If he swore at them he might be fined for an oath.

If he struck them he might be prosecuted for assault and battery.

In truth the regular army was under less restraint than the militia.

For the militia was a body established by an Act of Parliament, and it had been provided by that Act that slight punishments might be summarily inflicted for breaches of discipline.
It does not appear that, during the reign of Charles the Second, the practical inconvenience arising from this state of the law had been much felt.

The explanation may perhaps be that, till the last year of his reign, the force which he maintained in England consisted chiefly of household troops, whose pay was so high that dismission from the service would have been felt by most of them as a great calamity.