The House of Commons drew up a Petition of Right in 1627, which expanded upon the principles of Magna Carta and sought to fix definite bounds between royal power and the power of the law. It protested the loans compelled under pain of imprisonment and stated that no tax or the like should be exacted without the common consent of Parliament. It quoted previous law that "…no freeman may be taken or imprisoned, or be disseised of his freeholds or liberties, or his free customs, or be outlawed or exiled; or in any manner destroyed, but by the lawful judgment of his peers, or by the law of the land" and that "…no man of what estate or condition that he be, should be put out of his land or tenements, nor taken, nor imprisoned nor disinherited, nor put to death without being brought to answer by due process of law". It continued that "… divers of your subjects have of late been imprisoned without any cause showed; and when for their deliverance they were brought before your Justices by your Majesty's writs of Habeas Corpus, there to undergo and receive as the court should order, and their keepers commanded to certify the causes of their detainer, no cause was certified, but that they were detained by your Majesty's special command, signified by the Lords of your Privy Council, and yet were returned back to several prisons, without being charged with anything to which they might make answer according to the law." It also protested the billeting of soldiers in private houses and martial law trying soldiers and sailors. If these terms were agreed to by the King, he was to be given a good sum of money. Since he needed the money, he yielded. He expected tonnage and poundage for the Navy for life, as was the custom. But he got it only for one year, to be renewable yearly. The King agreed to the petition, quietly putting his narrow interpretation on it, and it was put into the statute book.
In 1629 Parliament distinguished between treason to the king and treason to the Commonwealth.
The Chief Justice held in 1638 that acts of Parliament to take away the King's royal power in the defense of his kingdom were void; the king may command his subjects, their persons, their goods, and their money and acts of Parliament make no difference. But the people refused to pay these taxes.
Charles thought of more ways to obtain money and disregarded his agreement to the Petition of Right.
Without the consent of Parliament, Charles extended ship money to all the kingdom instead of just the ports. It was used to outfit ships for the protection of the coasts. Hampden refused to pay it on principle and the courts ruled against him in the case of King v. John Hampden and he was sent to prison. When distraints were tried, the common people used violence to prevent them. The bailiffs were pelted with rocks when they came to distrain property. One man used his pitchfork to take back his steer being taken by the bailiff. If a distraint was successful, people would refuse to buy the distrained property of their neighbors.
Charles revived the right of the Crown to force knighthood on the landed gentry for a fee.
Charles sold monopolies in such goods as soap, leather, salt, wine, coal, and linen rags although they had been abolished in the last Parliament of James. This made employment uncertain for workers and prices high for the public, and put masters in danger of loss of capital.
Fines were levied on people for the redress of defects in their title deeds. Crown forest boundaries were arbitrarily extended and landowners near Crown forests were heavily fined for their encroachments on them. Money was extorted from London by an illegal proclamation by which every house had to pay three years' rental to the Crown to save itself from demolition.
But what incensed the people more than the money issue were the changes in the established church. High churchmen, called Ritualists, enforced ceremonies offensive to Puritan feeling in every parish. The centrally placed communion tables were to be placed at the east end within railings and called "altars", or "mercy seats" as if for mass. They were to be ornamented with crucifixes, images, pretty trifles, books, candles and rich tapestries. Bowing was to be done when approaching them. Clergymen were to be called "priests" and their authority treated as divine. Worship was to be done in accordance with the prescribed forms of Romish Breviars, Rituals, and Mass-books. Its ritual was to have pomp and ceremony, including kneeling for communion. Rings were to be used in marriages and crosses used in baptisms. Churches, fonts, tables, pulpits, chalices and the like were to be consecrated, thereby putting holiness in them. Churches that did not do this but used unconsecrated or "polluted" articles were closed by interdiction The universities and high churchmen were beginning to adopt the doctrine of free will over predestination. Parliamentarian and Puritan Oliver Cromwell and others feared this presaged a return to justification by works and the popish faith. In Parliament, he spoke out against the tyranny of the bishops, whose offices he wanted abolished, and the elaborateness of church services.