JAMES THE SECOND.

99

many persons of quality sate the whole day in their carriages C >J^-waiting for the exhibition. At length, late in the afternoon, 1667 .‘ ■the Knight Marshal’s men appeared on horseback. Thencame a long train of running footmen; and then, in a royalcoach, appeared Adda, robed in purple, with a brilliantcross on his breast. He was followed by the equipages of theprincipal courtiers and ministers of state. In his train thecrowd recognised with disgust the arms and liveries of Crewe,

Bishop of Durham, and of Cartwright, Bishop of Chester.*

On the following day appeared in the Gazette a pro- 'clamation dissolving that Parliament which of all the fifteen the Par-Parliaments held by the Stuarts had been the most ob- hamont •sequious.**

Meanwhile new difficulties had arisen in Westminster Hall.

Only a few months had elapsed since some Judges had beenturned out and others put in for the purpose of obtaining adecision favourable to the crown in the case of Sir EdwardHales; and already fresh changes were necessary.

The King had scarcely formed that army on which he Militarychiefly depended for the accomplishing of his designs when he illegallyfound that he could not himself control it. When war was P ,mishl ' <1 -actually raging in the kingdom a mutineer or a deserter mightbe tried by a military tribunal and executed by the ProvostMarshal. But there was now profound peace. The commonlaw of England, having sprung up in an age when all men borearms occasionally and none constantly, recognised no distinc-tion, in time of peace, between a soldier and any other sub-ject; nor was there any Act resembling that by which theauthority necessary for the government of regular troops isnow annually confided to the Sovereign. Some old statutesindeed made desertion felony in certain specified cases. Butthose statutes were applicable only to soldiers serving theKing in actual war, and could not without the grossest dis-ingenuousness be so strained as to include the case of a manwho, in a time of profound tranquillity at home and abroad,

’ London Gazelle, July 1. 1687; Cillers, July T V Account of theceremony reprinted among the Somers Tracts.

** London Gazette, July 4.1087.

7