The TRAINED BAND Regiments, as opposed to the auxiliaries, were composed of substantial Citizens obliged, by Statute, to provide equipment for the defence of the Realm- Armour for pikemen, Muskets for musketeers, The Auxiliaries, on the other hand, were recruited from the sons, servants and apprentices of the Citizens, at least part of their equipment being obtained for them by the Common Council of the City. There are several contemporary references to the London soldier wearing 'Buff' coats and it is possible that in the Auxiliary Regiments pikemen wore these rather than armour. It is also possible that, having to provide their own equipment and being rich enough to not have to scrimp, the musketeers of the Trained Bands also wore a 'Buff' coat. This distinction between Trained Band and Auxiliary soldier became a little blurred on campaign as it was an accepted practice in the former regiments for a man to provide a substitute to serve in his stead if age, infirmity or business prevented him from serving himself. However, the substitute would carry the equipment of the man he replaced, thus maintaining the standard of the Trained Band regiment.

The officers of both the Trained Band and Auxiliary regiments were usually members of the HONOURABLE ARTILLERY COMPANY. This was a voluntary society of London Citizens who practised military exercises and whose earliest records date back to the reign of Henry VIII. The members of the Honourable Artillery Company took their training very seriously and, though official musters were few and far between, they inspired some of the Trained Band Companies to drill voluntarily once a week. It is also well recorded that some officers in the Trained Bands also held higher ranks in the Auxiliaries.

The members of each company would be recruited from the same part of the City, and it appears that membership combined social importance with a military obligation. Outsiders mocked the amateur soldiers of the City but as the Earl of Clarendon admits in his HISTORY..., this changed to reluctant admiration when the best of the Kings' Horse failed to break the London Regiments at the hard-fought First Battle of Newbury. The passage reads-

"The London Trained Bands and Auxiliary Regiments (of whose inexperience of danger or any kind of service beyond the easy practice of their postures in the artillery Garden, men had till then too cheap an estimation) behaved themselves to wonder; and were, in truth, the preservation of that arms that day."

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