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Home Charles I and Domestic Affairs, 1625-42 1625-1629 1625-1629; Part 3 |
1625-1629; Part 3The third Parliament lost no time in trying to check what was held to be an abuse of the king's power, and drew up the Petition of Right. The first article declared that loans and taxes without consent of Parliament were illegal, and the second that all arbitrary imprisonment without cause shown was illegal. The third article of this petition forbade the billeting of soldiers in private houses (Soldiers, raised for an expedition abroad, were sometimes billeted in private houses, and were not infrequently an intolerable nuisance. Some people in Essex complained, for instance, that the Irish quartered there broke the furniture, and threw the meat into the? k if it did not win their approval); and the fourth, the exercise, in time of peace, of martial law, which too often had meant no law at all. The king, after trying every means of evasion, finally gave his consent to this petition; and, though he violated every one of its articles, the Petition stands as a great landmark in the struggle.It was after the Petition was passed that Wentworth, who had been one of the chief leaders of the House of Commons, joined the King. The second session of the third Parliament met in 1629. Parliament maintained that the king had not kept his promises with regard to the Petition of Right, and dissensions between King and Parliament grew more bitter. Charles determined to dissolve Parliament, but before he could do so occurred the celebrated scene when, with the Speaker held down in the chair and the doors locked, three resolutions were passed, declaring that whoever proposed innovations in religion, and whoever either proposed or paid taxes without the consent of Parliament, was an enemy to the kingdom and a betrayer of its liberties. These three resolutions—combining the grievances which the House of Commons felt in religion and in politics—were the last that the third Parliament (1629) was to pass, for it was at once dissolved; and Idiot, the most noble-minded of all in that struggle, was put into the Tower, and died there. We have now come to the end of the first period of the conflict. On the whole, though Parliament was sometimes unduly suspicious, sometimes rather niggardly in its supplies, and always intolerant in matters of religion, it had shown itself more patient, more practical, more clear-headed than either the kings or their advisers, and it is difficult to resist the conclusion that it was in the right. But this must not blind us to the fact that Parliament was seeking to establish a control over the King and his advisers which had not been exercised in Tudor times, and it was not unnatural that the Crown should resist such attempts. |
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