British Armed Forces (Cromwell the Great)

"that we were not a mere mercenary army, hired to serve any arbitrary power of a state, but called forth and conjured by the several declarations of parliament to the defence or our own and the people’s just rights and liberties (From The Representation of the Army, 1647)"

The armed forces of the Commonwealth are the British Army and Navy (Commonwealth Army and Navy until the early 1660s), being the former the regularly trained standing army and the latter the permanent and standing naval warfare force and maritime service of the Commonwealth. Both services integrate the armed forces and ships and have joint commands in England, Scotland and Ireland. The local county militias (shire militias in Scotland) also come under its administration of the British Army by having a common training and command regulations and rules. The militias also provide the main recruitment system of the Army.

The Commander-in-Chief of the Forces is the Lord Protector, to whom members of the forces swear an oath of allegiance. The Army and Navy are managed by a series of committees of Council of State being the main ones the Army Council and Admiralty Committee. The Commonwealth Parliament yearly establishes its number and personal within the limits of the Constitutional framework or increases it in case of war