‘Or else I could not have gott of’: Recruitment for Service in the First Scots’ War in Lincolnshire

Abstract

In response to the Prayer Book rebellion, Charles I decided to march against Scotland with an English army mainly composed of county levies. As the county militias rested only on the royal prerogative, conscripted soldiers of their trained bands were permitted to provide substitutes. An unexplored bundle of military papers in the Bodleian Library documents the circumstances of the recruitment during the First Scots’ War for a part of Lincolnshire. The deputy lieutenants’ investigation into the recruitment shows a variety of ways in which conscripts effected their exemption from military service. They are evidence that the vast majority of soldiers declined to join the expeditionary force and paid significant bribes to the recruiting officers to avoid conscription. This suggests that the substantial men who normally served in the trained bands of their county dodged war service at all costs, and casts doubt on the popularity of Charles I’s decision in Lincolnshire — and possibly the entire country — to go to war. It also raises the question whether men who complained about the financial burden of Ship Money, but were willing to spend a fortune to be exempted from being drafted, objected to this levy on political and not financial grounds.