History
Petition of Right
The Petition of Right was a document presented to King Charles I of England in 1628, outlining specific grievances and seeking redress for violations of traditional English liberties. It sought to limit the king's power by prohibiting arbitrary taxation and imprisonment without cause, and reaffirming the importance of due process. The Petition of Right is considered a landmark in the development of constitutional law in England.
Written by Perlego with AI-assistance
Related key terms
1 of 5
9 Key excerpts on "Petition of Right"
eBook - ePubStaging Authority in Caroline England
Prerogative, Law and Order in Drama, 1625–1642
- Jessica Dyson(Author)
- 2016(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
2Issues of Right; Problems of Law
Petitioning was a common way to approach the monarch or Privy Council for assistance. There were two main forms of petition: the Petition of Right, and the petition of grace. Private petitions of right asked the king to provide justice to an injured party, seeking redress for specific, identified and investigated grievances; those of grace sought mercy or exemption for a subject from an aspect of law. What was unusual about the Petition of Right in 1628 was that it was presented collectively by both Houses of Parliament on behalf of the country to gain redress for grievances caused by the King’s manipulation of law regarding taxation and imprisonment. Members of Parliament sought a royal explanation of those laws by which he claimed to act, or the institution of further laws to confirm the liberties of his subjects. Although Charles was prepared to confirm existing laws, including Magna Charta (which was usually appealed to in cases of dispute between the sovereign and subject over rights and liberties), he was not prepared to create new laws, or to provide a legally binding, explicit elaboration of the meaning of such existing laws, which could potentially limit his scope for interpretation or prerogative action. A further ratification of Magna Charta did not go far enough for many of those sitting in Parliament; it had been confirmed several times in the past by a number of monarchs, and had not provided sufficient guarantee of the subjects’ liberties, depending as it did on the king’s interpretations and enactment of its provisions. After some debate, the House of Commons decided to present the Petition of Right. In using this form of petition, they were not merely presenting a complaint over unsubstantiated grievances; rather, a Petition of Right was a statement that wrong had been done, and that the monarch had to take action to rectify the issues stated. Although the King had refused to clarify the law, the Petition also provided a bridge between complaint and legislation: gaining royal assent to a Petition of Right was an archaic method of passing law. Nevertheless, the extent to which the Petition could be seen as a statute was and is heavily debated.3
- Hilary Larkin(Author)
- 2020(Publication Date)
- Brill(Publisher)
The Petition of Right thus emerges from a crucible of competing rheto-rics with their many underlying assumptions. As a petition, it is the most loyal of all forms of protest. But within that loyal form, there are complex layers. It is, after all, a Petition of Right, not a demand for graciousness. The document is rooted in the reality of who parliamentarians have constructed themselves to be and that, as we have seen, includes a highly selective and sophisticated reading of the past. They claim an his-toric duty as Englishmen to assert their rights. Edward Coke’s comment that the Commons have ‘done like good Englishmen to desire their lib-erty’ is a revealing phrase.27 Expectations of unif ied behaviour flow from the rights-bearing englishman 225 28 Commons Debates 1628 , vol. 4, p. 299. I treat of Coke’s contribution in greater depth below pp. 270–272. consensual agreement about historic rights: all present, he wants to sug-gest, are truly English and therefore they cannot do other than assert their liberties. It is not merely that he is making a point about the Englishman’s innate character here. What such a statement really seeks to do is to guide and direct his future. It seeks to create a unity among the like-minded, to forge a communal sense of self which will be inviolable. He is carving out a space where they can be just themselves. It is, whether he is willing to acknowledge it or not, a rhetoric of resistance. There will be more such statements about national homogeneity in the polemic of the Levellers but for now, it is a muted but clear statement from the elite. Coke said this in April; the following month, he was appointed to lead the committee responsible for drafting the Petition. He was a crucial figure in bringing the petition about and, given his status as the grand old man in parlia-ment, his utterances carried particular power over his hearers.
eBook - PDFHuman Rights
The Essential Reference
- Carol Devine, Carol R. Hansen, Hilary Poole, Ralph Wilde(Authors)
- 1999(Publication Date)
- Greenwood(Publisher)
Its precedent is significant in another way also. More than seventy years later, King Edward I invited bishops, barons, and town officials to meet with him in an effort to help fund another war against the French. From that "parley" or "parliament" began the tradition of the monarch con- sulting his leading subjects on key issues, and subsequently the beginnings of a con- stitutional government that restricted royal authority. The Petition of Right A s the first major step in delimiting the power of British monarchy, the Magna Carta led to many constitutional developments in the centuries that fol- lowed. Of particular importance to the history of human rights was the Petition of Right (1628). This second pivotal step, which reduced royal privilege, occurred because of major dissatisfaction over King Charles I's fiscal policies. In 1625 he demanded a forced loan from landowners without Parliament's con- sent. The next year he further alienated the aristocracy by imprisoning seventy- six gentlemen for refusing to pay. In response, Parliament refused to agree to these levies unless he implemented fiscal reforms. Charles responded by conven- ing three Parliaments in four years; each was dissolved because it refused to grant him funds without reforms. Parliament ultimately agreed to a tax, but only after Charles accepted the Petition of Right in 1628. It laid down four principles: no "loans" without the consent of Parliament; no "gentlemen" who refused such loans would be arrested, and no imprisonment was to occur without just cause; no soldiers were to be housed on the citizenry in order to save the crown money; and no martial law could be imposed in peacetime. In the short term, instead of settling any issue, the petition merely angered Charles I sufficiently that he dismissed Parliament for eleven years and tried to raise money in unorthodox ways. The result was the English Civil War of the 1640s, which Parliament eventually won.
eBook - PDFPower Play
The Bush Presidency and the Constitution
- James P. Pfiffner(Author)
- 2009(Publication Date)
- Brookings Institution Press(Publisher)
Among other things, the petition reaffirmed some of the formerly established rights of Englishmen and echoed Magna Carta, including —trial by jury and due process: “no freeman may be taken or impris-oned . . . but by the lawful judgment of his peers, or by the law of the land”; —the right of writs of habeas corpus so that subjects could not be imprisoned “without being charged” unless “cause was certified”; —the king could impose no taxes except “by authority of parliament”; —no quartering of troops would be undertaken against the consent of the people; —martial law could not be declared in peacetime. 12 individual rights and an independent legislature 38 As in the case of Magna Carta, the king agreed to the Petition of Right only because he needed revenues to conduct his wars. But after Charles got the funds he needed, he reneged, ignored his agreement, and dis-solved Parliament. Nonetheless Charles continued to need more money for his wars with Spain and France and was forced to call “the Long Parliament” in 1640 in order to raise tax revenues. Parliament, however, would not provide him with the money he needed unless he agreed to a number of condi-tions. Among many other things, the demands included: —That Parliament would meet every three years, regardless of the king’s consent; —That the king could not dissolve Parliament without its own consent; —That Charles would abolish the Court of Star Chamber, which was seen as a political tool that was used arbitrarily and imposed extreme punishments merely to enforce Charles’s own personal wishes; —That Charles would sign “the Grand Remonstrance,” a compilation of his abrogations of the rights of the people. 13 These demands led to the English Civil War, which pitted Charles I and his Royalists in the west and north of England against Oliver Cromwell and his Roundheads, who were determined to rid England of any remnants of Catholicism and royal oppression.
eBook - PDFReclaiming the Petition Clause
Seditious Libel, ',Offensive', Protest, and the Right to Petition the Government for a Redress of Grievances'
- Ronald J. Krotoszynski(Author)
- 2012(Publication Date)
- Yale University Press(Publisher)
A. The English Origins of the Right to Petition The English origins of the right to petition are ancient, dating as far back as the tenth century, when petitions to the king were not of right and were limited to redress of property disputes that had not been resolved to the parties’ satisfac-tion by lesser tribunals. 6 It was not until 1215 , when the barons exacted Magna Carta from King John, that petitioning began to take significance as a means of asserting political power against the state. 7 In exchange for the barons’ alle-giance—and their agreement to finance the government—the king agreed to the following: “[I]f we or our justiciar, or our bailiffs, or any of our servants shall have done wrong in any way toward any one, or shall have transgressed any of the articles of peace or security; and the wrong shall have been shown to four barons of the aforesaid twenty-five barons, let those four barons come to us . . . laying before us the transgression, and let them ask that we cause that transgres-sion to be corrected without delay.” 8 Magna Carta thus secured to the barons, 85 The Right of Petition in Historical Perspective and, indirectly, the people, the right to petition the king for redress of their grievances. Over time various segments of society, including knights and burgesses, were also granted audiences by the Crown as the royal government’s financial needs increased. “The petitions, addressed to the king or to the king and his council . . . furnished abundant work to the permanent council, and the special parlia-ments were probably the solemn occasions on which they were presented and discussed.” 9 Like those of the barons, the petitions these representatives pre-sented on behalf of individuals and their communities were granted in exchange for commitments to make payments to the Crown.
- Various Authors(Author)
- 2022(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
The episode in which the judges were questioned is of great significance only in retrospect. It is our awareness of what was to happen in 1640 which indicates that the situation was fraught with danger. The Commons had moved the Lords to examine an action of the King's Bench judges. Had immediate events been different, and had a sizeable body of peers been dissatisfied, they would presumably have had to think of further proceedings. In any case., the Petition of Right intervened and the matter was more or less closed. 34 The Petition of Right was not a statute, and the principle adapted was the old notion that the King, who could do no wrong and who could not be sued in his own courts, must avoid any action which might · be deemed as a wrong and himself move to right faults. Realization of this was subsequently to mean both the impotence and the protection of the Crown, but in 1628 it only reflected the dilemma of the House of Commons. The House of Lords had suggested five propositions which among other things confirmed Magna Carta and the old laws support- ing it, but this was not acceptable. A proposed bill of rights, which the King would have accepted., was rejected because it lacked that kind of explanation which the Commons desired. The idea of a petition was first suggested by Sir Dudley Digges, and subsequently taken up by Coke, Phelips and Wentworth. The assumptions and logic of the leaders of the Commons left much to be desired, largely because they stuck fast to the belief that only ministers, and not the King, could do wrong and that these were restricted by force of law. The famous document itself was brief. It was petitioned that forced loans, impositions, and other forms of taxation, mostly anachronistic, should cease; that im- prisonment without cause should be discontinued; that a number of activities with respect to billeting and the martial law be done away with. All the clauses were directly related to immediate grievances.
eBook - PDF- Conrad Russell(Author)
- 1990(Publication Date)
- Hambledon Continuum(Publisher)
Professor Elizabeth Read Foster has also recently called attention to the significance of the fact that the Petition of 3 December was a petition of grace, and not a Petition of Right. A petition of grace was not an instruction or direction: it was a request, submitted in all humility to a superior for his consideration. Professor Foster quotes Sir Edward Coke, that if it had been a Petition of Right 'that required an answer, I would never prefer it or give my consent to the preferring of it, but it's only a petition of grace'. 7 It was difficult to construe a petition of grace as an attempt to dictate to the king in the conduct of policy. Members regularly compared such petitions of grace to prayers to God, who remained free to answer the prayers or ignore them as he saw fit. As Crew put it, using divine right imagery entirely acceptable to James, 'we do petition to the lieutenant of God; he may do as he pleaseth', 8 On another occasion, apparently in a private conversation about monopolies, Coke told James ' I hope every one that saith, Our Father, which art in Heaven, does not prescribe God Almighty what he shall do so do we speak of these things as petitioners to his Majesty, and not as prescribers etc.' 9 Professor Foster quotes numerous Tudor precedents, some of which were also quoted in 1621, for petitions to the Crown on matters of state, not all of which were given unfavourable responses. In 1586 both Houses petitioned for the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots, and received no rebuke for doing so. Sir Robert Phelips quoted the occasion in 1553 when 6 S. R. Gardiner, History of England (1893), iv, 256-7, J. S. Roskell, The Commons and their Speakers 1376-1523 (Manchester, 1965), pp. 50-1. 7 Elizabeth Read Foster, ' Petitions and the Petition of Right ', Journal of British Studies, xiv, i (Nov. 1974), 33. 8 Wallace Notestein, F. H. Reif and Hartley Simpson, Commons' debates in 16*1 (New Haven, 1935), n, 495.
eBook - ePubHistory of the English People, Volume V
Puritan England, 1603-1660
- John Richard Green(Author)
- 2007(Publication Date)
- Perlego(Publisher)
All which they humbly pray of your most excellent Majesty, as their rights and liberties, according to the laws and statutes of the realm. And that your Majesty would also vouchsafe to declare that the awards, doings, and proceedings to the prejudice of your people in any of the premisses shall not be drawn hereafter into consequence or example. And that your Majesty would be pleased graciously for the further comfort and safety of your people to declare your royal will and pleasure, that in the things aforesaid all your officers and ministers shall serve you according to the laws and statutes of this realm, as they tender the honour of your Majesty and the prosperity of the kingdom." The Petition of Right. It was in vain that the Lords strove to conciliate Charles by a reservation of his "sovereign power." "Our petition," Pym quietly replied, "is for the laws of England, and this power seems to be another power distinct from the power of the law." The Lords yielded, but Charles gave an evasive reply; and the failure of the more moderate counsels for which his own had been set aside called Eliot again to the front. In a speech of unprecedented boldness he moved the presentation to the king of a Remonstrance on the state of the realm. But at the moment when he again touched on Buckingham's removal as the preliminary of any real improvement the Speaker of the House interposed. "There was a command laid on him," he said, "to interrupt any that should go about to lay an aspersion on the king's ministers." The breach of their privilege of free speech produced a scene in the Commons such as St. Stephen's had never witnessed before. Eliot sate abruptly down amidst the solemn silence of the House
- Karin Bowie(Author)
- 2020(Publication Date)
- Cambridge University Press(Publisher)
From to , petitioning to parliament and king was constrained to prevent the public airing of grievances. By comparison, in England a act placed restrictions on adversarial petitioning on matters of church and state but the English parliament in reaffirmed the subject’s right to petition parliament. This allowed petitions in England’s – exclusion crisis to be countered by loyal addresses, maintaining a channel for the expression of grassroots opinions in English politics. In Scotland, attempts to question or challenge monarchical policy by petition or letter were suppressed rigorously. Private petitions could be submitted to the monarch or parliament, but prior scrutiny of Laing (ed.), Robert Baillie, iii, . Buckroyd, Church and State in Scotland, –, ch. ; MacIntosh, The Scottish Parliament Under Charles II, –, ch. . The English parliament also met more often in the Restoration period compared to the Scottish estates. Bowie, ‘From customary to constitutional right’. Petitions parliamentary petitions was reintroduced, and dissidents had to resort to defiant public declarations (as seen in Chapter ), illicit publications (as discussed in Chapter ) or open rebellion to bring forward grievances. In , the Restoration regime quickly made it clear that adversarial petitioning would not be tolerated. Petitions aiding the Restoration were acceptable, including a petition from nobles, gentry and burgesses in London offering their ‘humble opinion’ that elections should be called for a parliament. But when the Stirling minister James Guthrie met with other Protester clergymen in Edinburgh in August to concert a paper later described as a ‘remonstrance’, they were imprisoned and a proclamation was made against unauthorised meetings and seditious papers.
Index pages curate the most relevant extracts from our library of academic textbooks. They’ve been created using an in-house natural language model (NLM), each adding context and meaning to key research topics.
