The period began with the attempt of James I to carry out his theory that the King derives his right to rule directly from God, and in no wise from the people.  Charles I adopted this disastrous theory, and was supported in it by Manwaring and other clergymen, who declared that the King represents God on earth, and that the subject who resists his will, or refuses a tax or loan to him, does so at the everlasting peril of his soul.

Charles I’s arbitrary methods of government and levies of illegal taxes, with the imprisonment of those who refused to pay them, led to the meeting of the Long Parliament and the enactment in 1628 of the statue of the Petition of Right, or second great charter of English liberties.

The same Parliament abolished the despotic courts of Star Chamber and High Commission, which had been used by Strafford and Laud to carry out their tyrannical scheme called “Thorough.”

Charles I’s renewed acts of oppression and open violation of the laws, with his levies of “ship money,” led to the Grand Remonstrance, an appeal to the nation to support Parliament in its struggle with the King.  The attempt of the King to arrest five members who had taken a prominent part in drawing up the Remonstrance brought on the Civil War and the establishment of the Commonwealth.  The new republic was utterly opposed to the doctrine of the Divine Right of Kings.  It declared “the People are, under God, the origin of all just power.”  Eventually Cromwell became Protector of the nation, and ruled by means of a strong military force.

On the restoration of the Stuarts, Feudal Tenure and the Right of Purveyance were abolished by Parliament (1660).  Charles II endeavored to rule without Parliament by selling his influence to Louis XIV, by the secret Treaty of Dover.  During his reign, the Habeas Corpus Act was passed and feudalism was practically abolished.

James II endeavored to restore the Roman Catholic religion.  His treatment of the University of Oxford, and imprisonment of the Seven Bishops, with the birth of a son who would be educated as a Roman Catholic, caused the Revolution of 1688, and placed William and Mary on the throne.

Parliament now, 1689, passed the Bill of Rights, the third great charter for the protection of the English people, and later confirmed it, 1701, by the Act of Settlement, which secured the crown to a line of Protestant sovereigns.  The Mutiny Bill, passed at the beginning of William III’s reign, made the army dependent on Parliament.  These measures practically put the government in the hands of the House of Commons, where it has ever since remained.  The Long Parliament had passed a Triennial Act (1641) requiring a new Parliament to be summoned within three years from the dissolution of the last Parliament, which was to sit not longer than three years.  This law was repealed in 1664 and reenacted under William III in 1694.  William’s wars caused the beginning of the National Debt and the establishment of the Bank of England.