The special object for which Parliament had been called by the King was the granting of money; but the members were in no mood to let the opportunity pass without securing from the monarch an acknowledgment of their rights in definite form. Accordingly, they appointed Sir Edward Coke, the most distinguished lawyer of the time, to draw up a petition to the King that should embody a declaration of the constitutional privileges on which they reposed their rights. The result was the famous “Petition of Right,” an instrument which, in the history of English liberty, has been only second in importance to the Great Charter itself. The petition asked the King’s assent to a number of propositions, the most important of which were that no loan or tax should be levied without the consent of Parliament; that no man should be imprisoned except by legal process; and that soldiers should not be quartered upon the people without the people’s consent. These propositions introduced nothing new into the Constitution. They professed simply to ask the King’s approval of principles and methods that had been acknowledged and acted upon for hundreds of years. The great significance of the Petition of Right was that it designed to secure the assent of the monarch to a reign of law instead of a reign of arbitrary will. The object of Parliament was to put into definite form a clear expression of the King’s purpose. They desired to know whether his intention was to rule according to the precedents of the English Constitution that had been taking definite form for centuries, or whether, on the contrary, he was determined to build up a system of absolutism similar to that which was very generally coming to prevail on the Continent. The petition passed the two Houses and went to the King for his approval. He gave an evasive answer.[1][A] Parliament was taken by surprise and seemed likely to be baffled. It was a crisis of supreme danger. Sir John Eliot was the first to see that if they were now to thwart the King’s purpose it must be done by availing themselves immediately of the responsibility of Buckingham. He determined that the proper course was a remonstrance to the King; and it was in moving this remonstrance that his great speech was made. [A] Numerals inserted in the course of the work refer the reader to corresponding Illustrative Notes at the end of each volume. On hearing the King’s answer, Parliament, in great perplexity and despondency, immediately adjourned till the next day. When, on the morning of June 3, 1628, the Commons came together, “the King’s answer,” says Rushworth, “was read, and seemed too scant, in regard to so much expense, time, and labor as had been expended in contriving the petition. Whereupon Sir John Eliot stood up and made a long speech, and a lively representation of all grievances, both general and particular, as if they had never before been mentioned.”[2]