ABSTRACT
The summer and early autumn of 1642 witnessed intensive efforts to raise the forces to wage war. Each side deployed quasi-legal instruments, and each tried to thwart the recruitment campaign of the other. The king resorted to a medieval instrument, the feudal Commission of Array. Inscribed in Latin on a parchment roll, and stamped with the Great Seal, it empowered the leading men of each county or city to take charge and arm their locality for the king. The king did not just rely on Commissions of Array; he issued proclamations 'requiring the aid and assistance of all his subjects'; and he handed out commissions to individual colonels. Lord Paget was typical. Like most aristocrats he reached into his own pocket for the money to finance his regiment, and found some of his recruits among his own tenants. The Irish were most dependent on foreign suppliers, the Scots somewhat less, followed by the English royalists and parliamentarians in that order.
