JSN LAP THE ENGLISH CONSTITUTION BHE IN THE REIGN OF KING CHARLES THE SECOND. BY ANDREW AMOS, ESQ. DOWNING PROFESSOR OF LAW IN THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE, AND LATE MEMBER OF THE SUPREME COUNCIL OF INDIA. LONDON: V. AND R. STEVENS, AND G. S. NORTON, 26, BELL YARD, LINCOLN'S INN. CAMBRIDGE: DEIGHTON, BELL AND CO. 1857. (2) Miscellaneous safeguards of personal liberty. (Excessive Bail. (c) Miscellaneous Incidents of feudal tenures, (Mortmain. Copy- (4) Crown Rights in Property. (Hereditary Domains. Hereditary (5) Witnesses, (Unsworn Witnesses for a Prisoner. Compulsory atten- dance of Witnesses. Two Witnesses in Treason. Accomplices. Disqualified Witnesses. Restoration of Competency. Supporting Witnesses for the Crown. Browbeating a Prisoner's Witnesses. Interrogations of Prisoner.). THE ENGLISH CONSTITUTION IN THE REIGN OF CHARLES THE SECOND. INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. IR WILLIAM BLACKSTONE, in the peroration of his Commentaries, thus expresses himself concerning the English Constitution in the reign of King Charles the Second. "Immediately upon the restoration of King Charles the Second the principal remaining grievance, the doctrine and consequences of military tenures, was taken away and abolished, except in the instance of corruption of inheritable blood, upon attainder of treason and felony. And though the monarch, in whose person the regal government was restored, and with it our ancient constitution, deserves no commendation from posterity, yet, in his reign, (wicked, sanguinary, and turbulent as it was,) the concurrence of happy circumstances was such, that from thence we may date not only the re-establishment of our Church and Monarchy, but also the complete restitution of English liberty, for the first time since its total abolition at the conquest. For therein not only these slavish tenures, the badge of foreign dominion, with all their oppressive appendages, were removed from incumbering the estates of the subject; but also an additional security of his person from imprisonment was obtained, by that great bulwark of our constitution, the habeas corpus act. These two statutes, with regard to our property and persons, form a second Magna Charta, as beneficial and effectual as that of Running-Mead. That only pruned the luxuriances of the feodal system; but the statute of Charles the Second B |