II. CHAP. Council, without assignment of cause. Another oppressive expedient was the billeting of soldiers on private houses; and this was inflicted with most severity on those who had refused the loan.* But tyranny is bad stewardship; and the forced loan brought little to the exchequer. Accordingly, a commission was appointed to devise other measures for levying money without consent of parliament; in which commission it was expressly stated, that "form and circumstance must be dispensed with, "rather than the substance be lost or hazarded." Though this commission was established, with the evident view of rendering parliaments eventually useless, it was still found impossible to dispense with them immediately; and about the time of the appointment of that commission, writs for a third parliament were issued. The session was opened with reiterated threats. The King told the Commons, that if they should not do their duties, in contributing to the necessities of the state, he must use "those other means which God had put into his hands † ;" and the Lord Keeper added, that "this way of parliamentary supplies" was chosen by his Majesty, Rushworth speaks in strong terms of the oppressive severity of this infliction: "The soldiers brake out in great disorders: they "mastered the people, disturbed the peace of families, and the civil government of the land. There were frequent robberies, burglaries, rapes, rapines, murthers, and barbarous cruelties. Unto some places "they were sent for a punishment; and wherever they came, there 66 was a general outcry. The highways were dangerous, and the "markets unfrequented. They were a terror to all, undoing to many." Rushworth, i. 420. He also mentions a still more flagrant piece of tyranny. Some persons having refused to lend," the council directed "their warrant to the commissioners of the navy, to impress these men "to serve in the ships ready to go out in his Majesty's service." i. 422. Rushworth, i. 477. "not as the only way—not because he is desti- CHAP. "if this be deferred, "tute of others;" and that, The wrongs complained of in the Petition of Right were, -1. Forced loans in defiance of statutes of Edward I. and Edward III. 2. Imprisonment without cause shown, solely by command of King and council, in defiance of Magna Charta, and the 28th of Edward III. 3. Billeting of soldiers and mariners in private houses, against law and custom. 4. Appointment of commissioners to try and punish civil offences by martial law, in defiance of 25 Edward III., and other statutes. The King, who at first returned an evasive answer to the prayer for redress of these abuses, at length reluctantly consented; and the Petition became law. From that time forward, no specious precedents, drawn from the practice of previous reigns, could justify Charles in infringing the rights secured by this Petition. It had become a solemn compact between him and his * Rushworth, i. 479. II. II. CHAP. people; and as such he was bound to regard it. By this act he was solemnly bound to levy no loan or tax but by consent of parliament; to imprison no person but by legal process; to quarter no soldiers on the people; and to try no offences by martial law. The country had thus obtained from the King an important charter. They now wanted only the assurance that it would not be violated. But their hopes were chilled by early signs of insincerity and deceit. Copies of the Petition were circulated by authority, to which were annexed, not the King's final assent, but his first ambiguous answer.* The dissolution of the parliament was hastily and angrily enforced, because the commons refused to vote tonnage and poundage for more than a year, and had framed a remonstrance against the levy of that duty without their consent. Immediately afterwards, the privileges of parliament were grossly violated in the conviction and punishment, by fine and imprisonment, of Eliot, Holles, and Valentine, for words uttered in the House of Commons.† These were measures which confirmed suspicion of the continuance of arbitrary intentions. And if these acts failed to alarm men's minds, the words of Heath, the Attorney-General ‡, sufficed to shake the confidence of the most sanguine. He said the Petition of Right was "no law;" that it was "the duty of the people not to stretch it beyond the "words and intention of the King;" that it is only a confirmation of our ancient liberties ;" and that 66 *Parl. Hist. viii. 333. Rushworth, i. Appendix, 39, 40. + Ibid. viii. 376. with respect to arbitrary imprisonment, "the case "remains in the same quality and degree as it was "before the Petition." Words like these, from such a quarter, might teach men to fear that this "confirmation of our liberties" would not long prevail against the prerogative of the Crown. Nor was expectation deceived. For eleven years there was no parliament; and the history of those years is replete with evasions and violations of that charter, which the last parliament had bequeathed to the nation. CHAP. II. disaffection. Charles, set free by the dissolution from un- Causes of welcome restraint, intimated, in more than one proclamation, that it would be long ere he should summon a parliament again, -a declaration which, says Clarendon, "afflicted many good men," and made them believe there was an intention to alter the form of government, both in church and state, "of which," said they, "a greater instance cannot "be given, than this public declaration that we "shall have no more parliaments."* Such being, then, the determination of Charles, it became his first study to adopt means for raising a revenue, without the assistance of the House of Commons. Recourse was had to numerous exactions some founded on obsolete laws, some of questionable legality, some unquestionably illegal; "supplemental "acts of state were made to supply the defect of laws; obsolete laws were revived and rigorously "executed, wherein the subject might be taught "how unthrifty a thing it was, by too strict a detain * Clarendon, Hist. Reb. i. 118. Ꭰ Ꮞ CHAP. 66 ing of what was his, to put the King as strictly to inquire what was his own." Among these new exactions, was composition for knighthood, founded on a law of Edward II., almost obsolete, requiring service from all holders of land of above 20l. per annum. Much money was exacted by a commission granted for compounding with the possessors of crownlands upon defective titles. The forest laws were rendered a means of oppression; the boundaries of the King's forests exorbitantly extended, and encroachments punished by enormous fines. † Monopolies were a still more extensive source of profit. 66 66 * Clar. Hist. Reb. i. 119. + "The justice seat in Essex hath been kept this Easter week,” writes Garrard, a correspondent of Lord Strafford," and all Essex is "become forest." The bounds of Rockingham forest, as we are told by the same informant, were increased from six miles to sixty, under the jurisdiction of the justice in eyre assisted by five of the judges; and the following were among the fines inflicted;-on Lord Salisbury, 20,000l. ; Lord Westmoreland, 19,000l. ; and Sir C. Hatton, 12,000l.; besides a great many of smaller amount. Nor were the poor spared. There was a commission in execution against cottagers who have not four acres of ground laid to their houses, upon a statute made 31 Eliz., "which vexeth the poor people mightily." See Strafford's Letters, i. 335. 413. 467. ii. 117. "Another advice was given," says Rushworth," to raise a revenue for the King, by granting of commissions "under the great seal for offenders to compound; and the better to "effect the same, some examples were made by sentence in the High "Court of Starchamber against several persons to pay great fines, as for depopulations, nuisances in building between high and low water "mark, for pretended encroachments upon the forests, with other things of that nature; and accordingly commissions were issued out, "and offenders in that kind did compound, which brought in a con"siderable revenue." Rushworth, preface to vol. ii. It is said by the same writer, to have been alleged, that by undue returns procured from jurors, who were threatened in order to make them give a verdict for the crown, the bounds of forests were exorbitantly extended, in defiance of usage of more than 300 years. By these corrupt means many were adjudged to pay ruinous fines, or be ejected from their homes and estates. This grievance was thus attacked in a speech in parliament by Sir John Colepepper: — "I have but one grievance to offer to you; "but this one compriseth many. It is a nest of wasps, a swarm of "vermin which have overcrept the land—I mean the monopolies and "pollers of the people. These, like the frogs of Egypt, have gotten |