proclamations. The first parliament of Charles I., convoked in 1625,
criticised the policy of the new sovereign and was dissolved. The
second, in 1626, was dissolved to prevent the impeachment of the
king's favorite minister, the Duke of Buckingham. The third, in
1628-1629, drew up the memorable Petition of Right, to which the king
gave reluctant assent, and in which arbitrary imprisonment, the
billeting of soldiers, the establishment of martial law in time of
peace, and the imposition of gifts, loans, benevolences, or taxes
without the consent of Parliament were specifically prohibited.[26]
The fourth of Charles's parliaments, the so-called Short Parliament of
1640, followed a period of eleven years of personal government and
showed no disposition to surrender the rights that had been asserted.
The fifth--the Long Parliament, convoked also in 1640--imprisoned and
executed the king's principal advisers, abolished the Star Chamber and
the several other special courts and councils of Tudor origin,
pronounced illegal the levy of ship-money and of tonnage and poundage
without parliamentary assent, made provision for the assembling of a
parliament within three years of the dissolution of the present one,
and forced the king into a position where he was obliged to yield or
to resort to war.

[Footnote 26: The text of the Petition of Right is
printed in Stubbs, Select Charters, 515-517; Adams
and Stephens, Select Documents, 339-342.]

*30. The Commonwealth and the Protectorate.*--Between the (p. 029)
political theory maintained by the Stuart kings and that maintained by
the parliamentary majority it was found impossible to arrive at a
compromise. The Civil War was waged, in the last analysis, to
determine which of the two theories should prevail. It should be
emphasized that the parliamentarians entered upon the contest with no
intent to establish a government by Parliament alone, in form or in
fact. It is sufficiently clear from the Grand Remonstrance of 1641[27]
that what they contemplated was merely the imposing of constitutional
restrictions upon the crown, together with the introduction of certain
specific changes in the political and ecclesiastical order, e.g., the
abolition of episcopacy. The culmination of the struggle, however, in
the defeat and execution of the king threw open the doors for every
sort of constitutional innovation, and between 1649 and