[darkness. It must be acknowledged that, by the Petition of Right, enacted to abolish these encroachments, the English constitution received great alteration and improvement. But there still remained the latent power of the forest laws, which the Crown most unseasonably revived. The legal jurisdiction of the Star Chamber and High Commission Courts, was also extremely great; though their usurped authority was still greater. And, if we add to these, the disuse of parliaments, the ill-timed zeal and despotic proceedings of the ecclesiastical governors, in matters of mere indifference, together with the arbitrary levies of tonnage and poundage, ship-money, and other projects, we may see grounds most amply sufficient for seeking redress in a legal constitutional way. This redress, when sought, was also constitutionally given; for all these oppressions were actually abolished by the king in parliament, before the rebellion broke out, by the several statutes for triennial parliaments, for abolishing the Star Chamber and High Commission Courts, for ascertaining the extent of forests and forest laws, for renouncing ship-money and other exactions, and for giving up the prerogative of knighting the king's tenants in capite in consequence of their feudal tenures: though it must be acknowledged that these concessions were not made with so good a grace as to conciliate the confidence of the people. Unfortunately, either by his own mismanagement, or by the arts of his enemies, the king had lost the reputation of sincerity; which is the greatest unhappiness that can befall a prince. Though he formerly had strained his prerogative not only beyond what the genius of the present times would bear, but also beyond the examples of former ages, he had now consented to reduce it to a lower ebb than was consistent with monarchical government. A conduct so opposite to his temper and principles, joined with some rash actions and unguarded expressions, made the people suspect that this condescen

[sion was merely temporary. Flushed, therefore, with the success they had gained, fired with resentment for past oppressions, and dreading the consequences if the king should regain his power, the popular leaders, who in all ages have called themselves the people, began to grow insolent and ungovernable; their insolence soon rendered them desperate; and despair at length forced them to join with a set of military hypocrites and enthusiasts, who overturned the Church and monarchy, and proceeded, with deliberate solemnity, to the trial and murder of their sovereign.

We pass by the crude and abortive schemes for amending the laws, in the times of confusion which followed: the most promising and sensible whereof, such as the establishment of new trials, the abolition of feudal tenures, the Act of navigation, and some others, were adopted in the

V. Fifth period, which is to be next mentioned, viz. after the restoration of King Charles the second. Immediately upon which, the principal remaining grievance, the doctrine and consequences of military tenures, was taken away and abolished, except in the instance of corruption of inheritable blood, upon attainder of treason and felony. And though the monarch in whose person the royal government was restored, and with it our antient constitution, deserves no commendation from posterity, yet in his reign, wicked, sanguinary, and turbulent, as it was, the concurrence of happy circumstances was such, that from thence we may date not only the re-establishment of our Church and monarchy, but also the complete restitution of English liberty, for the first time since its total abolition at the Conquest. For therein not only these slavish tenures, the badge of foreign dominion, with all their oppressive appendages, were removed from incumbering the estates of the subject; but also an addi

[tional security of his person from imprisonment was obtained, by that great bulwark of our constitution, the Habeas Corpus Act. These two statutes, with regard to our property and persons, form a second Magna Charta, as beneficial and effectual as that of Running-Mead. That only pruned the luxuriances of the feudal system; but the statute of Charles the second extirpated all its slaveries,― except perhaps in copyhold tenure; and there also they are now in great measure enervated by gradual custom, and the interposition of our courts of justice,] and under recent enactments seem to be approaching a final extinction. [Magna Charta only, in general terms, declared, that no man shall be imprisoned contrary to law: the Habeas Corpus Act points him out effectual means, as well to release himself, (though committed even by the king in council,) as to punish all those who shall thus unconstitutionally misuse him.

To this may be added the abolition of the prerogatives of purveyance and pre-emption; the statute for holding triennial parliaments; the Test and Corporation Acts, passed to secure both our civil and religious liberties,] though the sacramental test required by them was afterwards abolished, as no longer suited to the state of the times in which we live (q); [the abolition of the writ de hæretico comburendo; the statute of frauds and perjuries, a great and necessary security to private property; the statute for distribution of intestates' estates; and that of amendments and jeofails, which cut off] many of [those superfluous niceties which so long had disgraced our courts; together with many wholesome Acts that were passed in this reign, for the benefit of navigation and the improvement of foreign commerce: and the whole, when we likewise consider the freedom from taxes and armies which the subject then enjoyed, will be sufficient to demonstrate this truth, "that the constitution of England had arrived

(4) By 9 Geo. 4, c. 17.

["to its full vigour, and the true balance between liberty "and prerogative was happily established by law, in the "reign of Charles the second."

It is by no means intended to palliate or defend many very iniquitous proceedings, contrary to all law, in that reign, through the artifice of wicked politicians, both in and out of employment. What seems incontestable is this, that by the law (r), as it then stood, notwithstanding some invidious, nay dangerous, branches of the prerogative, have since been lopped off, and the rest more clearly defined, the people had] a larger portion of real liberty than they had enjoyed in this country since the Norman conquest (s); [and sufficient power residing in their own hands, to assert and preserve that liberty, if invaded by the royal prerogative; for which we need but appeal to the memorable catastrophe of the next reign. For when King Charles's deluded brother attempted to enslave the nation. he found it was beyond his power: the people both could and did resist him; and, in consequence of such resistance, obliged him to quit his enterprise and his throne together:] which introduces us to the next period of our legal history, viz.—

VI. From the revolution in 1688, to the time of the publication of Blackstone's Commentaries. In this period many laws were passed; [as the Bill of Rights, the Toleration Act, the Act of Settlement with its conditions, the Act for uniting England with Scotland, and some others,

(r) Blackstone here subjoins in a note, "The point of time at which I "would choose to fix this theoretical "perfection of our public law, is "the year 1679, after the Habeas "Corpus Act was passed, and that "for licensing the press had ex"pired; though the years which im"mediately followed it, were times

"of great practical oppression."

(s) Blackstone's expression in this place is," as large a portion of "real liberty as is consistent with a "state of society." But the truth of the proposition, carried to this extent, may be doubted; particularly if it be intended to include religious liberty.

[which asserted our liberties in more clear and emphatical terms; regulated the succession of the Crown by Parliament, as the exigencies of religious and civil freedom' required; confirmed and exemplified the doctrine of resistance, when the executive magistrate endeavours to subvert the constitution; maintained the superiority of the laws above the king, by pronouncing his dispensing power to be illegal;] indulged tender consciences in several points relating to religion (t); [established triennial, since turned into septennial, elections of members to serve in parliament; excluded certain officers from the house of commons; restrained the king's pardon from obstructing parliamentary impeachments; imparted to all the lords an equal right of trying their fellow peers; regulated trials for high treason; set bounds to the civil list; placed the administration of that revenue in hands that are accountable to parliament; and made the judges completely independent of the sovereign, his ministers, and his successors. Yet, though these provisions, in appearance and nominally, reduced the strength of the executive power to a much lower ebb than in the preceding period, if, on the other hand, we throw into the opposite scale, (what perhaps the immoderate reduction of the antient prerogative may have rendered in some degree necessary,) the vast acquisition of force arising from the Riot Act, and the annual expedience of a standing army, and the vast acquisition of personal attachment arising from the magnitude of the national debt, and the manner of levying those yearly millions that are appropriated to pay the interest, we shall find that the Crown, gradually and imperceptibly, gained almost as much in influence, as it apparently lost in prerogative.