[Footnote 64: 1 Parl. Hist. 1156.] 3. Charles I. proceeded in the steps of his father: he levied forced loans. Thomas Darnel and others refused to pay, and were put in prison on a General Warrant from the king which did not specify the cause of commitment. They brought their writs of _habeas corpus_, contending that their confinement was illegal. The matter came to trial in 1627. Sir Randolf Crewe, a man too just to be trusted to do the iniquity desired, was thrust out of office, and Sir Nicolas Hyde appointed chief justice in his place. The actual question was, Has the king a right to imprison any subject forever without process of law? It was abundantly shown that he had no such right. But the new chief justice, put in power to oppress the people, remembering the hand that fed him, thus decreed,--"Mr. Attorney hath told you that the _king hath done it, and we trust him in great matters_, and he is bound by law, and he bids us proceed by law; ... and we make no doubt but _the king_, if you look to him, he knowing the cause why you are imprisoned, _he will have mercy_; but that we believe that ... he cannot deliver you, but _you must be remanded_." Thus the judges gave the king absolute power over the liberties of any subject.[65] [Footnote 65: 3 St. Tr. 1. See also 2 Parl. Hist. 288; 1 Rushworth and 1 Mrs. Macaulay, 341.] But the matter was brought up in Parliament and discussed by men of a different temper, who frightened the judge by threats of impeachment, and forced the king to agree to the PETITION OF RIGHT designed to put an end to all such illegal cruelty. Before Charles I. would sign that famous bill, he asked Judge Hyde if it would restrain the king "from committing or restraining a subject _without showing cause_." The crafty judge answered, "_Every law_, after it is made, _hath its exposition, which is to be left to the courts of justice to determine_; and although the Petition be granted _there is no fear of [such a] conclusion as is intimated in the question_!" That is, the court will interpret the plain law so as to oppress the subject and please the king! As the judges had promised to annul the law, the king signed it.[66] Charles dissolved Parliament and threw into jail its most noble and powerful members--one of whom, Eliot, never left the prison till death set him free.[67] The same chief justice gave an extrajudicial opinion justifying the illegal seizure of the members,--"that a parliament man committing an offence against the King in Parliament not in a parliamentary course, may be punished after the Parliament is ended;" "that by false slanders to bring the Lords of the Council and the Judges, not in a parliamentary way, into the hatred of the people and the government into contempt, was punishable out of Parliament, in the Star-Chamber, as an offence committed in Parliament beyond the office, and beside the duty of a parliament man."[68] Thus the judges struck down freedom of speech in Parliament.