During the Middle Ages the feudal system was in force, _i.e._, the retainers, tenants, and vassals of every knight were required to attend their master if he went to fight abroad. The knights in their turn were bound to attend the king when _he_ went to fight abroad, and thus a very respectable army was formed for the time being. This army, _i.e._, the knights and their followers, was called the Feudal Levy. Towards the end of the sixteenth century, members of the General Levy were told off for the service and defence of the Crown. They were trained and exercised in the profession of arms, and received the name of Trained Bands. The Honourable Artillery Company, a similar force, was raised about this time. The Sovereign could, if necessary, hire additional mercenary soldiers to assist him in war, and these were paid by Parliament. The Civil War, however, in Charles I.’s reign, upset the general military system, and for some time there was no National Army. On the Restoration, in 1660, considerable changes and improvements took place. The Feudal Levy was abolished, the General Levy became the Militia, and the foundations were laid of the present Standing Army. It may be news to some people that the “raising or keeping a standing army within the kingdom in time of peace is against law,” but such is the fact. Parliament has every year to specially notify its consent to a standing army; otherwise the Army would cease to exist. Since Charles II.’s time, the Standing Army has gradually been increasing and improving. Voluntary enlistment dates from his reign, but it apparently has not always been sufficiently productive of men, for we find in the last century that debtors and criminals were obliged to serve in the ranks, in order to keep the Army up to strength. The pressgang was also in force till 1780. It is hardly astonishing then that some, nay, a great many, ill-educated people have been taught, by means of traditions handed down from their great-grandfathers, to look upon the Army as a sink of iniquity, and that they still hold extraordinary and utterly unreasonable views on the subject. They need be under no apprehension about letting their sons and relations enlist. The Army is now composed of a very good class of men, drawn chiefly from the labouring and _not_ from the criminal classes (as some people seem to imagine). The proportion of educated recruits is rapidly increasing, a better class of men is now enlisting, and the military crime of to-day is absurdly small as compared with that of twenty years ago, and is still decreasing. [Sidenote: +Organisation.+] The Active Army is divided into— 1. The Regular Army; 2. The Native Indian Army; and 3. The Colonial Forces.