British customs legislation which first gave the Treasury statutory authority to negotiate for the purchase of the Isle of Man and the rights of its Lords. British customs officials had complained that the low duties charged on goods entering Mann encouraged a large re-export trade. Foreign goods could be imported cheaply into the Island and later landed clandestinely in Britain or Ireland, while British exporters could receive drawback on goods sent to Mann and then re-land them illicitly in Britain. The Manx legislature attempted to address these complaints in 1711, but the measure was tied to an expectation that Manx produce would be admitted duty-free into Britain. When that concession was not granted, the 1711 Act was suspended by another Act of Tynwald in 1713. The British response moved beyond customs regulation. Section 25 of 12 Geo. I c.28, An Act for the Improvement of His Majesty’s Revenues of Customs, Excise and Inland Duties, authorised the Treasury to negotiate for the purchase or surrender of rights in the Isle and Lordship of Man. The provision named James, Earl of Derby, Henrietta Bridget Ashburnham and those claiming through the Derby title. It authorised agreement for the surrender of estates, regalities, powers, honours, superiorities, jurisdictions, rights, privileges, duties, customs, revenues and other advantages connected with the Island. No purchase followed immediately, but the statutory mechanism remained available. The 1765 Revestment was later carried through under the authority provided by this legislation.

British customs legislation of 1720 which attempted to extend anti-smuggling enforcement into the Isle of Man. The measure later became important during the parliamentary debates over Revestment in 1765. Counsel for the Duke of Atholl described 7 Geo. I as the precedent on which the new bill was being modelled, but argued that its Manx provisions had never been effectively enforced. The Act treated Mann alongside Jersey and Guernsey and provided for seizures connected with customs offences to be prosecuted either in the Westminster courts or in courts of the place where the offence had occurred. That formula caused difficulty in Mann because the King did not then possess his own courts or customs officers on the Island. In the 1765 debate the Duke’s counsel cited the opinion of Lord Hardwicke that the Act gave British customs officers no effective power to make seizures within Mann. If goods were seized there under the statute, the proceedings would have had to be carried to the appropriate court in Britain. Counsel therefore described the 1720 statute, as far as Mann was concerned, as a “dead letter”. He asked whether any customs officer had ever entered the Island under its authority, made a seizure there or prosecuted such a seizure to condemnation, and stated that no such example could be produced. The 1765 legislation was framed in part as a response to that earlier failure.

The Act of 1709 was an Act of Tynwald passed to regulate the currency of the Isle of Man. It addressed the scarcity of small coinage that had resulted from the growth of trade following the Act of Settlement of 1704, ordering that the copper pence and halfpence coined by Earl James should be current and passable within the Island, and imposing severe penalties for counterfeiting. The best record of the Act at work is a case of 1723, and it did not go as the court intended. On the day the information was laid, the Deputy Governor sent men to search John Wilks's house. The searcher told George Wilks he had authority to search him on suspicion touching the counterfeit pence, and Wilks said he was at liberty to do so, but the officer, watching him, judged he had a coin about him and on a close search found a counterfeit penny hidden in the back of his breeches. Wilks admitted he had run it himself, both then and openly in court afterwards, saying he had done it to try his flasks and see how they would cast, and to try the metal. The pot for running metal, the flask or mould, and a piece of copper were taken up at the house, and he was committed to close prison. The jury would not convict. Three of John Wilks's apprentices, Thomas Taubman, David Curlett and John Wattleworth, swore they knew nothing of the making of the pence though they usually worked with Wilks and his father. On 21 May 1723 the jury of indictment acquitted the accused, signing their verdict with their marks. A second body of jurors said they would rather impute that verdict to misunderstanding than to wilful error, and recommended the first jury to the court to be favourably used in their fine and punishment. At the Debt Court on 10 October 1723 the court fined the Grand Jury twenty shillings apiece and declared them incapable of serving on any jury or inquest in future. The Governor afterwards heard their petition, reduced the fines and restored them, holding that their error came of ignorance and a misunderstanding of the law.

English Act of Parliament whose application to the Isle of Man became central to the legal aftermath of William Christian’s execution. Christian was tried in Mann for treason arising from the events of 1651 and executed at Hango Hill on 2 January 1663. His son George Christian subsequently complained to Charles II that his father had been condemned and put to death despite claiming the benefit of the Act of General Pardon and Indemnity. The matter was heard before the Privy Council. The Deemsters Thomas Norris and Hugh Cannell, Deputy-Governor Henry Nowell and other members of the Manx court were summoned to England to answer the complaint. On 5 August 1663 the Lord Chief Justice of King’s Bench, the Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer and the King’s Counsel gave their opinion that the Act “did and ought to be understood to extend into the Isle of Man” in the same way as to the King’s other dominions and plantations beyond the seas. Because it was a public general Act of Parliament, they held that the Manx judges should have taken notice of it even though it had not been pleaded and no proclamation of it had been made on the Island. The Council ordered restitution of William Christian’s estate to his widow and children. A later order directed that the Council’s decision should be printed in the form normally used for Acts of Parliament so that the King’s intention to observe the Act of Indemnity should be publicly known.

Act of Tynwald securing the customary tenants of the Isle of Man in estates of inheritance, passed in 1703 and proclaimed on the Tynwald Hill on 6 June 1704. Its full title is an Act for the perfect settling and confirmation of the estates, tenures, fines, rents, suits and services of the tenants of James, Earl of Derby, within the Isle of Man. It was passed at a Tynwald Court at St John's Chapel on 4 February 1703, by the Earl as Lord of the Isle, Robert Mawdesley as Governor, the Lord's other officers and the twenty-four Keys. The dispute it settled was over a hundred years old. The tenants claimed an ancient tenure of inheritance which they called the tenure of the straw. The Lord's officers would not allow it, because of the breaks that had been made in that manner of holding by the granting of leases, a change dated by one nineteenth-century editor to 1643 and laid at the door of the seventh Earl. Delegates of the Keys made proposals to the tenth Earl on behalf of themselves and all the tenants, and those proposals, slightly modified, became the Act. Estates were declared good and perfect customary estates of inheritance, descendable from ancestor to heir, in return for fines certain on descent and on alienation and the accustomed rents, boons, suits and services. The Lord expressly reserved his royalties, regalia, prerogatives, homages, fealties, escheats, forfeitures, mines and minerals, quarries, franchises and jurisdictions. Bishop Wilson's part in the negotiation is recorded in his own diary. On 6 September 1703 he wrote that he had been, he hoped, a happy instrument in bringing the Lord of Man and his people to an agreement, his Lordship having that day condescended to settle them upon a certain tenure, or rather to restore them to their ancient tenure, which had been uncertain for more than a hundred years. The Act did not lapse at Revestment. One of the earliest statutes passed after the Crown purchased the sovereignty in 1765 was an Act for the more effectual confirmation and establishment of the Act of Settlement and the Act of Tynwald explanatory thereof, which declared both to be the basis of the tenure of lands in the Island. It was promulgated on 9 September 1777, and the royal approbation was signified from St James's on 21 August 1777 in a letter from Suffolk returning the Acts transmitted by Governor Smith. The Act is repeatedly described in the Manx Society volumes as the Magna Charta of the Island as between the Lords and their tenants.

Westminster legislation authorising the Treasury to purchase the remaining Atholl rights in the Isle of Man after Revestment. The 1765 settlement had transferred sovereign and customs rights to the Crown but had left the Atholl family with substantial proprietary interests. These included landed property and associated manorial rights, rents, services and ecclesiastical patronage which had not been absorbed into the original purchase. The fourth Duke of Atholl continued to press claims arising from both the 1765 settlement and the rights which his family had retained. By the early nineteenth century further agreements had already produced additional compensation, including the annuity settled in 1805. The Act of 1825, 6 Geo. IV c.34, authorised the Treasury to purchase the remaining rights from John, fourth Duke of Atholl. A later constitutional study cited in the evidence pack identifies him as Charlotte’s successor and the last Lord of Man. The statutory authority did not itself mark the final physical completion of the transfer. The same account states that the final surrender to the Crown was made on 2 June 1828. The 1825 measure therefore belonged to a sequence rather than a single transaction: the sovereign transfer of 1765, later compensation, the statutory authority of 1825 and the final surrender of the remaining rights in 1828.

Act of Tynwald which replaced the self-selecting House of Keys with an elected chamber. Before 1866 vacancies in the twenty-four-member House were filled through nomination by the remaining Keys and selection by the Governor. The 1866 Act changed that structure by making membership dependent on election by voters in the sheadings and towns. The six sheadings each returned three members. Douglas returned three, while Castletown, Peel and Ramsey returned one member each, preserving the total of twenty-four. The House was elected for seven years unless dissolved sooner. The Act’s own printed title described it as “An Act to render the House of Keys elective; and for other purposes”. An authorised edition was printed in Douglas in 1866 by H. Curphey of the Manx Sun Office in King Street. The first dissolution under the new system followed the procedure laid down in section 138 of the Act. Later constitutional discussion repeatedly referred to the powers given to the Lieutenant-Governor to summon the Keys and to questions about the relationship between the elected House and the executive. The franchise created in 1866 remained restricted and was altered by later legislation. The House of Keys Election Act 1881 expanded and reorganised voter qualifications, so the 1866 settlement should be understood as the beginning of an elected Keys rather than the creation of universal suffrage.

Westminster legislation confirming the Crown’s purchase of the sovereign rights of the Isle of Man from the Duke and Duchess of Atholl in 1765. Parliament had authorised negotiation for a purchase as early as 1725. In 1765 a contract was concluded with John, third Duke of Atholl, and Charlotte, Duchess of Atholl, for surrender of the sovereign rights which Charlotte had inherited through the Stanley line. The agreement was confirmed by Act of Parliament on 10 May 1765. The consideration was £70,000. The Manx constitutional account later printed by the Manx Society states that, once payment was made, the Island was to be vested in the King and his successors. The transfer was not a purchase of every Atholl interest on the Island. Ecclesiastical patronage, lands and other proprietary rights not necessarily included within the sovereignty were expressly reserved. Those remaining rights were dealt with separately during the nineteenth century. The change altered the first estate of the Manx legislature rather than abolishing the legislature itself. Before 1765 legislation had been enacted by the Lord of Man with the other estates of Tynwald. After Revestment the Crown occupied that position. Manx courts and the existing legislative structure continued to operate, now in the name of the British sovereign.

Nineteenth-century reform of the Manx electoral franchise which admitted women to voting in elections for the House of Keys. The first elected House of Keys was created in 1866, but the franchise remained restricted. Further reform followed through the House of Keys Election Act 1881. A contemporary constitutional note records that the 1881 Act based the franchise on ownership or tenancy of real estate of at least £4 annual rateable value, together with certain lodger qualifications. Under the ownership qualification, unmarried women were admitted as voters. The Keys had proposed that the tenancy qualification should also extend to women, but the Legislative Council did not accept that part of the measure. Women’s enfranchisement was therefore real but limited by both marital status and the property basis of the franchise. The reform was closely associated with Richard Sherwood, member of the Keys for Glenfaba from 1869. A later Manx biographical account describes him as the introducer of female suffrage and also credits him with the Ballot Act and other electoral reforms. The 1881 settlement did not produce universal adult suffrage. It extended the vote to a defined class of women within an electoral system still based heavily on property qualifications.

Resolution of the House of Keys appointing representatives to protect Manx interests during the negotiations for Revestment. The Keys met at Castletown on 21 March 1765 after learning that the British government was negotiating with the Duke and Duchess of Atholl for the “superiority and dominion” of the Island and that the matter was before Parliament. The resolution stated that the rights and properties of the inhabitants might be affected unless a proper application was made on their behalf. The House therefore decided to appoint commissioners to go immediately to London. Their instructions were explicit. They were to attend the parliamentary business and endeavour to preserve “the inherent and Constitutional Rights of the People of this Isle” as far as they could. They were also directed to seek just and reasonable terms for the good of the community and the welfare of Mann. The resolution formed part of a rapid sequence of actions by the Keys. On 8 March members had written to their Speaker asking him to seek a meeting of the House. The Speaker wrote to the Governor on 12 March, and the Governor replied on 14 March. On 21 March the Keys appointed their commissioners, issued instructions to them and addressed the Duke and Duchess of Atholl. The same documentary sequence also includes the petition subsequently presented by the House of Keys to the British House of Commons.

British Act of Parliament aimed at restricting the trade between the Isle of Man and Britain and Ireland before Revestment. George Grenville introduced the bill in the House of Commons on 21 January 1765 under the title “An Act for more effectually preventing the mischiefs arising to the revenue and commerce of Great Britain and Ireland from the illicit and clandestine trade to and from the Isle of Man”. The Manx Society account identifies it as 5 Geo. III c.39 and notes that it was commonly called the Mischief Act. The Act authorised British customs and excise officers to search ships within the Island and to make seizures by land or water. It also allowed prosecutions relating to seizures and offenders to proceed in Britain, Ireland or in courts on the Island held in the King’s name, with British or Irish legal process capable of being served in Mann. The legislation was directed against the running trade, but the later Manx commentary objected to the Act’s description of all trade to and from Mann as illicit. Goods could be lawfully imported into and exported from the Island under Manx law; illegality arose when those goods were landed in Britain or Ireland in breach of their customs laws. The Duke of Atholl petitioned the Commons against the bill on 13 February 1765 and was heard by counsel. The measure continued through Parliament while negotiations for purchase of his rights were revived.

The Smuggling Act 1765 was one of the suite of legislation enacted alongside the Revestment to suppress the Isle of Man's role as a centre for the redistribution of dutiable goods. Together with the Purchase Act and the Mischief Act, it formed the legal framework by which the British government sought to bring the Island's trade under direct Crown control and prevent its use as a base for evading British and Irish customs duties. The ground had been prepared the year before. The English Commissioners reported on 4 January 1764 respecting smuggling from the Isle of Man, and an Act of Parliament on the same subject followed in that year, both of which the Manx bibliographers list. Enforcement was put in one man's hands and resented accordingly. The Lords of the Treasury appointed Charles Lutwidge to implement the anti-smuggling laws that came with the Revestment, and he had almost unchecked influence at the Treasury for years. Governor Smith wrote in 1774 that he found the actions of the late Receiver General illegal and arbitrary every day, and in the 1780s was pressing that Lutwidge was dishonest and his accounts should be audited, calling his impunity a curse to the Isle of Man. The trade it was meant to stop did not stop. J. C. Curwen told the Commons in 1805 that no inconsiderable proportion of the duties arising in the Isle of Man were on goods paying low duties which were afterwards clandestinely re-shipped and smuggled back into England. Spencer Walpole's formulation is the one Manx writers quote: smuggling, paradoxical as the statement may seem, has in every country been the creation of law, since the difficulties law imposed and the exactions it levied on the trader had alone called the smuggler into being and made his calling profitable.

The Stamp Act 1765 was a British parliamentary measure imposing direct taxation on the American colonies, enacted in the same parliamentary session as the Isle of Man Purchase Act and Mischief Act. The colonial resistance it provoked drew on similar arguments about parliamentary overreach and the rights of self-governing communities, and the parallels between the Manx and American situations were noted by contemporaries. The two Acts share a regnal year, and the Manx records use it. The Revesting Act is cited throughout the Manx literature as the Act of 5 George III, and the Stamp Act belongs to the same session and the same minister: George Grenville carried both. The Commons of that session had its own difficulty with Grenville's American resolutions. When he moved to amend a resolution so that troops kept up in America should be paid by America, Speaker Sir John Cust told the House he thought himself obliged in point of duty to say that he doubted whether the amendment could be received consistently with the rules, and cited the resolution of 18 February 1667 on motions for charges upon the people. The repeal was fought as hard as the Act. Lord Strange moved on the rights of Parliament during the debate, and Dr Blackstone proposed adding to the repeal bill a clause for expunging the resolutions of the colonial assemblies and making that the condition of repeal. Neither carried. The tract afterwards written in defence of the Act and against its repeal has been ascribed to Charles Lloyd, Grenville's private secretary, and by others in part to Lord Temple.

Record of customary law declared at a Tynwald held by Sir John Stanley II in 1417. A nineteenth-century Manx Society account states that Stanley visited the Island in 1417 and held a Court of Tynwald at Tynwald Hill, St John’s. At that assembly the ancient manner of holding Tynwald was declared and certain older customary laws were declared and confirmed. The same source records a second visit in 1422. Stanley then held a court at the Hill of Reneurling, identified by the editor with Cronk Urleigh in Michael, where the barons of the Island were called to do homage. A Tynwald was also held at Castle Rushen, where certain customary laws were committed to writing. The label “codification of 1417” is therefore a modern shorthand rather than the title of a surviving statute. The evidence describes a process in which existing custom was formally declared and confirmed in 1417, followed by further declaration and writing of customary law in 1422. These records belong to the early Stanley period, when the relationship between the Lord, officers and Twenty-four Keys was being expressed through formal statements of Manx law and constitutional practice.