The Petition of Right.
This and other attacks upon the rights of his subjects roused Parliament. In 1628 that body drew up the celebrated Petition of Right,[338] which is one of the most important documents in the history of the English Constitution. In it Parliament called the king's attention to his illegal exactions, and to the acts of his agents who had in sundry ways molested and disquieted the people of the realm. Parliament therefore "humbly prayed" the king that no man need thereafter "make or yield any gift, loan, benevolence, tax, or such like charge" without consent of Parliament; that no free man should be imprisoned or suffer any punishment except according to the laws and statutes of the realm as presented in the Great Charter; and that soldiers should not be quartered upon the people on any pretext whatever. Very reluctantly Charles consented to this restatement of the limitations which the English had always, in theory at least, placed upon the arbitrary power of their king.
Religious differences between Charles and the Commons.
The disagreement between Charles and Parliament was rendered much more serious by religious differences. The king had married a Catholic princess, and the Catholic cause seemed to be gaining on the continent. The king of Denmark had just been defeated by Wallenstein and Tilly, and Richelieu had succeeded in depriving the Huguenots of their cities of refuge. Both James and Charles had shown their readiness to enter into engagements with France and Spain to protect English Catholics, and there was evidently a growing inclination in England to revert to the older ceremonies of the Church, which shocked the more strongly Protestant members of the House of Commons. The communion table was again placed by many clergymen at the eastern end of the church and became fixed there as an altar, and portions of the service were once more chanted.
Charles I (After a painting by Vandyke)
Charles dissolves Parliament (1629) and determines to rule by himself.
These "popish practices," with which the king was supposed to sympathize, served to widen the breach between him and the Commons which had been opened by the king's attempt to raise taxes on his own account. The Parliament of 1629, after a stormy session, was dissolved by the king, who determined to rule thereafter by himself. For eleven years no new Parliament was summoned.