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).
The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
This article was most recently revised and updated by Adam Zeidan.
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By The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica • Last Updated: Jan 30, 2022 • Edit History
Hear Maria Amidu talk about the techniques used for making a banner in 2015 celebrating the 1628 Petition of Right which was sent to Charles I
Hear Maria Amidu talk about the techniques used for making a banner in 2015 celebrating the 1628 Petition of Right which was sent to Charles I
Examining the techniques used by Maria Amidu to create a banner in 2015 celebrating the 1628 Petition of Right, which was sent to Charles I by the English Parliament.
petition of right, legal petition asserting a right against the English crown, the most notable example being the Petition of Right of 1628, which Parliament sent to Charles I complaining of a series of breaches of law. The term also referred to the procedure (abolished in 1947) by which a subject could sue the crown.
Key People: Sir John Eliot
Related Topics: United Kingdom
At common law the crown, or the sovereign in his official capacity, could not be sued in the king’s courts. Since the king was, historically, the supreme lord of those courts, administering justice in them between his subjects, he was not subject to their jurisdiction. Hence it became a practice, whenever a subject’s real or personal property had come into the possession of the king or his servants without legal right, for the subject to petition the king in council for its restoration. The king then might or might not, at his discretion, refer the suppliant’s petition to one of his courts, usually to the old Court of Exchequer, with a writ directing the judges to do what was just (fiat justitia). In the late 19th century the tasks of deciding whether there was cause for action and of issuing the fiat justitia were left, respectively, to the attorney general and the home secretary.
Although judgment was given in the ordinary manner, the execution of the judgment presented certain difficulties because the courts could not decree execution against the crown and its servants. By the end of the 19th century, judgments in favour of the suppliant were certified by the court to the treasury with the stipulation that they be satisfied out of public funds. In 1947 a new pattern for remedies against the crown was established, doing away with the petition of right.
