The Revolution, as it was called, was more than a mere change of sovereigns. It finally transferred the ultimate decision in the state from the king to parliament. What parliament had been in the 15th century with the House of Lords predominating, that parliament was to be again in the end of the 17th century with the House of Commons predominating. That House of Commons was far from resting on a wide basis of popular suffrage. The county voters were the freeholders; but in the towns, with some important exceptions, the electors were the richer inhabitants who formed the corporations of the boroughs, or a body of select householders more or less under the control of some neighbouring landowner. A House so chosen was an aristocratic body, but it was aristocratic in a far wider sense than the House of Lords was aristocratic. The trading and legal classes found their representation there by the side of the great owners of land. The House drew its strength from its position as a true representative of the effective strength of the nation in its social and economical organization. Such was the body which firmly grasped the control over every branch of the administration. Limiting in the Bill of Rights the powers assumed by the crown, the Commons declared that the king could not keep a standing army in time of peace without consent of parliament; and they made that consent effectual, as far as legislation could go, by passing a Mutiny Act year by year for twelve months only, so as to prevent the crown from exercising military discipline without their authority. Behind these legal contrivances stood the fact that the army was organized in the same way as the nation was organized, being officered by gentlemen who had no desire to overthrow a constitution through which the class from which they sprung controlled the government. Strengthened by the cessation of any fear of military violence, the Commons placed the crown in financial dependence on themselves by granting a large part of the revenue only for a limited term of years, and by putting strictly in force their right of appropriating that revenue to special branches of expenditure. Causes in favour of liberty. The Toleration Act.