286

HISTOBT OF ENGLAND.

CHAP.

III.

•with mirrors and paintings. * On the capes of the sea coast,and on many inland hills, were still seen tall posts, surmountedby barrels. Once those barrels had been filled with pitch.Watchmen had been set round them in seasons of danger;and, within a few hours after a Spanish sail had been dis-covered in the Channel, or after a thousand Scottish moss-troopers had crossed the Tweed, the signal fires were blazingfifty miles off, and whole counties were rising in arms. Butmany years had now elapsed since the beacons had beenlighted; and they were regarded rather as curious relics ofancient manners than as parts of a machinery necessary to thesafety of the state.**

The only army which the law recognised was the militia.That force had been remodelled by two Acts of Parliamentpassed shortly after the Restoration. Every man who pos-sessed five hundred pounds a year derived from land, or sixthousand pounds of personal estate, was bound to provide,equip, and pay, at his own charge, one horseman. Every manwho had fifty pounds a year derived from land, or six hundredpounds of personal estate, was charged in like manner with onepikemanor musketeer. Smaller proprietors were joined to-gether in a kind of society, for which our language does notafford a special name, but which an Athenian would havecalled a Synteleia; and each society was required to furnish,according to its means, a horse soldier or a foot soldier. Thewhole number of cavalry and infantry thus maintained was po-pularly estimated at a hundred and thirty thousand men. ***

The King was, by the ancient constitution of the realm,and by the recent and solemn acknowledgment of bothHouses of Parliament, the sole Captain General of this large

* See for example the picture of the mound at Marlborough, inStukeley’s ltinerarium Curiosum.

** Chamberlayne’s State of England, 1684.

*** 13 cSi 14 Car. II. c. 3.; 15 Car. II. c. 4. Chamberlayne’s State ofEngland, 1684.