Today, Americans look back at 1765-1791 as our Foundational era.  In 1775, every English school child looked to the 17^th Century as their own key period of Constitutional tumult and foundation. After Queen Elizabeth died childless, her cousin James I had declared himself a ruler by Divine Right with no earthly limit. His son and successor, Charles I, sought to further increase Royal power and  diminish Parliament by evading Magna Carta rather than openly resisting Parliament’s exclusive right to tax. The King or his advisors hit upon a clever but Constitutionally irritating move: Instead of “taxing” subjects without consent of the Commons, the King commanded  his “loving subjects readily and cheerfully” to “lend” him money. When the Chief Justice refused to cooperate in this obvious evasion of Magna Carta, the King removed him from the bench. Leading men refused to pay these “forced loans” and were imprisoned without indictment or trial, at the “special command of the King.” They attacked their detention and Forced Loans’ Constitutionality in court, arguing that if they could be imprisoned for “a time” at the special command of the King, they could be imprisoned forever. But they lost in Court. “The King hath done it,” declared the new Chief Justice,”and we trust him in great matters.”  

In the end, desperately needing money, Charles faced an angry Parliament who refused to fund him until he agreed to the Petition of Right, by which he waived his claimed prerogative in a permanent binding way. He promised never again to tax subjects without Parliament’s consent, nor imprison them without an indictment and trial, nor impose martial law in time of peace or quarter soldiers among them.  

Like King John with Magna Carta, no sooner had Charles agreed to the Petition and received the revenue, than he violated it and dissolved a protesting Parliament, imprisoning its leaders.