Depending on events, additions, and changes within the established system more than one Mutiny Act might be passed within a given year.

During the Middle Ages, European rulers applied the same laws to both civilian and military populations.

[5] In England, William the Conqueror's Aural Regis (or King's Court) assisted him in ruling both his armed forces and the English population.

The capricious use of harsh military law by the crown against civilians included the imposition of the death penalty.

The practice of enforcing military law against civilians and the usurpation of common-law courts' authority by courts-martial caused an outcry.

The necessity of order and discipline in an army is the only thing which can give it countenance; and therefore it ought not to be permitted in time of peace, when the king’s courts are open for all persons to receive justice according to the laws of the land.

This act stated that neither civilians nor soldiers and officers who were in England during peace were subject to military courts or law.

Because the articles of war did not fall under these courts' jurisdiction, military law couldn't be applied to anyone in England, whether soldier or civilian.

The Royal Scots was the only unit in which the majority of personnel remained loyal to James II, whom they held to still be the true monarch.

The mutinous troops were located in England during peacetime so only common law and courts of equity had authority over them.

[19] Because the Bill of Rights, while prohibiting the existence of a standing army during peacetime without the consent of Parliament, did not prohibit the same in time of war, the Mutiny Act was expressly limited to one year's duration, so that, in either case, war or peace, military discipline could not be enforced, thereby making a standing army impossible for the Crown to maintain.

Many other changes occurred during this transition from absolute monarchy to constitutional monarchy, which were "products of the exigencies and opportunities of the quarter century of warfare on the grand scale that commenced with the accession of William and Mary, when England, and then Britain, was able 'to set out such Fleets and Armies as were never heard of among our Ancestors.

[24] In 1807 all serving black soldiers recruited as slaves in the West India Regiments of the British Army were freed under that year's Mutiny Act.