Once more we return to England and take up the thread of the army's history within the kingdom. Of the reign¹ of James the First there is little to be recorded except that at its very outset the Statute² of Philip and Mary for the regulation of the Militia³ was repealed⁴, and the military organisation⁵ of the country based once more on the Statute of Winchester. James was not fond of soldiers, and military progress was not to be expected of such a man. Enough has already been seen of his methods through his dealings with the Low Countries, and there is no occasion to dwell longer on the first British king of the House of Stuart.
1625.

Charles the First was more ambitious, and sufficiently⁶ proud of the English soldier to preserve the ancient English drum-march.[154] Soon after the final breach⁷ with Spain he imbibed⁸ from Buckingham the idea of a raid on the Spanish coast after the Elizabethan model, which eventually took shape in the expedition to Cadiz. Of all the countless⁹ mismanaged enterprises in our history this seems on the whole to have been the very worst. There was abundance of trained soldiers in England who had learned their duty in the Low Countries; and Edward Cecil, he whom we saw some few years back in command of the cavalry¹⁰ at Nieuport, begged that liberal offers might be made to induce them to serve. Officers again could be procured¹¹ from the Low Countries, and therefore there should have been no difficulty in organising an excellent body of men. In[192] the matter of arms, however, though English

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