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 subjects in the just freedom their persons an safety of their estates, according to the laws and estates of the realm,’ but he would not bind himself absolutely by a new law. The result was that Wentworth withdrew from the position which he had taken up, and that, the bill proposed by him having been dropped, the petition of right was brought in, including all the demands of Wentworth’s bill, with an additional one relating to the execution of martial law. Its form was far more offensive to Charles than the hill had been, as it declared plainly that that which had been done by his orders had been done in defiance of existing law, and required that the law should be kept, not altered.

Charles argued that cases might occur above the capacity of the judges, involving, in short, questions of policy rather than of law, and he offered never again to imprison any one for refusing to lend him money. His offence had been too recent to dispose the commons to listen to this overture, and all attempts to modify the petition having failed, it passed both houses on 28 May. Charles was the more anxious to find a way of escape, as an expedition sent to the relief of Rochelle had failed to effect anything; and he was bent on following it up by a larger expedition, which it was impossible to despatch without the subsidies which the commons would only pass on his giving assent, to the petition. The mode in which he attempted to escape was characteristic. He tried to maintain his prerogative, while leaving the commons under the impression that he had abandoned it. Having obtained from the judges an opinion that, even if he assented to the petition, he could still in some cases imprison without showing cause, he then gave an answer to parliament so studiously vague as to give no satisfaction, and then, finding the commons were violently exasperated, gave his consent on 7 June in the ordinary form, though doubtless with the mental reservation that in the terms of the opinion of the judges he was not precluded, in times of necessity, from doing what, according to the latest meaning of the petition, he had acknowledged to be illegal.

Charles got his subsidies; but the commons proceeded with a remonstrance against his government, and especially against the countenance given by him to Buckingham. A still more serious dispute arose out of his rejection of a proposal by the commons to grant him tonnage and poundage for one year only, probably in order to get them to discuss with him the whole question of his right to levy customs without a parliamentary grant. Upon this the commons asserted that if any such Charles right existed he had abandoned it in the petition of right. To this very questionable argument Charles replied that he could not do without tonnage and poundage, and that the abandonment of those duties was ‘never intended by’ the house ‘to ask, never meant, I am sure, by me to grant.' On 26 June he prorogued parliament. The assassination of Buckingham and the failure of the new expedition to Ré quickly followed. Charles never again gave his complete confidence to any one.

The king hoped in the next session to obtain a parliamentary settlement of the dispute about tonnage and poundage. Such a settlement was, however, rendered more difficult by the irritation caused by the seizure of goods for non-payment of those duties. When parliament met in 1629, the commons were also irritated by the line which Charles had taken on the church questions of the day. Not only had he favored the growth of a certain amount of ceremonialism in churches, but he had recently issued a declaration, which was prefixed to a new edition of the articles, in which he directed the clergy to keep silence on the disputes which had arisen with the supporters of Calvinistic or Arminian doctrines. The commons wished Arminian touching to be absolutely suppressed, and their exasperation with the king’s policy in this matter made it more difficult for him to come to terms with them on the subject of tonnage and poundage. Under Eliot’s Leadership they resolved to question Charles's agents, and, on a message from the king commanding them to adjourn, the speaker was violently held down in his chair, and resolutions were passed declaring that the preachers of Arminian doctrines and those who levied or paid tonnage and poundage were enemies of the country. Charles dissolved parliament, and for eleven years ruled without one.

The quarrel between Charles and the House of Commons was practically a question of sovereignty. There had been at first grave differences of opinion between them on the subject of Buckingham’s competence and the management of the war, and subsequently on Charles’s opposition to popular Calvinism in the church. The instrument by means of which each side hoped to get power into its own hands was tonnage and poundage. Without it Charles would soon be a bankrupt. With it he might hope to free himself from the necessity of submitting to the commons. The old idea of government resting upon harmony between the king and parliament had broken down, and the constitution must he modified either in the direction of absolutism or in the direction of popular control.