The first party which appeared--that under whose banner all the others at first ranged themselves--was the party aiming at legal reform. When the English revolution commenced, when the Long Parliament assembled in 1640, everyone said, and many sincerely believed, that a legal reform would meet all difficulties, and that there was sufficient in the ancient laws and usages of the country to afford a remedy for all abuses, and to establish a system of government in perfect conformity with the public desire. This party loudly blamed, and was sincerely anxious to prevent illegal taxation, arbitrary imprisonments, and all acts, in fact, condemned by the recognised laws of the land. At the base of its ideas was the belief in the sovereignty of the king--that is to say, in absolute power. A secret instinct forewarned it that there was in that dogma something false and dangerous, so it would willingly have avoided allusion to it; but urged to extremity, and forced to explain itself, it admitted that there resided in royalty a power superior to all human origin and all control, and defended it when needful. It held, at the same time, that this sovereignty, absolute in principle, was bound to respect in its exercise certain rules and forms, and that there were certain limits beyond which it could not go; and furthermore, that these rules, forms, and limits were sufficiently established and guaranteed in _Magna Charta_, in the confirmative statutes, and in the old common law of the country. Such was its political creed. In religious matters, the legal party thought that episcopacy had greatly encroached, that the bishops had too much power, that their jurisdiction was too extensive, and that it was necessary to restrict it, and keep guard over its exercise. Nevertheless, it strongly adhered to episcopacy, not only as an ecclesiastical institution, and as a system of church government, but also as a necessary support to the royal prerogative, and as a means for defending and sustaining the supremacy of the king in religious affairs. {218} The doctrines of the sovereignty of the king, in the political order of things, to be exercised according to legal recognised forms and within the like limits, and of the supremacy of the king in religious matters, administered and supported by episcopacy, were maintained in the twofold system of the legal party. Its chief men were Clarendon, Colepepper, Lord Capel, and even Lord Falkland, although a warmer advocate for popular liberties, and it reckoned in its ranks almost all the great lords who were not servilely devoted to the court.