2E - Parliamentary radicalism
Parliamentary opposition in 1628–1629 became more assertive while still claiming to defend monarchy, religion and ancient liberties. Explore its leaders, the Petition of Right and the breakdown that led Charles to govern without Parliament.
Opposition and its leaders
Parliamentary radicalism meant an increasingly far-reaching challenge to Charles’s policies, rather than a shared plan to abolish kingship.
MPs could withhold supply, investigate grievances, impeach ministers and assert parliamentary privilege. Their arguments often presented innovation as the danger: unlawful taxation, unfamiliar doctrine or imprisonment by royal command. By claiming to restore established rights they could justify stronger limits on the Crown without declaring themselves enemies of monarchy.
Sir Edward Coke, an experienced lawyer and former chief justice, helped connect opposition to common law, statutes and Magna Carta. John Selden contributed legal scholarship to arguments about imprisonment and parliamentary rights. Sir John Eliot was prominent in attacks on Buckingham and later in the confrontation over religion and customs. John Pym linked Protestant concerns to parliamentary scrutiny, while Sir Robert Phelips pressed grievances and questioned confidence in government. Their emphases differed; the Commons did not act as a modern disciplined opposition party.
Law and political bargaining worked together. If MPs merely complained and then granted the requested taxes, Charles might have little reason to change policy. Making supply conditional on redress increased their leverage. The king could interpret that as an attempt to govern his decisions through financial pressure. MPs regarded it as the exercise of a necessary constitutional function. UK Parliament on the relationship between supply and grievances.
Parliamentary privilege
Rights and protections claimed by Parliament and its members to enable parliamentary work, including freedom of speech in proceedings. Their boundaries and relationship to royal authority remained disputed.
The opposition’s loyalty should not obscure the significance of its demands. Requiring the king to observe enforceable limits could substantially restrict his freedom of action. Conversely, increasing assertiveness should not be treated as proof that all MPs wanted civil war or republican government.
The Petition of Right
The Petition of Right in 1628 sought to turn several recent grievances into an authoritative statement of existing legal protection.
Charles recalled Parliament because military commitments and the costs of war required further finance. MPs offered supply but sought guarantees against the measures used since the 1626 dissolution. Coke helped frame their demands through recognised law and precedent, rather than simply asking Charles to be more generous.
The Petition addressed four connected issues: compulsory financial charges without parliamentary consent; imprisonment without lawful cause; forced billeting of soldiers and sailors; and the use of martial-law commissions in circumstances where ordinary law should operate. It did not establish universal suffrage, abolish prerogative or make Parliament a permanently sitting government. Its significance lay in insisting that royal necessity should not override protected liberties.
Charles initially gave an answer MPs considered insufficiently clear. On 7 June 1628 he gave the recognised form of royal assent. Parliament subsequently granted five subsidies. This was a genuine attempted settlement: MPs hoped to protect liberties while financing the king. Its existence is evidence against a simple account in which neither side would ever negotiate. Petition text in the University of Texas at Arlington’s primary-source collection and the original document held by Parliament.
The remaining dispute was interpretation and enforcement. Charles did not believe the Petition surrendered his entitlement to tonnage and poundage. Opponents saw continued collection as violating the protection they had secured. A constitutional statement could not restore trust if the sides disagreed about which existing powers it restricted. MPs also objected to the publication of an unsatisfactory earlier royal answer with the Petition, showing why the exact form in which a settlement reached the public mattered.
From grievances to the Three Resolutions
The confrontation of March 1629 combined religious opposition, resistance to customs and a challenge to the king’s control of parliamentary proceedings.
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