The Commons of the same Parliament petitioned the King against the alleged growth of the Catholic religion in the knigdom, and especially against the proposed marriage of the Prince of Wales to a Spanish Catholic princess.  James ordered the Commons to let mysteries of the state alone.  They claimed liberty of speech.  The King asserted that they had no liberties except such as the royal power saw fit to grant.  Then the Commons drew up their famous Protest, in which they declared that their liberties were not derived from the King, but were “the ancient and undoubted birthright and inheritance of the people of England.”  In his rage James ordered the journal of the Commons to be brought to him, tore out the Protest with his own hand, and sent five of the members of the House to prison (S419).  This rash act made the Commons more determined than ever not to yield to arbitrary power.  James died three years later, leaving his unfortunate son Charles to settle the angry controversy he had raised.  Macaulay remarks that James seems to have been sent to hasten the coming of the Civil War.

17.  Charles I; Forced Loans; the Petition of Right.

Charles I came to the throne full of his father’s lofty ideas of the Divine Right of Kings to govern as they pleased.  In private life he was conscientious, but in his public policy he was a man “of dark and crooked ways.”

He had married a French Catholic princess, and the Puritans, who were now very strong in the House of Commons, suspected that the King secretly sympathized with the Queen’s religion.  This was not the case; for Charles, after his peculiar fashion, was a sincere Protestant, though he favored the introduction into the English Church of some of the ceremonies peculiar to Catholic worship.

The Commons showed their distrust of the King by voting him the tax of tonnage and poundage (certain duties levied on wine and merchandise), for a single year only, instead of for life, as had been their custom.  The Lords refused to assent to such a limited grant,[1] and Charles deliberately collected the tax without the authority of Parliament.  Failing, however, to get a sufficient supply in that way, the King forced men of property to grant him “benevolences,” and to loan him large sums of money with no hope of its return.  Those who dared to refuse were thrown into prison on some pretended charge, or had squads of brutal soldiers quartered in their houses.

[1] See Taswell-Langmead (revised edition), p. 557, note.

When even these measures failed to supply his wants, Charles was forced to summon a Parliament, and ask for help.  Instead of granting it, the Commons drew up the Petition of Right[2] of 1628, as an indignant remonstrance, and as a safeguard against further acts of tyranny.  This Petition has been called the “Second Great Charter of the Liberties of England.”  It declared:  (1) That no one should be compelled to pay any tax or to supply the King with money, except