their will and pleasure. In such a constitution, under such laws, every man may live safely and securely." Thus by the middle of the fifteenth century the personal and political rights of the English people, which had long before been defined in statutes and charters, were permanently and practically guaranteed to the nation as a whole by the parliamentary system on the one hand and to the individual subject by the jury system on the other. HANNIS TAYLOR, Origin and Growth of the English Constitution. I. 560-562. STEVENS (1894) And later on, jurors without information were separated from those possessing it, the former becoming judges of evidence only, and the latter witnesses; a decision being given by the former upon the testimony of the latter, and the law in the case being decided by the presiding official in the king's name. By 1450 we have distinct evidence that the mode of procedure was the same as that in modern use, though in occasional instances the ancient functions of jurors lingered as late as to the accession of the House of Hanover. C. E. STEVENS, Sources of the Constitution of the United States. 237. 5 CHAPTER VI PETITION OF RIGHT (1628) SUGGESTIONS THIS document - Petition of Right—was the result of the struggle between King Charles I. and the members of Parliament. A Committee of Grievances, members of the third Parliament (March to June, 1828), met together to consider what steps should be taken to restore ancient laws and liberties. For two months the attention of both Houses, either in conference or in separate debate, was almost exclusively devoted to this important subject. The King attempted to satisfy the House of Commons by a simple confirmation of Magna Charta, but Sir Edward Coke warned the House to proceed by Bill. In fact the far-famed Petition may be said to have thriven under the especial tutelage of Sir Edward Coke: the part assigned to him was the application of reasons for the laws and precedents which had been quoted in favour of the contentions of Parliament. When Charles I. suggested confirming Magna Charta without additions, paragraphs, or explanations, Coke said-"Let us put up a Petition of Right: not that I distrust the King, but that I cannot take his trust but in a parliamentary way." The Petition of Right was then drawn up by the Commons. After much discussion on the part of both the House of Lords and the House of Commons the petition was passed without any material alteration. On the 2nd of June, 1628, the King attended in the House of Lords to give his answer to the Bill. To the great surprise of Peers and Commoners, the King returned a long and equivocal answer, amounting almost to a refusal to pass the Bill. The Commons gave vent to their ill-humour by impeaching Dr. Mainwaring, one of the Royal Councillors, and were proceeding to censure the favourite, Buckingham, when, on June 7th, the King signed the great contract in the usual form. This great constitutional compact between the Crown and the People demands peculiar investigation. The documents earlier cited have had no masterful personality standing behind them. The history of this document is closely connected with the heroes of the Puritan era, and the personal preferences and legal theories of Pym, Hampden, Sir John Eliot, and Sir Edward Coke are expressed in almost every word in the petition. The close connection between the British subject at home and in the colonies, even at this early period in colonial history, should be taken into consideration. The dominant spirit of "redress," as emphatically expressed in 1628, was the cornerstone of all later petitions addressed to royal authority. For Outlines and Material, see Appendix A. DOCUMENT Petition of Right (June 7, 1628) v. 23-24, The Petition exhibited to his Majesty by the Lords The Statutes Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this of the Realm, present Parliament assembled, concerning divers translated Rights and Liberties of the Subjects, with the by William King's Majesty's royal answer thereunto in full Select Char Parliament. Stubbs, ters, 505-507. Famous Third Parlia The so-called statute" TO THE KING'S MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY, Humbly show unto our Sovereign Lord the King, ment, when the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons in Charles I. is Parliament assembled, that whereas it is declared forced to sign the and enacted by a statute made in the time of the "Petition of reign of King Edward I., commonly called Statutum Right." de Tallagio non concedendo, that no tallage or aid “Declaratory statute" shall be laid or levied by the king or his heirs in declaring this realm, without the good will and assent of the former acts archbishops, bishops, earls, barons, knights, bur- illegal. gesses, and other the freemen of the commonalty of this realm; and by authority of parliament holden has been in the five-and-twentieth year of the reign of King compendium Edward III., it is declared and enacted, that from of Confirmathenceforth no person shall be compelled to make tio Chartaany loans to the king against his will, because such loans were against reason and the franchise of the land; and by other laws of this realm it is provided, that none should be charged by any charge or imposition, called a benevolence, nor by such like charge; by which the statutes before mentioned, and other the good laws and statutes of this realm, your subjects have inherited this freedom, that they should termed a rum. "Benevo lences" first enacted in the reign of Edward IV. (1473): they were analo gous to forced loans in preceding reigns. Magna This statute, "liberty of the subject," grew out of Magna Charta, Art. xxxix. not be compelled to contribute to any tax, tallage, aid, or other like charge not set by common consent, in parliament: II. Yet nevertheless of late divers commissions directed to sundry commissioners in several counties, with instructions, have issued; by means 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 so to do, have had an oath administered unto them not warrantable by the laws or statutes of this realm, and have been constrained to become bound and make appearance and give utterance before your Privy Council, and in other places, and others of them have been therefore 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 lord lieutenants, deputy lieutenants, 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 the realm. III. And whereas also by the statute called "The Great Charter of the liberties of England," it is declared and enacted 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. IV. And in the eight-and-twentieth year of the reign of King Edward III., it was declared and enacted by authority of parliament, that no man, of what estate or condition that he be, should be put out of his lands or tenements, nor taken, nor imprisoned, nor disherited, nor put to death without being brought to answer by due process of law. V. Nevertheless, against the tenor of the said statutes, and other the good laws and statutes of also mem your realm to that end provided, 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 These subas the court should order, and their keepers com- jects were manded to certify the causes of their detainer, no bers of Parcause was certified, but that they were detained by liament, imprisoned your Majesty's special command, signified by the for utterlords of your Privy Council, and yet were returned ances on the floor of the back to several prisons, without being charged with House of anything to which they might make answer accord- Commons. ing to the law. VI. And whereas of late great companies of soldiers and mariners have been dispersed into divers Billeting solcounties of the realm, and the inhabitants against diers and their wills have been compelled to receive them into mariners their houses, and there to suffer them to sojourn only in the against the laws and customs of this realm, and to time of war. the great grievance and vexation of the people : was valid VII. And whereas also by authority of parliament, in the five-and-twentieth year of the reign of King Edward III., it is declared and enacted, that no man shall be forejudged of life or limb against the form of the Great Charter and the law of the land; and by the said Great Charter, and other the laws and statutes of this your realm, no man ought to be adjudged to death but by the laws established in this your realm, either by the customs of the same realm or by acts of parliament: and whereas no offender of what kind soever is exempted from the proceedings to be used, and punishments to be inflicted by the laws and statutes of this your realm : nevertheless of late time divers commissions under your Majesty's great seal have issued forth, by which certain persons have been assigned and appointed commissioners with power and authority Martial Law to proceed within the land, according to the justice was contrary of martial law, against such soldiers or mariners, or to statute 25 |