Which Monarch Was Forced to Sign the Petition of Right

The Petition of Right was a list of demands of King Charles I of England (r. 1625-1649) issued by Parliament in June 1628. The petition came subsequently three years of disagreements betwixt the king and Parliament over finances, religious matters, and Charles’ endorsement of certain central but unpopular political figures, notably the Duke of Buckingham (1592-1628).

The Petition of Right was intended to ascertain and curb the monarch’southward powers and included matters of tax, the application of martial law, imprisonment without trial, and the billeting of troops on civilian households. Charles agreed to the petition simply then ignored it. Further, the king did not call any parliaments at all between 1629 and 1640, which was one of several causes of the English Civil Wars (1642-1651).

Male monarch five. Parliament

Charles, the 2nd of the Stuart kings subsequently James I of England (r. 1603-1625), saw himself very much every bit a monarch with a divine right to dominion, that is he believed he was appointed past God and no mortal was to a higher place him or should question his reign. This view rather went confronting the growing tradition in England that Parliament should take a significant share in government, especially regarding finances. Consequently, Charles’ human relationship with Parliament steadily worsened as the 1620s progressed.

The convention had been established during the Tudors that a monarch called a parliament when it wanted to raise finances, for example, to fund a war or large edifice project. The MPs would then decide on a upkeep and how to raise the money, unremarkably through various taxes and duties. Charles considered this a bothersome apparatus, which, if MPs were non compliant, might exist abandoned if he could observe revenue by alternative means. As the English language king in one case stated: “Parliaments are altogether in my power…As I discover the fruits of them adept or evil, they are to go on or non to exist” (McDowall, 88).

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Charles I, when not granted by Parliament the right to extract community duties, instead imposed forced loans on the wealthy.

I of the earliest sources of discord was over community duties, specifically the Tunnage and Poundage, a taxation on the trade of wool and wine. Traditionally, a monarch was granted this revenue in their offset Parliament, and information technology was granted for the unabridged duration of their reign. In Charles’ instance, Parliament decided to only grant this revenue for 1 year, after which time it would renew, a clever ploy to make sure the king recalled Parliament. Charles took this as a swell insult, but Parliament was extremely wary of granting funds to a monarch who had already shown in the last years of his father’s reign, when he had been, in issue, regent for the bilious king, that he was very probable to squander it on foreign wars.

The king, over the next decade, found a practiced number of alternative means to raise greenbacks, but even if they were a success in raising money, they were not particularly popular with his subjects. He imposed extra-Parliamentary taxes, sold monopolies, borrowed from bankers, and extracted new customs duties where he could. The king widened the extraction and use of Ship Money (originally imposed on coastal communities only to help fund the navy). He also imposed fines based on archaic wood laws and increased fines imposed by courts.

Perhaps nearly significant of all, Charles, when not granted the right to extract customs duties, instead imposed forced loans on the wealthy. These ‘loans’ were essentially a feudal obligation to give money to the king with only a tentative promise to ever be repaid. Not a pop motion in any period, the loans came at a time when trade was depressed, there had been a run of poor harvests, and the Black Death had reared its ugly head again. Justices of the Peace were charged with collecting the forced loans, and those who refused to pay often found themselves either imprisoned or obliged to serve in the army (or at least threatened with this). Refusing to pay a forced loan non only upset the sovereign and risked one’s liberty but at that place was, too, a consequence for one’southward soul. Roger Manwaring (b. c. 1589), who became the king’southward chaplain, preached that those who refused would be damned.

Charles was responsible for other sources of friction with Parliament, issues which arose that MPs wanted to resolve earlier matters of finances were discussed. The 1626 Parliament wanted to impeach George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham later on his failed and costly attack on the Spanish treasure fleets at Cadiz in December 1625. The king stood by his longtime advisor and dissolved the 1626 Parliament. Then a war with French republic necessitated the king finding more than money via a round of forced loans in September 1626. This money was squandered on another failed armed forces escapade led by Buckingham, this time in October 1627 in the defence force of Huguenot La Rochelle against a French attack.

Parliament would simply release funds for the king if he agreed to all the points of the Petition of Right.

Yet some other problem was the king’s support of the Arminians from 1627. This was a branch of the Anglican Church that emphasised ritual, sacraments, and the clergy. It was not the style of preaching seen in other branches closer to Calvinism and more to the liking of well-nigh MPs who saw the endorsement of Arminianism every bit a dangerous shift dorsum towards Catholicism and a reversal of the English Reformation. Fifty-fifty worse, the Arminians – virtually prominent amongst whom was William Laud – seemed to favour the idea of an absolute monarch considering they supported the extraction of forced loans from the wealthy. Information technology did non help in this situation that the queen, Henrietta Maria (1609-1669), was French and a Catholic. Another figure that was caught between King and Parliament was the anti-Calvinist Richard Montagu (b. 1577). Detested by many MPs, Montagu was supported by Charles, who made him the bishop of Chichester in 1628. The case was an instance of the rex’south frequent unwillingness to compromise when it would have toll him very little to practice then.

1627 saw nonetheless another sticking signal between King and Parliament, what became known equally the case of the Five Knights. Five gentlemen were imprisoned for refusing to pay the rex’southward forced loans, but they claimed they should not, nether the ancient right of
habeas corpus, be held indefinitely without trial. A courtroom ruled in Charles’ favour after pressure from the king, who at present wanted the conclusion to go a legal precedent, something Parliament would non allow. Other grievances that year included the male monarch permitting the application of martial law in some areas where royal troops were billeted and where locals were not properly compensated for commandeered resource. There was, also, another failed expedition to la Rochelle in May 1628. Matters finally came to a head in June.

The Petition

Nathaniel Fiennes, Lord Saye and Sele (b. 1582) was one prominent lord who refused to pay a forced loan. Fiennes then led a group of similarly disgruntled lords who took the Magna Carta of 1215 and its limitation on majestic power as an inspirational precedent. MPs, in agreement with the House of Lords, drew up the Petition of Right in June 1628 in an effort to better define royal power and avert Charles deciding at whim his prerogative (his rights independent of Parliament). Sir Edward Coke (1552-1634), MP, lawyer, and former Speaker of the House of Commons, was another figure instrumental in gathering together the points for the petition, making information technology more moderate (and, therefore, more likely to exist agreed upon), and helping it laissez passer the scrutiny of the members of the Firm of Lords. The very use of the words ‘petition’ and ‘right’ was significant. The former suggested the king was being invited to collaborate in meliorate defining the police, and the latter clearly indicated Parliament considered these demands a legal correct.

With the Petition of Right, Parliament demanded:

• A reversal of the court’s determination against the Five Knights
• An end to the male monarch’s attempts to heighten money exterior of Parliament
• An finish to forced loans
• An end to imprisonment without trial
• An end to civilians beingness obliged to provide gratis lodgings for billeted soldiers
• An end to the apply of martial law confronting civilians

The following extract from the Petition of Right outlines these main grievances:

They do therefore humbly pray your most first-class Majesty that no man hereafter be compelled to make or yield any gift, loan, benevolence, taxation or such similar charge, without common consent by Act of Parliament, and that no none be confined or molested or disquieted apropos the same, or for refusal thereof and that no man be detained or imprisoned every bit is before mentioned; and that your Majesty will be pleased to remove the soldiers and mariners and that your people may not be so burdened in fourth dimension to come; and that the commissions for proceedings of martial law may exist revoked and annulled.

(Dicken, 58)

Parliament would only release funds for the male monarch if he agreed to all the points of the petition. Desperately in need of coin for his ongoing state of war with France, the king was obliged to concur to the demands, and the points of the petition became police. In reality, the credence of the petition in no way altered Charles’ stance of his status as a monarch who had no need to consult anyone on how to govern his kingdom. The king connected to extract illegal customs duties despite the protests of Parliament, his argument was they had not been specifically prohibited in the petition. This certainly soured the whole atmosphere of agreement, a situation which worsened further still when the Knuckles of Buckingham was assassinated in August 1628 in the Greyhound Inn in Portsmouth.

Legacy

A new parliament was convened in January 1629. Sticking points were the continued application of community duties by the king, the jubilation of some MPs and most of the public at Buckingham’south demise, and the king’south support of the Arminians – he had promoted Laud to become Bishop of London, for instance, in 1628. Charles promptly prorogued (suspended) Parliament. Parliament refused to be dissolved, and MPs met anyway, belongings down the Speaker of the House of Eatables by physical strength to prolong the session. Parliament decided on the Three Resolutions: to curb the growth of Arminianism, stop the illegal collection of Tunnage and Poundage, and support those who refused to pay the king’due south duties. Outraged, Charles then dissolved the 1629 Parliament. Henceforth, the rex decided to dominion without calling whatever further parliaments betwixt 1629 and 1640, a period often called the ‘Personal Dominion’ of the king. This strategy worked well enough until the rex desperately needed funds in 1639 to pay for his campaigns against a Scottish army, which had occupied the north of England, and a serious rebellion in Ireland, both fuelled by religious differences and the king’s high-handed policies. Thus began the disintegration of the relationship betwixt Rex and Parliament, which somewhen led to the Civil War starting in 1642.

Despite the events that led to the ‘Personal Rule’, the Petition of Right inspired MPs in the 1640s, many of whom were protégés of Sir Edward Coke, to legislate on fifty-fifty bolder definitions of regal ability and prerogative. In this sense, the Petition of Correct is regarded as an important pace in the long procedure of shifting from an accented monarchy to a parliamentary commonwealth where the monarchy is merely a function of the procedure of government alongside the Business firm of Commons and the House of Lords.