As we have already stated, during the past year many gentlemen had been imprisoned for refusing to pay the demands of the king made without sanction of Parliament. Five of them had been, at their own request, brought before the King's Bench by writ of Habeas corpus, and their counsel demanded that, as they were charged with no particular offence, but merely committed at the particular command of the king, they should be discharged or admitted to bail; but both were refused. The question was now discussed by the House, and it was resolved that no subsidy should pass without a remedy granted against this royal licence. "It will in us be wrong done to ourselves," said Sir Francis Seymour, "to our posterity, to our consciences, if we forego this just claim and pretension."
"We must vindicate what?" demanded Wentworth; "new things? No; our ancient, legal, and vital liberties, by enforcing the laws enacted by our ancestors; by setting such a stamp upon them that no licentious spirit shall dare henceforth to invade them." In the repeated debates which followed, Sir Edward Coke particularly distinguished himself, old as he was, by his powerful and undaunted speeches. He called upon the members to stand by the ancient laws, and was seconded by other members, who narrated the breaking of those laws by the abuses of raising money by loans, by benevolences, and privy seals; by billeting soldiers, by imprisonment of men for refusing these illegal demands, and by withholding from them the benefit of Habeas corpus. In vain were the speakers warned by the Court party to beware of distrusting the king, who had been driven to these measures by necessity, and by others, who declared that such was the king's goodness that it was next only to that of God. But Coke cried out, "Let us work whilst we have time! I am absolutely for giving supply to his majesty, but yet with some caution. Let us not flatter ourselves. Who will give subsidies if the king may impose what he will? I know he is a religious king, free from personal vices, but he deals with other men's hands, and sees with other men's eyes."
SIR JOHN ELIOT. (From the Port Eliot Portrait.)
This was approaching the subject of the favourite, which even the boldest were afraid of touching, but which Coke soon after entered upon plainly, and with all courage.
On the 8th of May the House passed the four following resolutions, without a dissentient voice even from the courtiers—1st, That no freeman ought to be restrained or imprisoned, unless some lawful cause of such restraint or imprisonment be expressed; 2nd, That the writ of Habeas Corpus ought to be granted to every man imprisoned or restrained, though it be at the command of the king or Privy Council, if he pray for the same; 3rd, That when the return expresses no cause of commitment or restraint, the party ought to be delivered or bailed; 4th, That it is the ancient and undoubted right of every free man, that he hath a full and absolute property in his goods and estates, and that no tax, loan, or benevolence ought to be levied by the king or his ministers, without common consent by Act of Parliament.
It was clear, from these resolutions, that unless Charles chose to forego his illegal practices of raising money without consent of Parliament, and of imprisoning subjects without any warrant but his own will, he must abandon all idea of the five subsidies; but his necessities were too great, and the difficulties in the way of continuing to plunder people at his pleasure too formidable to allow him lightly to give up the tempting offer. The Lords were less determined than the Commons, and this gave him some encouragement. The matter was argued in the Commons on his behalf by the Attorney-General and the King's Counsel, but they found the leading members of the House too strong in their knowledge of constitutional law to be moved from their grand propositions. In the course of the debate the interference of Buckingham was felt, and the brave Sir John Eliot did not let that pass without criticism. "I know not," he said, "by what fatality or importunity it has crept in, but I observe in the close of Mr. Secretary's relation, mention made of another in addition to his majesty, and that which hath been formerly a matter of complaint, I find here still—a mixture with his majesty, not only in business, but in name. Let me beseech you, sir, let no man hereafter within these walls take this boldness to introduce it."
On the 28th of May the Commons presented to his majesty their celebrated Petition of Right; a document destined to become celebrated, a confirmation of Magna Charta, and the origin of the Bill of Rights secured in 1688, on which rests all the fabric of our present liberties. This Petition was based on the four resolutions. It commenced by reminding the monarch of the great statutes passed by some of the most illustrious of his ancestors, which he had been so long and pertinaciously outraging; that the statute De Tallagio non concedendo, made in the reign of Edward I., provided that no tallage nor aid could be levied by the king without consent of Parliament; that by another statute of the 25th year of Edward III., no person could be compelled to make any loan to the king without such sanction; such loans being against reason and the charters of the land. There could be no dispute here—the king stood palpably convicted, and had he acted in ignorance, could do so no longer. It then went on: "And by other laws of this realm, it is provided that none shall be charged by any charge or imposition called a benevolence, nor by such like charge; by which statutes before mentioned, and the other good laws and statutes of the realm, your subjects have inherited this freedom, that they should not be compelled to contribute to any tax, tallage, aid, or other like charge, not set by common consent in Parliament: yet, nevertheless, of late, divers commissions, directed to sundry commissioners, in several counties, with instructions, have issued, by pretext whereof your people have been in divers places assembled, and required to lend certain sums of money unto your majesty; and many of them, upon their refusal to do so, have had an unlawful oath administered unto them, not warrantable by the laws and statutes of this realm, and have been constrained to become bound to make appearance and give attendance before your Privy Council in other places; and others of them have therefore been imprisoned, confined, and sundry other ways molested and disquieted; and divers other charges have been laid and levied upon your people in several counties, by lords-lieutenant, commissioners for musters, justices of peace, and others, by command or direction from your majesty or your Privy Council, against the laws and free customs of this realm."
The Petition next set forth that divers persons refusing to pay these impositions had been imprisoned without cause shown, and on being brought up by Habeas Corpus to have their cause examined, had been sent back to prison without such fair trial and examination. From this it proceeded to the fact that numbers of soldiers had been billeted in private houses, contrary to the law, and persons tried by martial law in cases where they were only amenable to the common law of the land; and moreover, officers and ministers of the king had screened soldiers and sailors who had committed robberies, murders, and other felonies, on the plea that they were only responsible to military tribunals. All these breaches of the statutes, the Petition prayed the king to cause to cease, as being contrary to the rights and liberties of the subject, as secured by the laws of the land.
The Petition was so clear, and the statutes quoted were so undeniable, that Charles was puzzled what to do. To refuse the prayer of the Commons was to forfeit the five tempting subsidies; to admit it simply and fully was to confess that he had hitherto been altogether wrong, and to leave himself no loop-hole of excuse for the future. Instead, therefore, of adopting the established form of saying, in the old Norman words, "Soit droit fait comme il est désiré," he wrote at the foot of the petition this loose and most absurd assent—"The king willeth that right be done according to the laws and customs of the realm; and that the statutes be put in due execution, that his subjects may have no cause to complain of any wrongs or oppressions, contrary to their just rights and liberties, to the preservation whereof he holds himself in conscience as well obliged as of his own prerogative."