Chapter 1 focuses on the revolution of 1688 in Britian, in which the ideal of liberty as independence was promised to the people as the cornerstone of a new constitution to replace James II’s allegedly despotic use of arbitrary power. After examining the Bill of Rights, in which the fundamental rights of the people are laid out, the chapter turns to consider the provenance of the underlying ideal of liberty as independence and its contrast with arbitrary power. One major source is shown to have been the discussion of civil liberty by the historians and moralists of ancient Rome, especially Cicero, Sallust, Livy and Tacitus. The influence of these sources on the development of early modern republicanism in England is traced, especially in the works of Milton and Harrington. The other major source was the discussion of the law of persons in the Digest of Roman law, in which a fundamental distinction was drawn between free persons and dependants, including slaves. The influence of this legal tradition, especially as filtered by Bracton into English common law, is traced in the strand of constitutional thinking that runs from Fortescue and Thomas Smith to Coke, Selden and their followers.