The Five Knights
1627 Charles I was very short of money. He needed plenty of it to carry out his disastrous and expensive foreign policies - war with France and with Spain. One measure he tried to use was forced loans.

In March 1627, five Knights :

  • Sir Thomas Darnel
  • Sir John Corbet
  • Sir Walter Earl
  • Sir Edmund Hampden
  • Sir John Hevingham

..well, they refused to pay forced loans and were arrested by order of the King and imprisoned.

The Knights demanded to be released on bail, and in November the King's Bench considered a writ of habeus corpus - which basically demanded reasons for their detention. (Charles said they were there because of His Majesty's 'special commandment')

Well the arguments included reference to the Magna Carta about man's rights and the powers of the King and eventually a decision was made...

The judges refused bail...but also said that the King couldn't just imprison anybody he wanted to...

The Knights were released in 1628..but the arguments continued in Parliament. In an attempt to keep Parliament happy, Charles agreed not to imprison people who did not pay forced loans...but then Parliament came up with...

... the Petition of Right.

 If you moaned about the forced loans or other royally inspired ideas you were quite likely to have soldiers forcibly billeted on you in your private home.