Introduction

By the eighteenth century, the idea of a “standing army” had long been anathema to both the elite and common people of England. The shadow of the English Civil War remained in the reign of William III. Though in peacetime, soldiers ostensibly fell under parliamentary control, many worried that the king could use a standing army to further his interests against his own people. The Jacobites, a political group seeking the restoration of the Catholic Stuart line, had a strong base in Scotland from which to launch a rebellion (they were eventually to do so, twice: in 1715 and 1745). William, concerned about this threat, and that of Louis XIV in general, opposed reducing the forces at the conclusion of the Nine Years War in 1697. His fears were ignored. Ironically, however, parliament was unable to offer sufficient funds to discharge every soldier, so the army remained at a strength of 16,000 despite the House of Commons’ desire to reduce it to 8,000. In 1699, the House passed a Disbanding Bill to which the king reluctantly assented. ¹ By 1702 however, the new Queen Anne had declared war on France as part of the Grand Alliance and attention shifted back to mobilisation for the War of Spanish Succession.