hamber to the decision of
private causes;[*****] enlarging the power of the mareschal's and other
arbitrary courts;[******] imprisoning members for freedom of speech in
parliament;[*******] obliging people without any rule to send recruits
of men at arms, archers, and hoblers to the army.[********]

* Cotton, p. 114.

** Cotton, p. 67.

*** Cotton, p. 47, 79, 113.

**** Cotton, p. 32.

***** Cotton, p. 74.

****** Cotton, p. 74.

******* Walsing. p. 189, 190.

But there was no act of arbitrary power more frequently repeated in this
reign, than that of imposing taxes without consent of parliament. Though
that assembly granted the king greater supplies than had ever been
obtained by any of his predecessors, his great undertakings, and the
necessity of his affairs, obliged him to levy still more; and after his
splendid success against France had added weight to his authority,
these arbitrary impositions became almost annual and perpetual. Cotton's
Abridgment of the records affords numerous instances of this kind,
in the first[*] year of his reign, in the thirteenth year,[**] in the
fourteenth,[***] in the twentieth,[****] in the twenty-first,[*****]
in the twenty-second,[******] in the twenty fifth,[*******] in the
thirty-eighth,[********] in the fiftieth,[*********] and in the
fifty-first,[**********]

* Tyrrel's Hist. vol. iii. p. 554, from the records.

** Rymer, vol. iv. p. 363.

*** Page 17, 18.

**** Page 39.

***** Page 47.

****** Page 52, 53, 57, 58.

******* Page 69.

******** Page 76.

********* Page 101.

********** Page 138.

The king openly avowed and maintained this power of levying taxes
at pleasure. At one time, he replied to the remonstrance made by the
commons against it, that the impositions had been exacted from great
necessity, and had been assented to by the prelates, earls, barons,
and some of the commons;[*] at another, that he would advise with his
council.[**] When the parliament desired that a law might be enacted for
the punishment of such as levied these arbitrary impositions he refused
compliance.[***]

* Page 152.

** Cotton, p. 53. He repeats the same answer in p. 60. "Some
of the commons" were such as he should be pleased to consult
with.

*** Cotton, p. 57.

In the subsequent year, they desired that the king might renounce this
pretended prerogat