The Royal Sussex Light Infantry Militia, later the 3rd Battalion, Royal Sussex Regiment, was an auxiliary regiment raised in Sussex on the South Coast of England. From its formal creation in 1778 the regiment served in home defence in all of Britain's major wars. It saw active service during the Second Boer War, and trained thousands of reinforcements during World War I. After a shadowy postwar existence it was formally disbanded in 1953 Background The universal obligation to military service in the Shire levy was long established in England and its legal basis was updated by two Acts of 1557, which placed selected men, the 'Trained Bands', under the command of Lords Lieutenant appointed by the monarch. This is seen as the starting date for the organised county militia in England. The Sussex Trained Bands were on coast defence duties during the Armada campaign of 1588, and some elements saw active service during the English Civil War, at the sieges of Chichester and Arundel Castle and at the Battle of Muster Green. The Militia was re-established in 1661 after the restoration of the monarchy, and was popularly seen as the 'Constitutional Force' in contrast to the 'Standing Army' that was tainted by association with the New Model Army that had supported the military dictatorship of the Protectorate. It was called out during the Duke of Monmouth's Rebellion – it was a Sussex Militia patrol that captured the defeated duke – and consisted of two regiments of foot and two troops of horse in 1697, but the militia declined in the years after the Peace of Utrecht in 1713. Royal Sussex Light Infantry Militia Under threat of French invasion during the Seven Years' War a series of Militia Acts from 1757 re-established county militia regiments, the men being conscripted by means of parish ballots (paid substitutes were permitted) to serve for three years. There was a property qualification for officers, who were commissioned by the lord lieutenant. Sussex was given a quota of 800 men to raise, but failed to do so – possibly because the Leader of the Opposition, the Duke of Newcastle, and his Pelham family members were powerful in the county. A patriotic ballad of the time declared: All over the land they'll find such a stand, From our English Militia Men ready at hand, Though in Sussex and Middlesex folks are but fiddlesticks, While an old fiddlestick