Page:William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (3rd ed, 1768, vol I).djvu/427

 Ch. 13. this tate things continued, till the repeal of the tatutes of armour in the reign of king James the firt: after which, when king Charles the firt had, during his northern expeditions, iued commiions of lieutenancy and exerted ome military powers which, having been long exercied, were thought to belong to the crown, it became a quetion in the long parliament, how far the power of the militia did inherently reide in the king; being now unupported by any tatute, and founded only upon immemorial uage. This quetion, long agitated with great heat and reentment on both ides, became at length the immediate caue of the fatal rupture between the king and his parliament: the two houes not only denying this prerogative of the crown, the legality of which right perhaps might be omewhat doubtful; but alo eiing into their own hands the intire power of the militia, the illegality of which tep could never be any doubt at all.

after the retoration of king Charles the econd, when the military tenures were abolihed, it was thought proper to acertain the power of the militia, to recognize the ole right of the crown to govern and command them, and to put the whole into a more regular method of military ubordination : and the order, in which the militia now tands by law, is principally built upon the tatutes which were then enacted. It is true the two lat of them are apparently repealed; but many of their proviions are re-enacted, with the addition of ome new regulations, by the preent militia laws: the general cheme of which is to dicipline a certain number of the inhabitants of every county, choen by lot for three years, and officered by the lord lieutenant, the deputy lieutenants, and other principal landholders, under a commiion from the crown. They are not compellable to march out of their counties, unles in cae of invaion or actual rebellion, nor in any cae compellable to march out of the kingdom. They are to be exercied at tated times: and their dicipline in general is liberal Rh