Note 639 — Chapter VII
Reading edition
The most important of these reforms were carried, as is nearly always the case, in opposition to the real wishes of the ruling classes. Charles II. and James II. often said of the Habeas Corpus Act, ‘that a government could not subsist with such a law.’ Dalrymple's Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 104. Lord-Keeper Guilford was even opposed to the abolition of military tenures. ‘He thought,’ says his brother, ‘the taking away of the tenures a desperate wound to the liberties of the people of England.’ Lives of the Norths, vol. ii. p. 82. These are the sort of men by whom great nations are governed. A passage in Life of James, by Himself, edit. Clarke, vol. ii. p. 621, confirms the statement in Dalrymple, so far as James is concerned. This should be compared with a letter from Louis XIV., in the Barillon correspondence. Appendix to Fox's James II. p. cxxiv.