CHAPTER VII ON THE ENGLISH CONSTITUTION FROM THE ACCESSION OF CHARLES I. TO THE DISSOLUTION OF HIS THIRD PARLIAMENT Parliament of 1625--Its Dissolution--Another Parliament called--Prosecution of Buckingham--Arbitrary Proceedings towards the Earls of Arundel and Bristol--Loan demanded by the King--Several committed for Refusal to contribute--They sue for a Habeas Corpus--Arguments on this Question, which is decided against them--A Parliament called in 1628--Petition of Right--King's Reluctance to grant it--Tonnage and Poundage disputed--King dissolves Parliament--Religious Differences--Prosecution of Puritans by Bancroft--Growth of High-Church Tenets--Differences as to the Observance of Sunday--Arminian Controversy--State Catholics under James--Jealousy of the Court's Favour towards them--Unconstitutional Tenets promulgated by the High-Church Party--General Remarks Page 347 PREFACE The origin and progress of the English Constitution, down to the extinction of the house of Plantagenet, formed a considerable portion of a work published by me some years since, on the history, and especially the laws and institutions, of Europe during the period of the middle ages. It had been my first intention to have prosecuted that undertaking in a general continuation; and when experience taught me to abandon a scheme projected early in life with very inadequate views of its magnitude, I still determined to carry forward the constitutional history of my own country, as both the most important to ourselves, and, in many respects, the most congenial to my own studies and habits of mind.