Yet another theory is that the role of a standing army was not assumed, or was not mostly assumed, by the royal housecarls; but that the housecarls were a smaller body of household troops, partly stationed at the king's court. During the reign of Edward the Confessor, a number of sailors and soldiers, the "lithsmen", were paid wages and possibly based in London; those "lithsmen" were, according to some, the main standing armed force, while the housecarls were only acting as a secondary one.