DORSET SOLDIERS. 49 



Rogers (I suppose the eldest son of Sir Richard Rogers, of 

 Bryanston), and Dorset then had also the honour of supply- 

 ing 120 demi-lances for the personal guard of the Queen. 

 In 1595 no less than 3,000 of the Dorset trained bands were 

 appointed for the defence of Devon, and Sir Ferdinando 

 Gorges was put in command of them. There were some 

 murmurings in the county when the thousand men went to 

 London, but there was almost an outcry at the prospect of 

 three thousand going to Devonshire, the Sheriff and Deputy 

 Lieutenants asserting that they had in the whole county, 

 including the islands and marine towns, but 2,500 men armed 

 with muskets or callivers, and any additional force could only 

 be provided with bows, bills, or pikes " wch. were dangerous 

 to the Countrey." They further declared that at Weymouth, 

 which was most open to the Spaniards, most of the townsmen 

 had carried away their goods, and that women and children 

 had abandoned the place. 



Another forty or fifty years passes and we find ourselves 

 faced with a disagreeable episode in the history of the Dorset 

 trained bands, nothing less than a serious mutiny. In 

 1640 the Scotch Covenanters were threatening the north 

 of England ; and the English army to meet them was to 

 include 600 soldiers pressed from the Dorset trained bands. 

 On their assembly at Shaftesbury the men were already in a 

 state of discontent, said they had never known the train 

 march out of the county, and refused their press money. No 

 doubt they not only disliked being sent away from home, 

 but distrusted the political purpose of their mission. It 

 was at Farringdon in Berkshire, on their way to the Scotch 

 border, that an outrage committed by one of the lieutenants 

 named William Moone or Mohun caused the outbreak. The 

 drummer of Moone 's company had disobeyed the lieutenant's 

 order and struck him with his drumstick, whereupon Moone 

 cut off the drummer's hand and killed a soldier. The tale 

 of how a considerable number of the soldiers murdered 

 Moone is full of rather gruesome details which need not be 

 repeated here. The other officers, who, so far as their names 



