Throwing the game away would destabilize the system and open the way for absolutism by a subset of the broad coalition or even risk the return of the Stuarts. In Thompson’s words, what inhibited Parliament from creating a new absolutism was that take away law, and the royal prerogative … might flood back upon their properties and lives. Moreover, it was inherent in the very nature of the medium which they [those aristocrats, merchants etc. fighting the Crown] had selected for their own self-defense that it could not be reserved for the exclusive use only of their own class. The law, in its
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