"This is an impressive work of scholarship. Lemmings offers an analysis of the changing nature of criminal law and civil litigation, and contextualizes this within an exploration of the effect of the new parliament after the Glorious Revolution. He describes a process that saw government grow to dominate society in a way that it had never done before; thus 'in the eighteenth century parliament became Leviathan' (p.128). Parliament, released from the restrictions imposed upon it by the predilictions of previous monarchs, flexed its muscles and passed thousands of individual acts that affected the lives of millions. The emphasis was on control, so the 1714 Riot Act, the infamous Waltham Black Act in 1723 and the 1718 Transportation Act, all of which addressed the problems of crime and civil order (or disorder)...Lemmings has written a challenging book, one that historians of the period need to engage with." - Drew Gray, University of Northampton, UK

Over the long eighteenth century English governance was transformed by large adjustments to the legal instruments and processes of power. This book documents and analyzes these shifts and focuses upon the changing relations between legal authority and the English people.