I found the term “Yeoman” from page 33 in chapter two
interesting. I’d never heard the word before, and was curious to find out more
about people considered to be Yeoman. I found an article that discusses the
role of yeomen at home in Great Britain. The article sums up the Yeomen as
groups of part-time volunteer soldiers, similar to the concept of a militia.
The Yeomen originally came together in 1794 for two reasons: fear of French
invasion and as a response to the agitation brought about by Thomas Paine’s The Rights of Man (1791). The units of Yeomen
typically were made up of about 40 men and were often formed within a group of
foxhunters to encourage the camaraderie from the hunting field to translate to
the battlefield. The Yeomen were were required to provide their own uniforms
and horses, which indicates they held at the very least a stable economic
standing. The Yeomen were paid a daily
rate anywhere from 1 euro for senior officers to 7 shillings for troopers.
The Yeomen weren’t trusted by many of the British people.
They preferred the “regulars”, which included the British army and other more
skilled militias. Thus, in response to the unrest regarding the Yeomen, they
were sent overseas to keep the colonies in order.
The Yeomanry-
For me, yeomen is one of those words where I would stubble upon it reading or somewhere in a paper but skim right through it. I found your blog helpful that you brought up this term and explain what it meant. It is interesting to find that yeomen were dated back to 1794 and the reasons on how they formed. Also, the link to ebsco was packed full of information and facts; very helpful!
ReplyDeleteThe word yeomen is one I've heard but I never actually knew what it was. I never did any research on it because I didn't think it would interest me, but now that I have read your blog its given me a great deal of insight on the word and I'm astonished by some of the things that i found out.
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