king willeth that right be done according to the laws and customs of the realm, and that the statutes be put in due execution, that his subjects may have no cause to complain of any wrong or oppression contrary to their just rights and liberties; to the preservation whereof he holds himself in conscience as well obliged, as of his prerogative."

The Commons returned highly incensed with this evasive circumlocution. They forthwith began to assail the favourites of the Crown, and impeached a Dr. Mainwaring who had preached a sermon, which had afterwards been printed by the king's command, in which discourse the right divine of kings to deal as they pleased with their subjects' property on emergencies, whether parliament consented or not, and the duty of passive obedience in the subject, were only and unreservedly maintained. The Commons procured the trial and condemnation of this satellite of arbitrary power, and were proceeding to assail others higher in Charles's councils, when the king's obstinacy at length gave way, and the Petition of Right received the royal assent in the customary form of Norman French, and this second great solemn declaration of the liberties of Englishmen was declared to be the law of the land, amidst the general rejoicings of the nation.

E. S. CREASY, Rise and Progress of the English Constitution. 259.

HANNIS TAYLOR (1889)

Side by side with Eliot, Coke, and Phelips now stood Sir Thomas Wentworth, who did yeoman's service in the popular cause in a great oration in which, after reviewing all the questions in controversy, except those involving the subject of religion, he demanded that there should be no more forced loans, no more illegal imprisonments, no more compulsory employments abroad, no billeting of soldiers without the assent of the householder, thus outlining the substance of the great statute, afterwards known as the Petition of Right, which derived its form from Coke.

HANNIS TAYLOR, Origin and Growth of the English Constitution. II. 268.

RUDOLF VON GNEIST (1889)

The Petition of Right is treated in later Constitutional State Law as a third Magna Charta, because by it a whole series of glaring administrative abuses are declared illegal in the most unequivocal terms.

RUDOLF VON GNEIST, History of the English Parliament. 253.

GARDINER (1889)

The Petition of Right is memorable as the first statutory restriction of the powers of the Crown since the accession of the Tudor dynasty. Yet, though the principles laid down in it had the widest possible bearing, its remedies were not intended to apply to all questions which had arisen or might arise between the Crown and the Parliament, but merely to those which had arisen since Charles's accession. Parliament had waived, for the present at least, the consideration of Buckingham's misconduct. It had also waived the consideration of the question of Impositions.

The motives of the Commons in keeping silence on the Impositions were probably twofold. In the first place, they probably wished to deal separately with the new grievances, because in dealing with them they would restrain the King's power to make war without Parliamentary consent. In the second place, they had a Tonnage and Poundage Bill before them. Such a Bill had been introduced into each of the preceding Parliaments, but in each case an early dissolution had hindered its consideration, and the long debates on the Petition of Right now made it impossible to proceed farther with it in the existing session. Yet, for three years the King had been collecting Tonnage and Poundage, just as he collected the Impositions, that is to say, as if he had no need of a Parliamentary grant. The Commons therefore proposed to save the right of Parliament by voting Tonnage and Poundage for a single year, and to discuss the matter at length the following session. When the King refused to accept this compromise they had some difficulty in choosing a counter-move. They were precluded from any argument from ancient statute and precedent, because the judges in Bates's case had laid down

the law against them, and they therefore had recourse to the bold assertion that the Petition of Right had settled the question in their favour. Charles answered by proroguing Parliament, and took occasion in so doing to repudiate the doctrine which they advanced.

SAMUEL R. GARDINER, The Constitutional Documents of the Puritan Revolu tion. xxiii.-xxiv.

J. K. HOSMER (1890)

At first, feeble and fitful, the opposition gathered force, developing under Charles I. into a stern battle between King and that conservative element of the people who were determined to uphold the ancient ways. The King was forced by the Petition of Right, in 1628, to admit that his arbitrary course was wrong. It was a profession of the lips, not the heart. J. K. HOSMER, Anglo-Saxon Freedom. 107.

CHAPTER VII

ENGLISH WRITTEN CONSTITUTIONS (1648–1653)

SUGGESTIONS

DURING the year 1647, Oliver Cromwell tried his best to come to an understanding with King Charles I. A constitutional scheme known as the Heads of the Proposals was drawn up by Ireton, and presented in the name of the army to the King. The wisdom of the Proposals was not accepted, and many of the agitators, finding that the king grew more hostile to Oliver Cromwell and his party, advanced a still more democratic constitution known as the Agreement of the People. This document was presented to Parliament, and an attempt to force it upon the officers was made with threats of mutiny in the army if not accepted. But the immediate action on the part of the King at this time turned the thoughts of the agitators, as well as the whole body of the army, from constitutional law to royal intelligence. The army lost all patience with King and Parliament. The Agreement of the People was set aside, and all thoughts were turned to the attention of the King.

The new Constitution devised by Lambert and embodied in the Instrument of Government, was the document accepted by the council of officers who succeeded the "Little Parliament" as a legislative power. This council was driven by necessity to the step from which they had shrunk before, that of convening a parliament on the reformed basis of representation. The new Constitution was undoubtedly popular. The "Instrument was taken as the ground work of the new Constitution, and the Assembly proceeded at once to settle the Government on a parliamentary basis, by discussing the document clause by clause.

The two documents here presented were neither of them operative, but they are here inserted because they are early attempts to draw up written constitutions for England, with limitations, checks, and balances; and because their underlying ideas were carried out in some colonial charters and governments, and eventually reappeared in the state and federal constitutions.

For Outlines and Material, see Appendix A.

DOCUMENTS

The Agreement of the People (1649)

tory of England. (Han

III. 1267

1278.

An Agreement of the People of England, and the TransliterPlaces therewith incorporated, for a secure and ated from The Parliapresent Peace, upon grounds of common Right, mentary HisFreedom, and Safety. Having, by our late labours and hazards, made sard, 1808), it appear to the world at how high a rate we value our just freedom; and God having so far owned our cause as to deliver the enemies thereof into our hands, we do now hold ourselves bound, in mutual duty to each other, to take the best care we can for the future, to avoid both the danger of returning into a slavish condition and the chargeable remedy of another war: for as it cannot be imagined that so many of our countrymen would have opposed us in this quarrel if they had understood their own good, so may we hopefully promise to ourselves, that when our common rights and liber- The spirit of liberty, carties shall be cleared, their endeavours will be dis- ried even to appointed that seek to make themselves our masters. the sword. Since therefore our former oppressions and not-yetended troubles have been occasioned either by want of frequent national meetings in council, or by the undue or unequal constitution thereof, or by Infrequency rendering those meetings ineffectual, we are fully ments began

of Parlia

became

agreed and resolved, God willing, to provide, that in the Tudor hereafter our Representatives be neither left to an Period, but uncertainty for times nor be unequally constituted, amazingly innor made useless to the ends for which they are creased durintended. In order whereunto we declare and agree, James I. ing reign of First. That, to prevent the many inconveniences apparently arising from the long continuance of the same persons in supreme authority, this present Parliament end and dissolve upon, or before, the last day of April, 1649.

Secondly. That the people of England (being