The ‘first official’ unit of English Naval Infantry, originally called the Duke of York and Albany’s Maritime Regiment of Foot and soon becoming known as the Admiral’s Regiment, was formed on Tuesday, 28 October 1664, with an initial strength of 1,200 infantrymen recruited from the Trained Bands of London as part of the mobilisation for the Second Anglo-Dutch War. James (later King James VII & II), the Duke of York and Albany, Lord High Admiral and brother of King Charles II, was Captain-General of the Company of the Artillery Garden, now the Honourable Artillery Company, the unit that trained the Trained Bands.
