Petition of Right

Petition of Right, (1628) petition sent by the English Parliament to King Charles I complaining of a series of breaches of law. The petition sought recognition of four principles: no taxation without the consent of Parliament, no imprisonment without cause, no quartering of soldiers on subjects, and no martial law in peacetime. See also petition of right.

The Petition of Right was drawn up by Charles’s third Parliament in as many years. He had maintained a tumultuous relationship with the House of Commons, which did not trust Charles and denied him taxes to finance his war against Spain. After dismissing his second Parliament, he became the latest monarch to impose a forced loan, an effective tax wherein the monarch compelled gifts from his subjects and imprisoned those who did not comply. Parliament found this to be a violation of the spirit of the Magna Carta, which provided that the monarch could not levy taxes without common consent or imprison a free man without cause, and thus drafted the Petition (at the suggestion of Edward Coke) to reclaim the rights of Parliament and of free men and to extract a recommitment from the crown to observe the rule of law. To continue receiving subsidies for his policies, Charles was compelled to accept the petition, but he later ignored its principles. Nevertheless the Petition of Right came to be regarded as a constitutional document of the government of the United Kingdom, alongside other monumental acts such as the Magna Carta and the Bill of Rights (1689).