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Notes -
Not just in the Middle Ages. The New Model Army (i.e. Cromwell's army in and after the English Civil War) was mostly recruited from the towns loyal to Parliament.
True! Though I'd say by that time the dynamic had changed with growing urban populations, greater peacetime safety for trade, and the advent of firearms (something I forgot to mention in my first post is that of course Medieval city-states were at near-constant low-level war with each other, and of course that was long over by the 1600s). The town-dwellers were no longer rough-and-ready armed merchants, and likely "softer" in daily life, but instead good raw material for the sort of training and drill that made gunpowder armies effective.
Not to mention the fact that England was not Italy. England was an absolute bitch to invade after the Royal Navy got going, so they essentially never faced direct attack. As a result there were relatively few fortifications and standing armies compared to Italy, which was invaded pretty much nonstop by the French, the Germans, the Spanish, and other Italians. I would bet that the merchants of Italy were a lot 'harder' than those of England.
Iirc England actually didn't have that many long-distance trading companies of their own, though they certainly had some. International trade was mostly conducted by the Dutch/Flemings and the Hansards, who were both tough merchant-pirates. What England really had going for them was that they were a much more organized state (by very relative standards), so they could hand off the tough work to foreigners and mostly expect safe trade within the isle, as you mention. But again one has to distinguish between 13th Century England/Italy and 16th Century England/Italy.
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