The English Army existed while England was an independent state and was at war with other states, but it was not until the Interregnum and the New Model Army that England acquired a peacetime professional standing army. At the Restoration of the monarchy, Charles II kept a small standing army, formed from elements of the Royalist army in exile and elements of the New Model Army, from which the most senior regular regiments of today's British Army can trace their antecedence. Likewise, Royal Marines can trace their origins back to the formation of the English Army's "Duke of York and Albany's maritime regiment of Foot" at the grounds of the Honourable Artillery Company on 28 October 1664.
Henry VIII of England on Horseback by Hans Liefrinck (between 1561 and 1599.)
Edward III Crossing the Somme by Benjamin West (1788). English armies campaigned intermittently in France from the 14th century to the mid-16th century.
Thomas Fairfax (commander of the New Model Army) by Robert Walker and studio.
A 1656 Samuel Cooper portrait of Oliver, Lord Protector.
The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Naval Service and the Royal Air Force. As of 1 January 2024, the British Army comprises 75,166 regular full-time personnel, 4,062 Gurkhas, 26,244 volunteer reserve personnel and 4,557 "other personnel", for a total of 110,029.
Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell
Lord General Thomas Fairfax, the first commander of the New Model Army
John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, was one of the first generals in the new British Army and fought in the War of the Spanish Succession. He was a noted ancestor of Sir Winston S. Churchill, later famous Prime Minister during World War II.
In the 1879 Battle of Rorke's Drift, a small British force repelled an attack by overwhelming Zulu forces; eleven Victoria Crosses were awarded for its defence.
