With the doing away of direct military service, never yet to be re-established in England, though the threat of conscription is now made, disappeared the power of the king to control his people; and this prevented the establishment of a royal autocracy and the extinction of representative government which took place in every Continental State.  It is a picturesque fact that mercenary soldiers were first employed in England in small numbers to suppress Jack Cade in 1449, who was leading a labor insurrection; just as the first instance where Federal troops were employed in intra-State matters in America was when President Cleveland sent them to suppress rioters interfering with the movement of mails in the Pullman strike in Chicago.

With standing armies abolished, and the fear of invasion removed, the practice of keeping arms fell into disuse, so that curiously enough we find under the Stuarts statutes compelling citizens to keep and bear arms, just as we find statutes compelling them to take their seats in Parliament.  For quite three centuries we find no legislation concerning arms, and Hallam mentions that by 1485 six liberty rights were established, among them that “officers, administrators or soldiers are liable for their acts at the common law.”  It is not until 1679 under Charles II, the very year of the Habeas Corpus Act, that standing armies are definitely established in England, and the Mutiny Act concerning the government of the army was first passed.  The struggle of the people with the army under Charles I may be well shown by these quotations from the Petition of Right in 1628: 

" ... of late great companies of soldiers and mariners have been dispersed into divers counties of the realm, and the inhabitants against their wills have been compelled to receive them into their houses and there to suffer them to sojourn, against the laws and customs of this realm ...”

" ... certain persons have been appointed commissioners, with power and authority to proceed ... according to ... martial law ... and by such summary course and order as is agreeable to martial law, and as is used in armies in time of war, to proceed to the trial and condemnation of such offenders, and them to cause to be executed and put to death according to the law martial.  By pretext whereof some of your Majesty’s subjects have been by some of the said commissioners put to death, when and where, if by the laws and statutes of the land they had deserved death, by the same laws and statutes also they might and by no other ought, to have been judged and executed.”

And by the Bill of Rights of 1689: 

“That the subjects which are Protestants may have arms for their defence suitable to their conditions, and as allowed by law.”

“That the raising or keeping a standing army, within the kingdom in time of peace, unless it be with consent of Parliament, is against law.”

Now it often happens that a great constitutional principle established with some difficulty in England is amplified and perfected by the bolder statement in American constitutions.  Thus, the Virginia Bill of Rights, 1776, has the perfect definition: