WILLIAM AND MAItY.

43

the soldier and the citizen. Under the Plantagenets and theTudors there had been no standing army. The standing army •which had existed under the last kings of the House of Stuarthad been regarded by every party in the state with strong andnot unreasonable aversion. The common law gave the Sovereignno power to control his troops. The Parliament, regardingthem as mere tools of tyranny, had not been disposed to givesuch power by statute. James indeed had induced his corruptand servile judges to put on some obsolete laws a constructionwhich enabled him to punish desertion capitally. But this con-struction was considered by all respectable jurists as unsound,and, had it been sound, would have been far from effectingall that was necessary for the purpose of maintaining militarydiscipline. Even James did not venture to inflict death bysentence of a court martial. The deserter was treated as anordinary felon, was tried at the assizes by a petty juryon a bill found by a grand jury, and was at liberty to availhimself of any technical flaw which might be discovered in theindictment.

The Revolution, by altering the relative position of the princeand the parliament, had altered also the relative position of thearmy and the nation. The King and the Commons were now atunity; and both were alike menaced by the greatest militarypower which had existed in Europe since the downfall ofthe Roman empire. In a few weeks thirty thousand veterans,accustomed to conquer, and led by able and experiencedcaptains, might cross from the ports of Normandy and Britannyto our shores. That such a force would with little difficultyscatterthree times that number of militia, no man well acquaintedwith war could doubt. There must then be regular soldiers; and,if there were to be regular soldiers, it must be indispensable,both to their efficiency, and to the security of every other class,that they should be kept under a strict discipline. An ill dis-

CHAP

XI.

1GS9.