The House of Commons drew up a Petition of Right in 1627, which
expanded upon the principles of Magna Carta and sought to fix
definite bounds between royal power and the power of the law. It
protested the loans compelled under pain of imprisonment and
stated that no tax or the like should be exacted without the
common consent of Parliament. It quoted previous law that "...no
freeman may be taken or imprisoned, or be disseised of his
freeholds or liberties, or his free customs, or be outlawed or
exiled; or in any manner destroyed, but by the lawful judgment of
his peers, or by the law of the land" and that "...no man of what
estate or condition that he be, should be put out of his land or
tenements, nor taken, nor imprisoned nor disinherited, nor put to
death without being brought to answer by due process of law". It
continued that "... divers of your subjects have of late been
imprisoned without any cause showed; and when for their
deliverance they were brought before your Justices by your
Majesty's writs of Habeas Corpus, there to undergo and receive as
the court should order, and their keepers commanded to certify the
causes of their detainer, no cause was certified, but that they
were detained by your Majesty's special command, signified by the
Lords of your Privy Council, and yet were returned back to several
prisons, without being charged with anything to which they might
make answer according to the law.
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