Petition of Right
The Petition of Right is a petition that the Parliament of England addressed to King Charles I in 1628 . It is an important document in UK constitutional history and the history of human rights .
In it the parliament lodged a complaint against the king, who had circumvented parliament and the Magna Carta on many points. The king tried to rule England alone and to restrict Parliament in its power as much as possible.
In this pamphlet, Parliament therefore complained to the King of abuse of office and made demands that were intended to increase Parliament's weight. In detail, the Petition of Right was directed against:
- War bonds that the king had extorted from his subjects,
- arbitrary arrests under abuse of habeas corpus law ,
- Detentions contrary to the Magna Carta
- arbitrary violations of property rights ,
- the billeting of soldiers in the houses of citizens against their will,
- the martial law imposed by the king and the arbitrary executions that took place during the war.
Parliament made the following general requests:
- Any type of tax or duty must be approved by Parliament.
- Nobody who resists enforced levies may be prosecuted or blackmailed for it.
- The billeted soldiers are to be withdrawn.
- Martial law must be repealed.
- No citizen may be executed under current law without a trial.
The king needed loans that only parliament could approve, and so on June 7th initially agreed to deal with the complaints. A year later, however, he dissolved parliament and ruled absolutistically .
In 1640, for lack of money, he was forced to convene a parliament again, the so-called Short Parliament , which was replaced shortly after by the Long Parliament . Two years later the English Civil War broke out.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Alan Palmer, Veronica Palmer: The Pimlico Chronology of British History. From 250,000 BC to the Present Day (= Pimlico 210). Updated edition. Pimlico, London 1996, ISBN 0-7126-7331-8 , p. 174.