Charles was now left to bear alone the bitter complaints of his people, who had been taxed for the expenses of the fleet, the ill-success of which had cast ridicule not only on England, but on the Protestant cause, and simply enhanced the growing triumphs of the Catholics in France. The King furthermore, was giving great offence to Protestants of all denominations by the toleration which he granted the papists. From the Independents, the growing party of the Puritans, and almost without exception from the Episcopalians, the Roman Catholics of the country met with no quarter. Many patriotic and loyal English men and women had remained faithful to the old creed, keeping spiritual and political conviction absolutely apart; but upon these, baleful reflections were cast by the foreign Jesuit party, and suspicion fell on the most unbigoted and inoffensive. Charles’s leniency towards his Roman Catholic subjects was far less the effect of any sympathy with their doctrines than that of a mistaken policy. His idea in coming to any sort of _entente cordiale_ with them was to make terms for dispensations from the severity of the penal laws existing against them. He wanted the benevolences of them, and forced loans, for the purpose of carrying on his war against Spain, since he could not obtain the needful supplies from Parliament; and the nation objected on the double score of the illegality of such a measure, and the inadvisability of keeping up warfare with the Continent at all. These offences on the King’s part crowned the grievances he had caused by his levy of tonnage and poundage, and the new Parliament which was now summoned inaugurated proceedings by an inquiry into the “national grievances.” In 1628 all this resulted in the bill known as the Petition of Rights, which, after some demur in the Upper House, was finally passed by the lords, and received the royal assent. This bill required the consent of both Houses to the furnishing by anyone of tax, loan, or benevolences. It claimed for the people exemption from enforced quartering upon them of soldiers and seamen. Martial law was to be abolished, and no person to be arbitrarily imprisoned. Matters might now have improved; but Charles sprang a new mine by the tenacity with which he clung to the disputed right of tonnage and poundage. The Commons, unfaithful to their promise to look into the justice of the claim, arrived at the decision that anyone paying it should be held a traitor to his country. The offended King, calling the members of the Commons all “vipers,” once more dissolved Parliament, made peace with France and Spain, and proceeded to act upon his declaration that he would govern without the aid of Parliament.