three great naval expeditions of 1589, 1596, and 1597 to a total of 17,000.
