Rights of Petition and Religion
The bishops exercised the right to petition preserved in the Magna Carta (1215) (clause 61). The following year Parliament cited James II's trial of the Seven Bishops as a grievance. It explicitly preserved the right of petition in the Bill of Rights (1689).
" . . .the said Lords Spiritual and Temporal and Commons,. . .do in the first place (as their ancestors in like case have usually done) for the vindicating and asserting their ancient rights and liberties declare . . . That it is the right of the subjects to petition the king, and all commitments and prosecutions for such petitioning are illegal;"
These rights of petition for redress of grievances and of religion and conscience were preserved in the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.
Read more about this topic: Seven Bishops
Famous quotes containing the words rights of, rights, petition and/or religion:
“Don’t forget your great guns, which are the most respectable arguments of the rights of kings.”
—Frederick The Great (1712–1786)
“The government of the United States is a device for maintaining in perpetuity the rights of the people, with the ultimate extinction of all privileged classes.”
—Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933)
“Clay answered the petition by declaring that while he looked on the institution of slavery as an evil, it was ‘nothing in comparison with the far greater evil which would inevitably flow from a sudden and indiscriminate emancipation.’”
—State of Indiana, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“I fancy it must be the quantity of animal food eaten by the English which renders their character insusceptible of civilisation. I suspect it is in their kitchens and not in their churches that their reformation must be worked, and that Missionaries of that description from [France] would avail more than those who should endeavor to tame them by precepts of religion or philosophy.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)