Legality, Liberty and Oppression in Post-Revolutionary England, 1689-1760

Abstract

The ‘Glorious Revolution’ of 1688–89 has traditionally been celebrated as a momentous constitutional watershed, which signalled that the contest for sovereignty between crown and parliament over the previous century had been decisively resolved in parliament’s favour. But while ‘Liberty and Property’ became a favoured catch-cry for supporters of the revolution, its opponents maintained that they were now ‘arbitrarily robb’d of [their] Liberties’. This chapter considers the repressive measures, including indefinite imprisonment without trial, used against Jacobites and others by post-revolutionary regimes, and the extent to which these may have marked a new departure in state violence against citizens and subjects.