their views, there can be little room to doubt that they would have adhered to the side of Cromwell and St. John, in the great separation of the parliamentary party. The noble historian confesses that not Hampden alone, but the generality of those who were beginning to judge more favourably of the king, had their inclinations alienated by this fatal act of violence.[211] It is worthy of remark that each of the two most striking encroachments on the king's prerogative sprung directly from the suspicions roused of an intention to destroy their privileges: the bill perpetuating the parliament having been hastily passed on the discovery of Percy's and Jermyn's conspiracy, and the present attempt on the five members inducing the Commons to insist peremptorily on vesting the command of the militia in persons of their own nomination; a security, indeed, at which they had been less openly aiming from the time of that conspiracy, and particularly of late.[212] Every one knows that this was the grand question upon which the quarrel finally rested; but it may be satisfactory to show more precisely than our historians have generally done, what was meant by the power of the militia, and what was the exact ground of dispute in this respect between Charles I. and his parliament. _Historical sketch of the military force in England._--The military force which our ancient constitution had placed in the hands of its chief magistrate and those deriving authority from him, may be classed under two descriptions; one principally designed to maintain the king's and the nation's rights abroad, the other to protect them at home from attack or disturbance. The first comprehends the tenures by knight's service, which, according to the constant principles of a feudal monarchy, bound the owners of lands thus held from the Crown, to attend the king in war, within or without the realm, mounted and armed, during the regular term of service. Their own vassals were obliged by the same law to accompany them. But the feudal service was limited to forty days, beyond which time they could be retained only by their own consent, and at the king's expense. The military tenants were frequently called upon in expeditions against Scotland, and last of all in that of 1640; but the short duration of their legal service rendered it of course nearly useless in continental warfare. Even when they formed the battle, or line of heavy armed cavalry, it was necessary to complete the army by recruits of foot-soldiers, whom feudal tenure did not regularly supply, and whose importance was soon made sensible by their skill in our national weapon, the bow. What was the extent of the king's lawful prerogative for two centuries or more after the conquest as to compelling any of his subjects to serve him in foreign war, independently of the obligations of tenure, is a question scarcely to be answered; since, knowing so imperfectly the boundaries of constitutional law in that period, we have little to