In the final chapter of the final volume of his magisterial Commentaries on the laws of England, Sir William Blackstone sketched the’rise, progress, and gradual improvements of the laws of England’. Nearing the end of that chapter, he laid it down as his considered opinion ‘that the constitution of England had arrived to its full vigour, and the true balance between liberty and prerogative was happily established by law, in the reign of king Charles the second’. Now this is not a self-evident truth, for that reign is more likely to conjure up in our minds (along with Nell Gwynn and other not strictly legal relationships) unhappy visions of quo warranto proceedings against borough charters; the perjuries of Titus Oates; the double jeopardy of Stephen College; and Sir William Scroggs and Sir George Jeffreys blaspheming their undignified and brutal way through the pages of the State trials. Why should Blackstone have felt impelled to say such a patently silly thing?