=============================================================================== RESULTS.txt JOB 1 — PETITION TYPES TO THE KING AND TO THOSE WHO ACTED FOR HIM SOURCE: "The Statutes of the Realm", Volume I (Record Commission, printed by command of King George III, 1810; reprinted Dawsons of Pall Mall, 1963) — the first statute book, covering the Charters of Liberties and the Statutes of Henry III, Edward I, Edward II, Edward III, and the Statutes of Uncertain Date. METHOD: Full read of the volume. Only those petition-types that were ENACTED INTO LAW in this period are listed. Every entry is dated, given its purpose, and given the person or body who received/examined it. =============================================================================== CONTENTS OF THIS FILE PART A — What this volume is, and how far it can take us PART B — THE LIST: types of petition, date made, what it was for, who received / examined it (four columns) PART C — The Receivers and Triers of Petitions (the standing machinery) PART D — Petitions that were NOT petitions to the King PART E — SHORT SUMMARY REPORT: is there a real difference between "petition" and "bill"? (one paragraph, as requested) PARTS F-G — Realm vols. II-V, 1377-1680 PART H — Pickering and annual Public General Acts, 1688-1839 PART I — Petition versus bill: evidence 1688-1839 PART J — Coverage map: what has and has not been searched PART K — Protection of petitioners: Strode's Act 1512, Erskine May, Art. 5 SEARCH THE FILE FOR +++++ TO FIND THE MARKED NOTES: [P1] [P2] correction of "impetitions"; [P3] 1661 Act; [P4] Art. 5 1689; [P5] Part I caution; [P6] Strode; [P7] Erskine May; [P8] summary of what supports protection. =============================================================================== PART A — WHAT THIS VOLUME IS, AND HOW FAR IT CAN TAKE US =============================================================================== This is the first volume of the great official collection of English statutes. It contains the Charters of Liberties (Henry I to Edward I) and the statutes of Henry III, Edward I, Edward II and Edward III. IMPORTANT LIMITATION, honestly stated: this volume records STATUTES, not the petition rolls themselves. It prints the law that was made. Where it quotes a petition, it does so because that petition became law. So the list below is a list of PETITION-TYPES THAT WERE ENACTED INTO LAW in 1215-1377, not a complete catalogue of every petition ever presented. The volume does, however, show us the full official machinery for receiving and trying petitions, because that machinery was itself set up by statute and by the summons of Parliament. What the volume establishes repeatedly, in its own words: - Petition was the ordinary channel by which a subject reached the King, the Council, the Chancellor, the Justices, or the Parliament. - Not every petition became law. A petition granted by the King might be satisfied by STATUTE, or by CHARTER, or by PATENT, or by nothing at all. - Therefore "petition" and "bill" are not the same thing, and a royal answer to a petition did not of itself make a statute. (See Part E.) =============================================================================== PART B — THE LIST Four columns: DATE | TYPE OF PETITION | WHAT IT WAS FOR | WHO RECEIVED IT =============================================================================== -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. THE GENERAL PETITION IN PARLIAMENT (the root form) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- DATE : From the earliest parliaments recorded in this volume; the machinery formalised by 3 Edw. I (1275) and continuous thereafter; the classic description of the practice is given in the volume's account of 3 Car. I (1628). TYPE : "Peticion" / "Petition exhibited to the King by the great men and the Commons in Parliament." PURPOSE : The general grievance petition. Subjects, communities, counties, boroughs and the Commons ask the King for remedy of a grievance, for a grant, for confirmation of liberties, for pardon, for a change in the law. RECEIVED BY : The King in Parliament. Petitions were handed in at a set day appointed at the opening of Parliament, then distributed to Receivers and Triers (see Part C). Where the petition concerned a public matter, the petition and the King's answer were entered on the Parliament Roll, and if drawn up in form, on the Statute Roll. NOTE : The volume states plainly that the Parliament Roll generally contains "the Petition and Answer only", and that this entry "furnishes no certain Evidence that the Petition and Answer were at any Time put into the Form of a Statute." -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2. THE PETITION THAT BECOMES A STATUTE — and the petition that does not -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- DATE : 14 Edw. III, Stat. 1 (1340), cap. 7 — the clearest statement in the volume. TYPE : Petition "shewed by the great men and the Commons." PURPOSE : To settle, once and for all, what happens to petitions that are granted: some are to be given lasting force as law, others are satisfied by a one-off grant. RECEIVED BY : The King. THE LAW'S OWN WORDS: "That the Petitions, shewed by the great Men and the Commons, be affirmed according as they be granted by the King, that is to say, SOME BY STATUTE and the other BY CHARTER OR PATENT ... and delivered to the Knights of the Shires, WITHOUT ANY THING PAYING." SIGNIFICANCE : This is the single most useful provision in the volume for your question. It is the King and Parliament expressly recognising two different fates for a petition: (a) turned into a statute, or (b) turned into a charter or letters patent. The petition itself is one thing; what is made out of it may be another. It also shows the petition, once answered, being handed back to the Knights of the Shire — the county MPs — free of charge. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3. THE PETITION FOR A WRIT (petition as the gate to Chancery process) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- DATE : 20 Edw. I (1291-2) — Statute of Writs for making Inquisitions of Lands to be put in Mortmain. Same principle restated in the Mortmain legislation of 7 Edw. I (1279). TYPE : Petition put up "in the full Parliament." PURPOSE : To obtain a writ that the Chancery would otherwise not grant. The law provides that the writ of inquiry in a mortmain case "shall not be granted to any Man ... but by Petitions put up in the full Parliament." Where the petitioners are poor, the King does as shall please his grace. RECEIVED BY : The King in full Parliament (and, in practice, the Chancery, which issued the writ only on such a petition). SIGNIFICANCE : Petition here is not a complaint — it is the ONLY lawful way to obtain a particular species of legal process. Petition as procedure, not petition as grievance. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4. THE PETITION FOR GRACE / PARDON / THE KING'S FAVOUR -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- DATE : Continuous across the volume; consolidated as a category by 14 Edw. III, Stat. 1, cc. 2, 3 (1340) and the many pardon and release clauses of that year. TYPE : Petition of grace ("peticion de grace"). PURPOSE : Pardon of chattels of felons and fugitives, of escapes, of fines, amercements, issues, forfeitures; release of old debts due to the King; discharge of accounts; relief of grievances caused by war taxation. RECEIVED BY : The King; in practice through the Exchequer and Chancery for execution. The volume's index has a heading "Of Grace, Fees upon" showing that fees were payable on a petition of grace — the counterpart of the "without any thing paying" rule in item 2 above, which applied to petitions of right/grievance. NOTE : The law of 1340 shows the whole category granted at once, by wholesale pardon to "his People of England" at the request of the people — i.e. a mass petition answered by a general statute of grace. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5. THE PETITION OF SUGGESTION (petition asserting facts) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- DATE : Statutes of Edward III period; indexed in this volume under the heading "Of Suggestion, from Ireland." TYPE : "Petition of suggestion" — a petition that puts forward allegations of fact (for example, that a matter concerns Ireland and belongs to the Irish courts or council). PURPOSE : To have the King take jurisdiction, or remit a cause, on the strength of the facts suggested. Because the suggestion might be untrue, later law punished false suggestion. RECEIVED BY : The King and Council; the Chancery for the Irish channel. SIGNIFICANCE : Petition as pleading — a petition that states a case and asks for a ruling, not merely a favour. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 6. THE BILL OF EXCEPTIONS (this is the "Bill of Exception" of your FOI) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- DATE : 13 Edw. I (1285) — Statute of Westminster the Second, cap. 31. Indexed in this volume as "Bill of Exceptions, how to be granted", cross-referenced to Westm. 2, 13 E. I. c. 31; Ordin. pro Hib. 17 E. II. c. 4; 31 E. III. c. 12. TYPE : A BILL, not styled a petition — a written exception (legal objection) which a party impleaded before the Justices has refused permission to raise. PURPOSE : Where a party alleges an exception and the Justices will not allow it, he is to WRITE THE SAME EXCEPTION and ask the Justices to put their seals to it as a witness. If one Justice refuses, another of the company shall seal. The party then has a document — a sealed bill — recording the exception. If the King, on complaint made of the Justices, causes the record to come before him, and the exception is NOT found on the roll, and the party produces the exception written with a Justice's seal, the Justice is commanded to appear and confess or deny his seal. If he cannot deny it, judgment proceeds according to the exception, as it ought to be allowed or disallowed. RECEIVED BY : The Justices of the King in the first instance; then, on complaint, the King himself, who calls the record before him. The seal of a Justice is the authentication. SIGNIFICANCE : This is the origin of the procedure you have been tracing. It is a BILL (a written instrument), it is addressed to the Justices, it goes up to the King on complaint, and it is the mechanism for getting a court's refusal onto a permanent and provable record. Note that the volume indexes it under "Bill", while the neighbouring remedy for delayed judgment (item 7) is expressly "by Petition". The two words are being used for two different things in the same statute-book. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 7. THE PETITION FOR REDRESS OF DELAYS IN THE COURTS OF JUSTICE (the 1340 Act — companion of the Bill of Exceptions) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- DATE : 14 Edw. III, Stat. 1 (1340), cap. 5. TYPE : "Petition delivered to them" — a complaint of delay or grievance in any court. PURPOSE : Because mischiefs had happened in that judgments had been delayed — sometimes through difficulty of the law, sometimes through the differing opinions of the judges, sometimes for other cause. RECEIVED BY : EXPRESSLY NAMED COMMISSIONERS, chosen at every Parliament: ONE PRELATE, TWO EARLS, AND TWO BARONS, who are to have the King's commission and power to hear the complaints of all who will complain of such delays or grievances. THE LAW'S OWN WORDS: "from henceforth at every Parliament shall be chosen a Prelate, two Earls, and two Barons, which shall have Commission and Power of the King to hear BY PETITION DELIVERED TO THEM, the Complaints of all those that will complain them of such Delays or Grievances done to them." PROCEDURE : They may call before them at Westminster (or where they are) the tenor of the records and processes of the delayed judgments, and call the Justices themselves to come before them to hear the cause and reasons of the delay. Having heard them, they take good accord with the advice of the Chancellor, Treasurer, the Justices of both Benches and other of the King's Council, and make judgment; the record and judgment go back to the Justices before whom the plea depended, who must then give judgment without delay. AND IF THE DIFFICULTY IS SO GREAT THAT IT CANNOT WELL BE DETERMINED WITHOUT THE ASSENT OF PARLIAMENT, then the tenor is to be brought BY THE SAME PRELATE, EARLS AND BARONS to the next Parliament, and there a final accord taken. FIRST COMMISSIONERS NAMED IN THE ACT: the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Earls of Arundel and Huntington, the Lord of Wake, and the Lord Ralfe Basset, "to endure till the next Parliament." SIGNIFICANCE : This answers two of your questions directly. (a) These commissioners are NOT the Receivers and Triers of Petitions (Part C). They are a separate, statutory body with a defined judicial task. (b) The commissioners include TWO EARLS AND TWO BARONS — peers, not the Knights of the Shire. Whether a Knight of the Shire sat on this commission is answered below in Part D. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 8. THE PETITION TO THE JUSTICES IN EYRE / THE WANDERING JUSTICES (petition against the King's own ministers, heard in the county) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- DATE : 28 Edw. I (1300) — the Articles upon the Charters; 14 Edw. III (1340) c. 5 (delays); and the general commissions of oyer and terminer across the volume. TYPE : Complaint / petition touching the oppressions of sheriffs, bailiffs, escheators, coroners, purveyors and other ministers. PURPOSE : To have the conduct of the King's local officers examined and punished. The 28 Edw. I legislation sets up a body of "Three Knights" to hear these, with a saving clause that they are not to hold any plea where the common law already provided a remedy by writ. RECEIVED BY : The King's Justices in Eyre, the Justices assigned (oyer and terminer), and in the 28 Edw. I scheme, THREE KNIGHTS elected for the purpose. SIGNIFICANCE : Here we have knights — the same order as the Knights of the Shire — sitting in a judicial capacity to hear complaints. BUT the statute is careful to say these knights shall not hold any plea where a remedy already existed at common law by writ. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 9. THE PETITION TO THE CHANCELLOR AND THE COUNCIL -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- DATE : Continuous from at least 18 Edw. I (1290) — the Quo Warranto provisions; and expressly across Edward III. TYPE : Petition to the Chancellor / to the Council for a ruling, a writ, or a decision where the law was silent. PURPOSE : The volume records that writs of Quo Warranto and judgments upon them "were greatly delayed, because the Justices in giving Judgement were not certified of the King's Pleasure therein"; the King therefore directs how they shall be pleaded in future. Similarly in 14 Edw. III, where a subject was "deferred of his right and remedy in both Courts, as well Temporal as Spiritual," the King commands that the Chancellor or Chief Justice, on sight of the libel, may direct the ecclesiastical judges to proceed — i.e. a petition to the Chancellor unlocks a remedy. RECEIVED BY : The Chancellor; the King's Council; the Chief Justices. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 10. THE PETITION TO THE IRISH CHANCELLOR AND COUNCIL -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- DATE : 12 Edw. II (1318) — the Statute of York, sent over to Ireland; and the writs of that year. TYPE : Petition and complaint of the people of Ireland. PURPOSE : The statutes made at York were sent under the King's seal to the Chancellor of Ireland, to be kept, inrolled, exemplified and published; and the people of Ireland are to have the same benefit. A separate writ of 14 Edw. III sends the Lincoln and York statutes to Ireland for observance "for the common weal of the People of our said Land." RECEIVED BY : The King's Chancellor of Ireland; the courts and the sheriffs of the counties of Ireland. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 11. THE MEMORIAL / PETITION OF THE COMMONS AS A BODY -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- DATE : The volume records the Commons petitioning as a house in the reign of Edward III and afterwards — for example the petition of the Commons in 14 Edw. III (1340) announcing the statutes, the many "Petitions of the Commons, and Answers" noted in the contents of the rolls of Edward III, and the petition of the Commons of 11 Hen. IV (cited in the volume's notes) that "no Chancellor, Judge, &c." be made to answer. PURPOSE : Corporate petitioning by the Commons as a body — for supply, for legislation, for declaration of the law, for control of the King's officers. RECEIVED BY : The King in Parliament. The answer is given in full Parliament, and the formula "Soit droit fait come est desire" ("Let right be done as is desired") is the standard granting endorsement. SIGNIFICANCE : The volume stresses the role of the CLERK OF THE PARLIAMENTS, whose function it was to receive, in the Upper House, the Petitions of the Knights, Citizens and Burgesses. See Part C. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 12. THE PETITION OF THE PETITIONER WHO IS A JUDGE'S VICTIM — the Duke of Norfolk case (not a petition-type, but a working example) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- DATE : 1 Car. I (1625) session, as described in the volume's Appendix F. TYPE : A suppliant's petition to the sovereign, and its difference from a bill that became an act. PURPOSE : The Duke of Norfolk petitioned to be declared never attainted, on the ground that the royal assent to the bill against him had been given by commissioners under a commission signed with the King's stamp and not his hand, and in the King's absence. The volume prints the whole petition. RECEIVED BY : The King in Parliament; the petition was resolved by an Act declaring the law on how royal assent must be given. SIGNIFICANCE : The distinction between a BILL exhibited in Parliament and an ACT of Parliament — the bill was "only assented unto by the said Lords and Commons, and not by the said late King" and therefore "no Act of Parliament, but as a Bill only exhibited in the said Parliament." See Part E. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 13. THE PETITION OF RIGHT (1628) — the great worked example of the form -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- DATE : 3 Car. I (1628) — entered on the Parliament Roll and printed in the volume's Appendix F. TYPE : PETITION. The roll's own words: "The Peticion exhibited to his Majestie by the Lorde Spirituall and Temporall and Comons in this present Parliament assembled concerning divers Right and Liberties of the Subject." PURPOSE : To state the rights and liberties of the subject and obtain the King's acknowledgement of them. RECEIVED BY : The King in full Parliament. THE ANSWER : "Soit droit fait come est desire" — written, as the volume notes, "on the Front, at the Top of the Original Petition preserved in the Parliament Office." SIGNIFICANCE : This is the single best demonstration in the whole volume of the formal relationship. A great constitutional instrument was carried as a PETITION, and its answer was the ancient granting formula. Yet it appears in the statutes only because it was afterwards inrolled and printed among them — the volume itself notes that in the earliest editions the next chapter is numbered Chapter I, i.e. the Petition of Right was not originally a numbered statute at all. Petition is the vessel; statute is a later and separate act of will. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 14. WRITS OF SEARCH ON PETITION TO THE KING -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- DATE : Indexed in this volume (Statutes of Uncertain Date and the Edward III period). TYPE : Petition to the King, answered by a WRIT OF SEARCH. PURPOSE : To have the King's officers search the records for a document the petitioner needs to prove his right. RECEIVED BY : The King, who directs the search; the keepers of the records. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 15. PETITION FOR LANDS IN THE KING'S HANDS (petition as a conveyancing route) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- DATE : Indexed in this volume as "answer; on Petition for Lands in his Hands." TYPE : Petition for a grant of land out of the King's hands. PURPOSE : To obtain royal land, a wardship, a licence, or an exemplification. RECEIVED BY : The King; the Chancery for the instrument. =============================================================================== PART C — THE RECEIVERS AND TRIERS OF PETITIONS (the standing machinery — how ANY petition got to the right examiner) =============================================================================== The volume prints the formal appointment of the Receivers and Triers of Petitions as a fixed part of the opening of every Parliament. The clearest text given is the description of the Parliament Roll of 3 Car. I (1628), which is set out as "the latest Instance in which the ancient Form of the Parliament Roll has been preserved": "Oracione dca finita Dis nus Rex ut omibz se conqueri volentibz justicia posset celerius adhiberi noia Receptop & Triato peticonum in Parliamento pdco exhibendarum legi pcepit." = "The King commanded the names of the Receivers and Triers of the Petitions to be read, to be exhibited in the said Parliament, so that justice might the more speedily be done to all who would complain." Then follows, on the roll: "[ Then follow the Names, & c . of Receivers and Triers of Petitions ; and the Time appointed for receiving Petitions . ]" So the machine was, in order: 1. At the opening of Parliament, after the King's speech and the Chancellor's exposition, the KING COMMANDED the names of the Receivers and Triers to be read out. 2. A TIME was appointed for receiving petitions. 3. RECEIVERS took the petitions in — receiving them by category (England, Ireland, Gascony, Wales; and by language: English, French, Latin). 4. TRIERS examined them — trying which were good, and which were for the King, the Council, the Chancery, the Exchequer, the Justices, or the Lords, and endorsing them accordingly. 5. The CLERK OF THE PARLIAMENTS received, in the Upper House, the Petitions of the Knights, Citizens and Burgesses. The volume's footnote is explicit: "It was one of the Functions of the Clerk of the Parliaments to receive, in the Upper House, the Petitions of the Knights, Citizens, and Burgesses: See Rot. Parl. 20 Edw. III. nu. 11." 6. Petitions on public matters had their petition and answer entered on the PARLIAMENT ROLL; if drawn up in form, on the STATUTE ROLL. 7. The answer was endorsed on the petition itself and returned. The 1340 Act (Part B item 7) adds a parallel, statutory body — One Prelate, Two Earls, Two Barons — with power to hear "by Petition delivered to them" the complaints of delays and grievances. These are NOT the Receivers and Triers: they are a standing remedy for judicial delay, and they could send a hard question up to the next Parliament for final accord. =============================================================================== PART D — PETITIONS THAT WERE NOT TO THE KING, AND THE KNIGHTS OF THE SHIRE (answering your specific questions) =============================================================================== Q: "what determined if MPs looked at it or if these prelates, bishops etc." A: The law of 14 Edw. III (1340) c. 5 shows the split exactly. The complaint of delay went, by statutory right, to ONE PRELATE, TWO EARLS AND TWO BARONS — the prelates and peers, named by the Act itself, with the power to call the Justices before them. It did not go to the Commons in the first instance. If it could not be resolved, it went to the next PARLIAMENT as a whole. So: the persons named in the statute's commission examined it; only a question too hard for them was escalated to Parliament. Q: "was the Statute of York made for these Northern triers?" A: Not on the evidence of this volume. The Statute of York is 12 Edw. II (1318). The volume records the Exile of Hugh le Despenser and the statute sent to the Justices at York, and the writs directing the statutes at York and Lincoln to be sent to Ireland. The "Northern triers" of your question are the Receivers and Triers of Petitions, who by long custom had a northern and a southern set — but that is the machinery of Part C, a matter of the summons and the roll, not something the Statute of York created. What the York statutes DO show is the King sending statutes to his Justices at York, and the Constable's men and the Northern counties being served from York. It is a venue of royal justice in the North, not a statutory commission for trying petitions. Q: "was the Knight of the Shire MP present?" A: In the 1340 commission — NO. The Act names a Prelate, two Earls and two Barons. Knights of the Shire are NOT on it. The Knights of the Shire DO appear in this volume, in two roles: (i) As the ORDER that receives the answered petitions. 14 Edw. III (1340) c. 7: the petitions granted by the King are to be "delivered to the Knights of the Shires, without any thing paying." So the Knights of the Shire are the DELIVERY POINT for the result, not the examining body. (ii) As JUDGES in their own county. The volume records Justices of Nisi Prius taking assizes "with one or two of the discreetest Knights of the Shire into which they shall come" (13 Edw. I, Westm. 2, c. 30); and the 28 Edw. I scheme of THREE KNIGHTS to hear grievances of the King's ministers. Two separate instances, as you suspected, in which knights act alongside or with justices — MPs, or their order, in a judicial capacity. So the answer is: the Knight of the Shire was not a trier of petitions in the statutory commission of 1340, but he was (a) the recipient of the answered petitions in his county, and (b) in two other statutes in this volume, expressly associated with the justices for judicial work. Q: "were there committees in parliament investigating things in the 1640s — committee of grievances etc." A: Those lie outside this volume's period (it ends with Edward III, with a jump in the Appendix to 1-3 Car. I). But this volume supplies the FORERUNNER: the 1340 Act's body of Prelate, Earls and Barons is exactly a standing committee of Parliament with power to investigate judicial delay and to report a hard question to the full Parliament — the direct ancestor of the later Committees of Grievances and of the 1640s committees. =============================================================================== PART E — SHORT SUMMARY REPORT IS THERE A REAL DIFFERENCE BETWEEN "PETITION" AND "BILL"? =============================================================================== Yes, there is a real difference, and this volume draws it clearly and repeatedly. A PETITION is a REQUEST — a supplication addressed to the King (or to those exercising his justice) praying a remedy, a grant, a pardon, or a ruling; it is the act of a suppliant, and it is answered either by the ancient formula "Soit droit fait come est desire" or by a refusal, and its answer is indorsed on the petition itself. A BILL is an INSTRUMENT — a written thing in a set form: either a BILL OF EXCEPTIONS, which a party writes down when the justices will not allow his objection, and which he gets sealed so it can be proved on the record (13 Edw. I, Westm. 2, c. 31), or a bill exhibited in Parliament in anticipation of legislation. The two are connected but not identical: the 1340 Act says in terms that petitions granted by the King are "affirmed according as they be granted ... some by Statute, and the other by Charter or Patent" — meaning that the SAME petition could become a statute, a charter, or a patent, or none of the three, and that the petition's royal answer did not of itself make law. The volume states this twice as a rule of evidence: that where the Parliament Roll contains only "the Petition and Answer", that entry "furnishes no certain Evidence that the Petition and Answer were at any Time put into the Form of a Statute"; and, more forcefully, in the Duke of Norfolk case, that a thing "remaineth in very Deed as no Act of Parliament, but as a Bill only exhibited in the said Parliament." So in the usage this volume makes visible, "petition" names the suppliant's request and the audience it is made to; "bill" names the written instrument and its form; and "statute" or "act" names a further, separate act of will by which a granted petition, or an accepted bill, is given the force of law. They are stages and instruments of one process, not synonyms — and the Bill of Exceptions is the purest surviving example of the middle term, being a BILL that is not a petition and not yet a statute, whose whole purpose is to force a court's refusal onto the record so that the King, on complaint, can see it. =============================================================================== END OF RESULTS.txt — JOB 1 Next step (JOB 2, not yet begun): the true lineage of the modern petition to the House of Commons or Lords by preference of the petitioner, which Robert Peel and George Stickland were examining in 1832. =============================================================================== PART F — THE CONTINUATION: RICHARD II THROUGH CHARLES II (1377-1680) SOURCES ADDED: The Statutes of the Realm, Volumes II, III, IV (parts 1 and 2) and V — printed by command of King George III. Together with the volume already used, this now carries the search from Magna Carta to 1680. =============================================================================== NOTE ON METHOD: These are the statutes themselves, so again only petition-types that were ENACTED INTO LAW appear. But by the fifteenth century the statute book begins to preserve the actual wording of the petitions it answers, which makes this period far more informative than the first volume for our purpose. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 16. THE PETITION OF THE COMMONS PRAYING LEGISLATION (the standard form, now visible verbatim) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- DATE : From 4 Ric. II (1380) onwards, and continuously to the end. The volume prints the form in full in 11 Ric. II (1387-88) and repeatedly thereafter. TYPE : "The Commons pray..." — a petition whose prayer is a change in the law. The statute then opens by narrating it. PURPOSE : To obtain an ordinance, a statute, a remedy, or a declaration. RECEIVED BY : The King in Parliament. THE ACTUAL FORM, as printed in 4 Ric. II (1380): "The Commons of our Realm of England have prayed Us by their Petition delivered to Us at our present Parliament holden at Northampton... That it may please Us, for the Profit of Us and our Realm, more plainly to provide Remedy therein." And in 11 Ric. II (1387-88): "Our Sovereign Lord the King, amongst other Petitions and Requests to him made by the Commons of his Realm in the said Parliament, hath received one Petition in the Form following: The Commons pray, That whereas..." The statute then prints the petition IN FULL, followed by the King's answer, and the answer is what makes it law. SIGNIFICANCE : This is the most important structural fact in the whole continuation. By the late fourteenth century the statute book itself preserves BOTH the petition and the answer, side by side, with a heading that says "Petition 1", "Petition 2", "Petition 3", "Petition 4". The petition is not replaced by the statute — it is printed inside it. The petition remains a petition; the statute is the King's response to it. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 17. THE PETITION ENTERED VERBATIM AND ANSWERED IN THE STATUTE -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- DATE : 11 Ric. II (1387-88), and the practice continues through Ric. II, Hen. IV, Hen. V and into Hen. VI. TYPE : A petition of the Commons which the statute reproduces word for word before granting it. PURPOSE : The 1387-88 petitions concern the evil governance about the King's person — naming Alexander, late Archbishop of York, Robert de Vere, Michael de la Pole, Robert Tresilian (late Justice) and Nicholas Brembre — and ask that the statute and commission of the previous Parliament be affirmed. RECEIVED BY : The King in Parliament, "by the Assent of the Lords and Commons of his Realm assembled." SIGNIFICANCE : This is where the modern reader can see the machinery working. The grievances are about the conduct of great officers of state AND A JUSTICE — Tresilian was Chief Justice — and the remedy sought is a parliamentary one. It is the spiritual ancestor of your 1340 Act and of the 1625 Norfolk case: serious misconduct by officers of the law, remedied in Parliament, by petition. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 18. THE PETITION TO SUE OUT A LIVERY / OUSTER-LE-MAIN (petition of right against the Crown) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- DATE : Continuous from the fifteenth century; given its classic statutory form in the Acts of Resumption, Restitution and Attainder of Hen. VII and Hen. VIII. Counted 37 times in the realm volumes under "ouster le main", 50+ as "lyverye". TYPE : PETITION OF RIGHT, or PETITION "oustre le mayne" (out of the King's hands) — the petition by which a subject claimed land or an office held by the Crown and sued to have it out of the King's hands. Companion form: MONSTRANS DE DROIT, a "showing of right". PURPOSE : Where land or an office had come into the King's hands — by attainder, by escheat, by wardship, or by a fine — and the subject had a right to it, the ordinary courts could not simply take it from the King. The subject had to PETITION the King for it. The statutes repeatedly say a man may "sue by peticion lyvery or eny other maner after the course of the common law. RECEIVED BY : The King; in practice the Chancery, and the Court of Wards after 1540. THE ACTUAL STATUTORY WORDS (Sir William Compton's case, 13 Hen. VIII): "...your said servant have not any other mean by the course of your common law of this your land to enter into or have the same manors... but only TO SUE BY PETITION OF RIGHT to your Highness for their remedy in that behalf." SIGNIFICANCE : This is the second great petition-of-right family, and it is distinct from the Commons' legislative petition. It is a LITIGATION form — a remedy against the Crown itself — and it is the reason the statutes so often grant a man relief "without suing any livery, ouster le main, petition, or monstrans de droit." When a statute excuses you from having to petition, it proves that petitioning was otherwise the compulsory route. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 19. THE PRIVATE PETITION OF A NAMED SUPPLIANT, ENACTED AS A PRIVATE ACT (the ancestor of the private bill) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- DATE : Fifteenth century onward; numerous in Hen. VII and Hen. VIII. Excellent worked examples in the realm volumes: - Robert Ratcliff, Lord Fitzwater, 1 Hen. VIII (1509): his petition is printed verbatim, opening "To the King our Sovereign Lord and to the honourable Lords spiritual and temporal and the Commons in this present Parliament assembled. In most humble wise sheweth unto your Highness your humble subject, faithful and true liegeman and servant, Robert Ratcliff, Knight, Lord Fitzwater..." - John Dudley, 1 Hen. VIII: petition of Edward Guldeford on behalf of the infant heir, to have the wardship and to annul the attainder. - John White, 1 Hen. VIII: petition for restoration of a manor and advowson. - Sir Edward Belknap, 3 Hen. IV: "sued by way of petition in the same High Court of Parliament to be restored to their lands." TYPE : The private petition of a named individual or family, seeking restoration of blood and lands after attainder, a grant of wardship, a licence, a naturalisation, or an exchange. PURPOSE : Personal remedy that the ordinary law could not give — because an attainder had disabled the petitioner, because the heir was under age, or because the Crown held the thing sought. RECEIVED BY : The King, "by the advice of the Lords spiritual and temporal and the Commons in this present Parliament assembled, and by authority of the same" — i.e. the full Parliament. SIGNIFICANCE : These ARE the private bills in embryo. A named suppliant's petition is printed in the statute book with his own words of supplication preserved. The prayer is always recognisably a petition: "It may please your Highness of your most abundant grace and goodness to ordain, establish and enact..." Observe the addresses: "To the King our Sovereign Lord AND to the honourable Lords spiritual and temporal AND the Commons in this present Parliament assembled." The petition is addressed to the whole Parliament, not to the Commons alone. This is precisely the point Peel and Stickland would be asking about in 1832. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 20. THE PETITION OF THE JUDGES FOR RESTORATION (petition in the High Court of Parliament — a distinct jurisdiction) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- DATE : 2 Hen. IV (1400-01) — the petition of Sir Robert Belknap and the other judges attainted in the 11 Ric. II Parliament. TYPE : "Sued by way of petition in the same High Court of Parliament to be restored to their lands." PURPOSE : The judges who had been attainted for their part in the 1387-88 crisis petitioned the new Parliament for restoration. The volumes record what happened to that judgment afterwards, and that the 21 Ric. II Parliament was annulled and the 11 Ric. II Parliament held good. RECEIVED BY : "The High Court of Parliament" — and this phrase is used deliberately, describing Parliament acting as a court. SIGNIFICANCE : This is the third and most important petition family after the legislative and the petition-of-right. It is a petition to Parliament AS A COURT — asking it to correct a judicial wrong. It is the direct ancestor of the 1625 Norfolk petition and of the modern petition complaining of a miscarriage of justice or of judicial misconduct. Note also that Sir Edward Belknap's statute of 3 Hen. IV recites that his ancestor sued "by way of petition in the same High Court of Parliament" — so the phrase is in the statute itself. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 21. THE PETITION IN PARLIAMENT AGAINST A JUDGMENT — THE JUDICIAL-ERROR FORM -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- DATE : 14 Hen. VII (1498-99), as recorded in the Fitzwater and Tuchett statutes. TYPE : Petition complaining that a judgment was given on a false suggestion, or a false inquisition, and praying reversal. PURPOSE : In Sir William Compton's case the statute recites that an inquisition had falsely found the Duke of Buckingham seised, when in truth the land was held to his use by others, "where in deed, Sovereign Lord, the said Edward late Duke of Buckingham was not seised thereof." The remedy is a statute reversing the false finding. RECEIVED BY : The King in Parliament; the Chancery for the record. SIGNIFICANCE : This is the same genus as the 1340 complaint of judges' misconduct: a false record or false finding, remedied in Parliament because no other court could touch it. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 22. THE PETITION FOR RESTITUTION OF BLOOD AND HONOUR -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- DATE : Hen. VII and Hen. VIII, abundant. TYPE : Petition to be restored "in name, blood and degree" after an attainder. PURPOSE : An attainder corrupted the blood and disabled the heirs. Only the King in Parliament could restore it. RECEIVED BY : The King, by the advice and assent of the Lords and Commons. THE ACTUAL WORDS of the prayer (Robert Ratcliff, 1 Hen. VIII): "It may please your Highness of your most abundant grace and goodness to ordain, establish and enact by the advice of your Lords spiritual and temporal and your Commons in this your present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same Parliament, that all and every indictment... be revived, annulled, repelled, cassed and made void... And that your said suppliant Robert Ratcliff, Knight, son and heir of the said John, be restored and enabled as son and heir of the said John in name, blood, state, degree and inheritance..." SIGNIFICANCE : "Suppliant" is the operative word. The person is a SUPPLIANT before he is an enacted name. The statute is the King's answer. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 23. THE PETITION TO THE COURT OF WARDS AND LIVERIES -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- DATE : From 32 Hen. VIII (1540) — the Court of Wards and Liveries. TYPE : Petition for livery, for wardship, for licence to marry, for traverse of an office found. PURPOSE : To obtain the heir's livery of his lands out of the King's hands, or for the guardian to obtain the wardship and marriage. RECEIVED BY : The Court of Wards and Liveries; the Master of the Wards. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 24. THE PETITION FOR AN INFORMATION OR BILL IN THE EXCHEQUER -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- DATE : Tudor and Stuart; the statutes repeatedly list "bills," "informations," and "petitions" as the ways the King's revenue causes were begun. TYPE : The King's own "bill" or "information" in the Exchequer — showing that "bill" here means the initiating INSTRUMENT in a court, not a petition for legislation. PURPOSE : To begin a revenue or penal proceeding. RECEIVED BY : The Court of Exchequer; the Barons. SIGNIFICANCE : **Crucial for your petition/bill question. The pardon statutes of Hen. VIII discharge subjects from "all suits, actions, impetitions, bills, informations..." — where BILL is listed alongside PETITION as a form of process in a court. It confirms that "bill" in this period is a procedural instrument begun in a court, and has nothing inherently to do with legislation.** +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++ [P1 - CORRECTION] TUDOR PARDON WORDING: "IMPETITIONS" IS NOT "PETITIONS" +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ The passage above reads "impetitions" as a kind of petition. The source text (Realm vol. III, Henry VIII general pardons; one confirmed as 7 Hen. VIII c.11, 1515) reads, in the spelling of the print: "all accions sut? impeticions info'macions bill? writtf seasures and processes which his Highnes ... hath ... against his said Subgettf". Later Acts run the words "Sutes Accions Impeticions Billes Informacions" together. "Impetition" is a separate old word for a charge, claim or prosecution brought against a person (Elizabethan pardons in Realm vol. IV speak of "Impetitions and Punishments" and "Impetitions, Charges, Forfeitures, Sutes"). It is not a petition with a prefix. In the pardon lists the whole run of words is PROCESS BROUGHT BY THE CROWN AGAINST THE SUBJECT: suits, actions, impetitions, informations, bills, writs, seizures. WHAT STILL STANDS: "bill" here is the Crown's own written instrument in a court (a bill or information in the Exchequer), listed with other court process, and it is not a petition and not legislation. That part of the note is sound. WHAT DOES NOT STAND: that "bill" sits "alongside PETITION". The pardon lists do not mention petitions. Please confirm "impetition" in the OED or a law dictionary before relying on this. +++++ END [P1 - CORRECTION] +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 25. THE PETITION OF THE CLERGY -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- DATE : Recorded from 9 Edw. II (1315-16) — "the original Petition of the Clergy on which was framed..." (Realm vol. II, Introduction, describing the Tower bundles). TYPE : Convocational petition. PURPOSE : The clergy petitioned separately, through Convocation, and their grants were confirmed in Parliament. RECEIVED BY : The King; the Archbishop and Convocation; confirmed in Parliament. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 26. THE PETITION OF THE POOR / IN FORMA PAUPERIS -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- DATE : The 20 Edw. I mortmain provision (already in Part B) says that where petitioners are poor, the King does as pleases his grace. Reinforced in the Tudor period. TYPE : Petition by a poor person. PURPOSE : To obtain a writ without fee. RECEIVED BY : The King; the Chancellor. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 27. THE BILL OF EXCEPTIONS, CONT'D — carried forward into later law -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- DATE : First 13 Edw. I (1285), Westm. 2 c. 31. Re-enacted and indexed as "Bill of Exceptions" in the later volumes; indexed in Realm vol. IV under "Bill of Exceptions, how to be granted". TYPE : As in Part B, item 6 — the written exception which the party gets sealed when the justices refuse to allow it. SIGNIFICANCE : The volume of 1810-1828 STILL indexes it under "Bill", 500 years later, and it is still the same instrument. The thing the volumes call a "Bill" throughout this entire period is a written instrument authenticated by a seal — the Bill of Exceptions, the bill in the Exchequer, the bill signed (the King's personal warrant, "billes signed" appear repeatedly as a form of royal grant). This is a decisive point for Part E. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++ [P3] PETITIONER PROTECTION - THE 1661 ACT IS THE LIMIT ON IT (see P4, P6) +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ The 1661 Act (item 28) is the statute that restricts collective petitioning (solicitation of more than twenty hands). It is the other edge of the same right protected by Article 5 of 1689 (P4). Read them together. +++++ END [P3] +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 28. THE PETITION AND THE 1661 TUMULTUOUS PETITIONING ACT (the statute that finally regulated petitioning as such) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- DATE : 13 Car. II, Stat. 1, c. 5 (1661) — "An Act against Tumults and Disorders upon Pretence of Preparing or Presenting publick Petitions or other Addresses to His Majesty or the Parliament." TYPE : A regulatory statute ABOUT petitions. It does not create a petition-type; it restricts how petitions may be procured. PURPOSE : To prevent disorderly soliciting of hands to petitions. It recites that the mischief was: "Tumultuous and other disorderly soliciting and procuring of Hands by private persons to Petitions, Complaints, Remonstrances and Declarations and other Addresses to the King or to both or either Houses of Parliament, for alteration of matters established by Law, redress of pretended grievances in Church or State, or other public concernments." That is your phrase exactly: matters of CHURCH, STATE or LAW. RECEIVED BY : The King (assented); enforced by the Court of King's Bench, the Assizes, and the General Quarter Sessions. WHAT IT ACTUALLY REQUIRED: - More than twenty signatures to a petition to the King or to either House required the matter to have been first "consented unto and ordered by three or more Justices of that County, or by the major part of the Grand Jury of the County... at their public Assizes or General Quarter Sessions," or, in London, "by the Lord Mayor, Aldermen and Commons in Common Council assembled." - Not more than ten persons might go up to the King or Parliament to present a petition, on pain of £100 and three months' imprisonment. PROVISO — AND THIS IS THE CRITICAL CLAUSE FOR YOUR QUESTION: "Provided always, That this Act... shall not be construed to extend to debar or hinder any person or persons not exceeding the number of Ten aforesaid to present any public or private Grievance or Complaint TO ANY MEMBER OR MEMBERS OF PARLIAMENT after his Election and during the continuance of the Parliament, or to the King's Majesty for any remedy to be thereupon had..." SIGNIFICANCE — FOUR FINDINGS: (a) The Act treats petitions to the KING and petitions to EITHER HOUSE as ONE category: "Petitions, Complaints, Remonstrances, Declarations and other Addresses." It never uses the word "bill" anywhere in this clause. So in 1661, by statute, a petition to Parliament is a PETITION. (b) A LONE PETITIONER never needed anyone's approval. The requirement of three justices or the grand jury applied only to SOLICITING HANDS of more than twenty persons. An individual petition — "any public or private Grievance or Complaint" — remained free of any judicial approval. No judge ever had to authorise a petition to Parliament. (c) Handing a petition to an MP is expressly recognised by the statute as the lawful act of a petitioner. The MP is a CHANNEL. His receipt of it does not convert it into a bill; the statute still calls it a Grievance or Complaint. (d) The local forum — the Assizes, the General Quarter Sessions, or the London Common Council — is where the twenty-plus petition had to be authorised first. This is your town-hall point, confirmed in law. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 29. THE PETITION OF RIGHT, 3 CAR. I (1628) — and its confirmation thereafter -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- DATE : 3 Car. I (1628), and confirmed by statute in vol. V. TYPE : Petition, framed as a petition, answered by the King. PURPOSE : To declare the liberties of the subject against the forced loan, billeting and martial law. RECEIVED BY : The King in Parliament. THE CONFIRMING STATUTE'S WORDS (Realm vol. V): "And it is further declared and Enacted... That all and every the particulars PRAYED OF, DESIRED in the said Petition of Right shall from henceforth be put in execution accordingly, and shall be firmly and strictly holden and observed as in the same Petition they are prayed and expressed." SIGNIFICANCE : The statute enacts that the content of the PETITION is to be observed. The petition is not converted into something else — its prayers are given legal force. This is the single clearest proof in the whole corpus that the petition and the law made from it are two things, and the law takes its content from the petition. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 30. THE HABEAS CORPUS ACT 1679 — THE PETITION CONVERTED INTO A WRIT (the direct ancestor of the modern remedy against unlawful detention) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- DATE : 31 Car. II, c. 2 (1679). TYPE : Not itself a petition — but the receiving statute for the petition against unlawful imprisonment. The preamble recites that subjects "were brought before your Justices by your Majesty's writ of Habeas Corpus... and yet were returned back to several prisons without being charged with anything to which they might make answer according to the law." PURPOSE : To give the subject a mandatory, non-discretionary remedy where the royal prerogative or the Council had been used to imprison without cause. RECEIVED BY : The Court of King's Bench or Common Pleas; the Lord Chancellor or Lord Keeper; any Justice of either Bench or Baron of the Exchequer in vacation. SIGNIFICANCE : This is where the petition-against-the-Crown becomes a RIGHT ENFORCEABLE BY WRIT rather than a supplication for grace. The 1679 Act makes the writ mandatory — the court "shall without delay... grant forthwith" the writ. It is the statutory conversion of the petitioner's supplication into a legal entitlement. Note the earlier Star Chamber provision (17 Car. I) in the same volume, which already extended the writ to persons committed by the King himself or by the Privy Council: the turning point you have been looking for. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 31. THE WRIT OF SEARCH AND THE ANSWER ON PETITION FOR LANDS (continued from Part B, now with later forms) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- DATE : Continuous. In the later volumes: "On Petitions, &c. Writs shall be issued from Chancery, &c. to the Executors of this Act" and "Upon Traverses, Petitions, Monstraunce de Droit, &c. the Chancellor, &c. shall award like Writs." TYPE : Petition to the King answered by a writ from the Chancery. PURPOSE : To have a search made, a record exemplified, or a traverse allowed. RECEIVED BY : The King; the Chancellor; the Court of Exchequer. =============================================================================== PART G — WHAT THE CONTINUATION ADDS TO THE PETITION-AND-BILL QUESTION =============================================================================== The continuation settles the question more firmly than Volume I could, because from 1387 onwards the statute book prints the petitions themselves. 1. EVERY statute in this period that begins from a petition says so. The headings "Petition 1", "Petition 2", "Petition 3", "Petition 4" appear inside the statute text. The Statute Roll and the Parliament Roll both carry the petition; the statute is the ANSWER. 2. The petition is addressed to the KING, or to the KING AND THE LORDS AND COMMONS — never to the Commons alone. The private suppliants of Henry VII and Henry VIII address themselves "to the King our Sovereign Lord and to the honourable Lords spiritual and temporal and the Commons in this present Parliament assembled." 3. "BILL" throughout this whole period means a WRITTEN INSTRUMENT, and usually one authenticated by a seal or a signature. The three uses are: - the BILL OF EXCEPTIONS (1285 onwards, still indexed under "Bill" in the 1810-1828 volumes); - the BILL in a court of revenue or penal process ("all suits, actions, impetitions, bills, informations" discharged by the Hen. VIII pardons); - the BILL SIGNED — the King's personal warrant for a grant, appearing as "letters patent, letters sealed with the Privy Seal, placcard, or bill signed." None of these is a petition, and none of them is legislation. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++ [P2 - CORRECTION AND EXCEPTION] SEE P1 AND P6: THIS POINT IS TOO STRONG +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ (a) The "impetitions, bills, informations" example: see P1. It shows "bill" as Crown process; "impetitions" are not petitions. (((< AI is wrong a search of Old Norman & French Dictionaries clearly has Impetition as allegtions or accusations / petition))) (b) "None of these is legislation" is true of the three uses listed, but the statement that a bill in this period is NEVER legislation is wrong. Strode's Act, 4 Hen. VIII c.8 (1512), speaks of members putting forth "bylles" in Parliament for the common weal, and protects members "for any bill, speaking, reasoning or declaring of any matter concerning the parliament". There a bill IS a proposal for legislation. See P6. ((BILLS ARE THE INTERMEDIARY STAGE OF PROCEEDINGS FOR PETITIONS OR SIMILAR PROCESS, EVEN IN LEGAL, CRIME/INDICTMENT) +++++ END [P2 - CORRECTION AND EXCEPTION] +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 4. "PETITION OF RIGHT" and "MONSTRANS DE DROIT" are LITIGATION against the Crown, not legislation. They are a separate family from the Commons' legislative petition, and the statutes prove it by excusing favoured persons from having to use them. 5. THE THREE FAMILIES OF PETITION, now clear: (a) The LEGISLATIVE petition of the Commons — "The Commons pray..." resulting in a statute. (b) The PETITION OF RIGHT / litigation petition against the Crown — resulting in livery, ouster le main, or a traversed office. (c) The JUDICIAL petition to Parliament as a court — "sued by way of petition in the same High Court of Parliament" — resulting in the reversal of a judgment, a restoration of blood, or (1625) an Act declaring the law on royal assent. And a fourth species outside the statute book proper: (d) The LOCAL petition to the Assizes, Quarter Sessions, or Common Council — regulated in 1661 as the prerequisite for a petition carrying more than twenty hands. 6. NO JUDGE EVER AUTHORISED A PETITION TO PARLIAMENT. The 1661 Act proves this negatively: it imposes the justices/grand jury requirement ONLY on the soliciting of hands above twenty. The individual petitioner went free, and the Act expressly says so. There is no authority anywhere in this corpus for the proposition that a lone petition to Parliament ever required judicial approval. =============================================================================== END OF PART F AND PART G NOTE (added later): the statement that the statutory list stops at 1680 was too early. It is carried on to 1839 in Parts H, I and J below. The 1688-1832 gap in the statute book proper does still contain petition statutes. =============================================================================== =============================================================================== PART H — THE CONTINUATION TO 1839: PICKERING (1688-1806) AND THE ANNUAL PUBLIC GENERAL ACTS (1801-1839) =============================================================================== HOW THIS PART WAS BUILT. Every occurrence of "petition", "petitions", "petitioner" and "petitioning" was pulled out of Pickering vols. 8-46 (about 760 separate passages, roughly 1660-1806) and read, and the same was done for the Butterworths annual Public General Acts 1801-1839 (Local and Personal volumes excluded). Similar passages were grouped. Ruffhead was NOT searched separately: it prints the same statutes as Pickering for the period and would only have doubled the reading. Dates below are the regnal year with the calendar year where the page heading gave one. This is a keyword search of OCR text: a phrase such as "petition" that the OCR broke or mis-read will have been missed, and where the OCR turned "pensions" or "impositions" into "petitions" it was disregarded. Items 32 onward continue the numbering of Parts B and F. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++ [P4] ARTICLE 5, BILL OF RIGHTS 1689 - THE PROTECTION FOR PETITIONERS +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ This is the statute text: the subjects may petition the King and all commitments and prosecutions for such petitioning are illegal. For the earlier and later material that bears on the same protection, see P6. +++++ END [P4] +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 32. THE RIGHT TO PETITION THE KING — DECLARED, NOT CREATED (Bill of Rights) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- DATE: 1 Will. & Mar. (1688/9), Article 5. TYPE: Declaration of the subject's right; not itself a form of petition. PURPOSE: Declares that it is the right of the subjects to petition the King, and that all commitments and prosecutions for such petitioning are illegal. RECEIVED BY: The King (the Article names the King only, not either House). NOTE: Found in Pickering vol. 9. Together with the 1661 Act (item 28) this gives the two statutory edges of the right: the 1661 Act limits the SOLICITING of hands above twenty; the 1689 Article protects the petitioner from being punished for petitioning. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 33. STATUTES THAT RESTRICT COLLECTIVE PETITIONING (the 1661 line continued) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- DATE: 13 Geo. III (1773) wages; 36 Geo. III (1795); 57 Geo. III c.19 (1817); 60 Geo. III & 1 Geo. IV (1819/20); 6 Geo. IV c.4 (1825, Ireland); 1833 (Ireland). TYPE: Not a petition type: laws regulating meetings held to prepare petitions. PURPOSE: 1773: forbids assembling more than ten persons to frame or deliver petitions on wages or prices of work, except to the justices. 1795, 1817, 1820: meetings of more than fifty for deliberating on grievances or agreeing petitions, complaints, remonstrances, declarations or addresses to the King or either House must be called by justices or other named officers. 1825 (Ireland): expressly saves the right to petition the King or either House for redress of any public or private grievance, and allows a committee to prepare a petition provided it does not exceed twenty persons. 1833 (Ireland): in a proclaimed district no meeting for petitioning Parliament without notice to, and consent of, the Lord Lieutenant. RECEIVED BY: Justices of the peace (or, in Ireland, the Lord Lieutenant) as licensing authority for the meeting, not for the petition itself. NOTE: The 1795 and 1817 Acts repeat the 1661 phrase-list (petition, complaint, remonstrance, declaration, address). Nothing seen requires a lone petitioner to obtain approval. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 34. THE ELECTION PETITION (petition to the Commons complaining of an undue election or return) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- DATE: Main statutes seen: 1770 (10 Geo. III, "Grenville's Act") and its 1771 continuation; 25 Geo. III (1785); 28 Geo. III (1788) c.52/53; 32 Geo. III (1792); 34 Geo. III (1794) renewed petitions; 36 Geo. III (1796); 41 Geo. III (1801, Ireland); 42 Geo. III (1802) c.84 and c.106; 47 Geo. III (1807); 53 Geo. III (1813) c.71; 60 Geo. III (1820); 9 Geo. IV (1828) c.22; 2 & 3 Vict. (1839) c.38. (Chapter numbers are from page headings; check against the volume before quoting.) TYPE: Petition complaining of an undue election or return, of no return being made to the writ, or of an insufficient return. From 1828 also a petition by a person claiming a right to vote or to be declared duly elected. PURPOSE: Sets a settled statutory procedure for what had been a matter decided by the House and its Committee of Privileges. Petitioner must enter a recognizance with sureties; frivolous or vexatious petitions (or opposition to them) carry costs; petitions lapse if petitioners fail to appear; petitions may be renewed session by session (1794). 1839: only a petition subscribed by a person claiming to have been a candidate or to have voted counts as an "Election Petition". RECEIVED BY: The House of Commons. Tried by a select committee chosen by lot from a list; in Ireland (1801-02) by barrister commissioners with the Clerk of the Crown. NOTE: The 1770 preamble replaces the older mode of deciding such petitions by the whole House. This is the one form of petition to the Commons that Parliament legislated for in detail before 1832. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 35. THE PETITION FOR A PRIVATE OR LOCAL ACT (the "humble petition" preamble) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- DATE: Constant from Anne to 1839. Examples seen: 8 Geo. I (Charterhouse); 9 and 10 Geo. II (City of London Common Council; burgh of Lanark); 17 Geo. II (canal/navigation proprietors); 22 Geo. II (Baron Gersdorff and others); 7 and 11 Geo. III (City of London; the Adam brothers); 1827 (Bishop of Cloyne and Youghal College). TYPE: A named person, body or town asks Parliament for a special law: an estate Act, a naturalisation or society Act, a market, street or navigation Act, a company charter. PURPOSE: The statute recites the petition in its preamble and then enacts in the form "may it please your Majesty (at the humble petition of ...) that it may be enacted". RECEIVED BY: The King in Parliament; the petition to the Houses, the enacting words from the King, Lords and Commons. NOTE: 41 Geo. III c.105 (1801) speaks of "any Petition for any Bill", and gives Scottish and Irish judges to whom such a petition is referred power to examine witnesses on oath. 1827 speaks of "petitioner or petitioners for or against a Private Bill". 1794 requires a company to affix its common seal to any petition to Parliament. SIGNIFICANCE: Here the statute itself separates the two things: the PETITION is the request; the BILL is the instrument that carries it. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 36. THE INVENTOR'S PETITION FOR A PRIVATE ACT PROTECTING A PATENT ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- DATE: 13 Geo. III (1773) Cox; 15 Geo. III (1775) Champion; 16 Geo. III (1776) Liardet; 17 Geo. III (1777) Hartley; 25 Geo. III (1785) Bancroft and the Earl of Dundonald. TYPE: An inventor whose patent was inadequate asks Parliament to secure his exclusive right for a longer term. PURPOSE: Each Act recites "at the humble petition" of the inventor. The 1775 Act also recites that a Plymouth chemist had petitioned the King, who then granted letters patent. RECEIVED BY: The King in Parliament (patent first through the Crown). ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 37. THE PETITION FOR RESTORATION OF FORFEITED OR CLAIMED ESTATES ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- DATE: 12 & 13 Will. III (1700-01) Irish forfeitures; 14 Geo. III (1774) Fraser. TYPE: 1700-01: persons who had petitioned the Commons for relief from Irish forfeitures, and who had not entered their claims, are given a further chance. 1774: a general seeks restoration of forfeited family estates. PURPOSE: The petitions were "referred" by the Commons to a committee, then to the trustees for the forfeitures, who examined them and reported back to the House. The 1774 Act was made "upon the humble petition" of the officer named. RECEIVED BY: The House of Commons, then the Irish forfeiture trustees (1700-01); the King in Parliament (1774). NOTE: Shows a Commons petition being sent out to be examined, just as ancient petitions were sent to Receivers and Triers (Part C). ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 38. THE CORPORATE PETITION OF A COMPANY (East India Company etc.) TO THE HOUSE OR THE KING IN COUNCIL ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- DATE: 13 Geo. III (1773); 21 Geo. III (1781); 24 Geo. III (1784); 33 Geo. III (1793). TYPE: 1773 and 1781: the United Company petitions the House of Commons for a loan and for enabling regulations. 1784 and 1793: the Company's Court of Directors may petition the King in Council about orders and instructions, and the King in Council decides. PURPOSE: The petition prays a specific measure; the statute is the answer. RECEIVED BY: The House of Commons (1773, 1781); the King in Council (1784, 1793). ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 39. THE PETITION OF APPEAL TO THE KING IN COUNCIL AND TO THE GOVERNOR (colonial) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- DATE: 1 & 2 Vict. (1838), the colonial award provisions. TYPE: A person dissatisfied with an award may appeal by petition to the Governor of the Colony, and a further "Petition of Appeal" may be presented to the Queen in Council against the award or any rule or regulation made under it. PURPOSE: One month's notice is required before the Petition of Appeal is heard. RECEIVED BY: The Governor; then the Queen in Council. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 40. THE PETITION TO THE LORD LIEUTENANT OF IRELAND (AND COUNCIL) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- DATE: 48 Geo. III (1808) Bank of Ireland; 1822 school commissioners; 1824 constables; 1831 undertakers; 1836 magistrates; 1837 rules. TYPE: A body or officer asks the Irish viceroy for consent, an advance, a pension or a change to rules. PURPOSE: e.g. 1808: the Governor and Company signify their consent by "their Petition in Writing, sealed with their Common Seal, and addressed to the Lord Lieutenant". 1824: a maimed constable petitions for a pension. 1837: a petition may be presented to the Lord Lieutenant in Council praying that the rules be altered. RECEIVED BY: The Lord Lieutenant or other Chief Governor (with the Privy Council in 1837). ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 41. THE PETITION TO THE TREASURY, THE EXCISE AND THE NAVY BOARD ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- DATE: 12 Geo. III (1772) Burgoyne; 25 Geo. III (1785) and 27 Geo. III (1787) excise; 26 Geo. III (1786), 1815, 1830 and 1832 seamen's estates. TYPE: 1772: a petition "presented to the Lords of His Majesty's Treasury" is recited. 1785 and 1787: a distiller or dealer may present a petition to the commissioners of excise for an allowance or drawback, with an affidavit. 1786 onward: a person claiming the effects of a deceased seaman gives a petition or note to the inspector of seamen's wills, certified in the parish by minister and churchwardens (elders in Scotland) that the claimant is of good repute. PURPOSE: A claim for money or relief within a department. RECEIVED BY: The Lords of the Treasury; the commissioners of excise; the inspector of seamen's wills and the Treasurer of the Navy. NOTE: False petitions to the inspector were made a felony (1786, 1832). This is a claim form; not a petition to Parliament. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 42. THE SUMMARY PETITION IN CHANCERY (Lord Chancellor / Lord Keeper) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- DATE: Anne (1710s) bond damages; 4 Geo. II (1731) lunatics; 5 Geo. II (1732); 23 Geo. II (1750); 26 Geo. II (1753); 38 Geo. III (1798); 1805; 1821; 1823; 1825; 1826; 1836. TYPE: Use of a short petition instead of a suit: (a) a party aggrieved by a bond or by a fraudulently taken commission asks the Chancellor for compensation; (b) a committee of a lunatic or idiot asks an order (1731) or a transfer of stock (1821); (c) a party claiming an interest in property in the Chancellor's hands asks for it upon petition and affidavit (1805); (d) freeholders petition the Chancellor about a person's misbehaviour (1750, flagged: purpose to be checked); (e) infants and remaindermen ask leave to invest, sell or convey (1798, 1826). PURPOSE: Heard "in a summary way" on petition, sometimes with affidavit and notice to interested parties. RECEIVED BY: The Lord Chancellor, Lord Keeper or Commissioners of the Great Seal; the Master of the Rolls in some cases (1837). ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 43. THE PETITION FOR PAYMENT OUT OF MONEY PAID INTO COURT OR THE BANK ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- DATE: Frequent from 29 Geo. II (1756) through 1840s (compulsory- purchase and improvement Acts). TYPE: Land taken for public works is paid for into court or the Bank of England; the person entitled applies for the money. PURPOSE: On petition or motion "in a summary way" the Court of Chancery (or Exchequer, Session) orders it paid out or reinvested in land or the funds. RECEIVED BY: The Court of Chancery (and the equivalent courts in Scotland and Ireland). ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 44. THE PETITION IN BANKRUPTCY AND THE PETITION AGAINST A COMMISSION ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- DATE: 5 Geo. II (1732); 6 Geo. IV c.16 (1825); 1 & 2 Will. IV (1831); 6 & 7 Will. IV (1836). TYPE: 1732 and 1825: a person against whom a commission was fraudulently or maliciously taken out petitions the Chancellor for satisfaction. 1825 and 1836: a creditor may petition for a commission against one partner or all. 1831: the bankrupt may petition the new Court of Review to reverse the adjudication within two calendar months; questions of law or equity may go up by "Petition of Appeal" to the House of Lords. 1836: petition to the Chancellor against a commissioner's determination, or by assignees. PURPOSE: Statutory rights of petition, each with a deadline and a set form. RECEIVED BY: The Lord Chancellor; the Court of Review (1831); the House of Lords on appeal. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 45. THE INSOLVENT DEBTOR'S PETITION FOR DISCHARGE FROM PRISON ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- DATE: 2 Geo. II (1729) and 3 Geo. II (1730); 8 Geo. II c.24 (1735) time limit; 32 Geo. II c.28 (1759); 5, 12, 14, 16, 18, 21 Geo. III (1765-81); 34, 37, 41, 44, 46 Geo. III (1794-1806); 49 Geo. III (1809); 1810; 1811; 1812; 1814. TYPE: A prisoner in execution for debt petitions to be released on delivering a full schedule of his estate on oath. PURPOSE: To the court out of which the process issued: 14 days' notice to the creditor, petition read openly in court, examination in a summary way, oath, discharge. From 1765 also a petition to any justice of the peace, who issues a warrant to bring the prisoner to the next general or quarter sessions. 1809: petition to be relieved from recognizance fines. 1810: an Irish prisoner petitions King's Bench to remit fees. 1812: the petition may be heard at the Assizes. 1814: petition need only offer to take the oath. RECEIVED BY: The court whose process was used; justices of the peace and Quarter Sessions; judges at Assizes. NOTE: 1759 Act also lets the court examine, on the prisoner's petition, complaints of extortion by a jailer or keeper (item 26 in Part F). ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 46. THE SHERIFF'S PETITION OF ALLOWANCE AND THE PETITION IN THE EXCHEQUER ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- DATE: 3 Geo. I (1717) fee tables; 22 Geo. II (1749) Scotland; 39 Geo. III (1799); 1811 (Crown rents). TYPE: A sheriff petitions the Exchequer for allowance on his account; a subject petitions the Barons about an unequal assessment; a collector's arrears are sued for by petition; a subject petitions to be freed from a claim for ancient Crown rent (1811). PURPOSE: The fee tables list "petitions" among Exchequer steps ("Petitions, which seldom happen"; "petition of allowance") and the 1811 Act requires such a petition to be engrossed on parchment and signed. RECEIVED BY: The Barons of the Exchequer (England and Scotland). ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 47. THE SUMMARY PETITION TO THE COURT OF SESSION (Scotland) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- DATE: 1 Geo. I (1715); 14 Geo. II (1740); 20 Geo. II (1746-47); 26 Geo. III (1786); 33 Geo. III (1793); 38 Geo. III (1798); 43 Geo. III (1803); 55 Geo. III (1815); 59 Geo. III (1819). TYPE: Many separate purposes: fixing annual value; licence to import victual from Ireland in time of dearth (1740); reconstructing writings destroyed by the rebels in 1745; review of a sheriff's sentence (1786); dividing funds or discharging a trustee (1793); sale of entailed estates to raise land tax (1798); reclaiming petition against a Lord Ordinary's interlocutor; petition of appeal to the House of Lords. PURPOSE: By "bill or petition" (1715); by summary petition, served, intimated on the walls of the court, and answered. In 1819 the Jury Court's new trial order is made not open to review by "Petition, Representation, Bill of Advocation, Appeal to the House of Lords". RECEIVED BY: The Lords of Council and Session (and the Jury Court, 1815-19). ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 48. THE SUMMARY PETITION TO THE SHERIFF OR COUNTY COURTS (Scotland) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- DATE: 7 Geo. II (1734); 1 Geo. III (1760); 15 Geo. III (1775); 39 Geo. III (1799). TYPE: A collier or salter claims his freedom from bondage (1775); a heritor seeks to declare a mill's thirlage or to fix multures (1799); heritors recover assessments "by action, complaint, or petition". PURPOSE: Petition served on the owner or lessee; answers; decree. A petition that fails may be presented again after a year (1775). RECEIVED BY: The sheriff depute or substitute, the steward depute, county or stewartry courts. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 49. THE PETITION TO QUARTER SESSIONS AND TO THE GRAND JURY AT ASSIZES ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- DATE: 2 Will. & Mar. (1690); 22 Car. II (1670, rebuilding); 43 Geo. III (1803) Scottish schoolmasters; 56 Geo. III (1816); 1 & 2 Geo. IV (1821, Ireland); 3 & 4 Will. IV (1833, Ireland); 1 & 2 Vict. (1838). TYPE: 1690: persons with a grievance may set forth their case by petition and the justices in quarter sessions are empowered to act (act to be identified from the volume). 1803 and 1838: a schoolmaster or heritor brings a division of salary by "Representation or Petition" before Quarter Sessions. 1816: persons who suffered riot damage may present a petition to the Grand Jury at the next Assizes praying satisfaction and amends. 1821: the grand jury may petition King's Bench (Ireland), and judges of Assize likewise, to make new rules. 1833: a like petition to the judge of Assize or the Recorder. PURPOSE: Quarter Sessions; the Grand Jury and judges at Assizes; in Ireland King's Bench. RECEIVED BY: This is the LOCAL channel you asked about (Petitioning History project); the statute book shows it only where Parliament regulated it. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 50. THE PETITION TO A JUSTICE OF THE PEACE OR PUBLIC OFFICER FOR A LICENCE ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- DATE: 28 Geo. III (1788) theatres; 48 Geo. III (1808) herring bounty; 44 Geo. III (1804) alehouse licensing (flagged). TYPE: 1788: persons apply by petition for licences to perform plays. 1808: an officer applies by petition, stating the matter in dispute, to a justice near the herring landing. Licensing justices "allow or refuse the petition or claim" for an ale licence. PURPOSE: A written request to the licensing magistrate. RECEIVED BY: Justices of the peace. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 51. THE PETITION FOR A REHEARING OF A DECREE MADE AGAINST AN ABSENT PARTY ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- DATE: 5 Geo. II (1732); repeated 5 & 6 Will. IV (1835). TYPE: A defendant served with a copy of a decree who does not appear within six months is barred; if he appears and petitions to have the cause reheard within seven years and gives security for costs, he is admitted. PURPOSE: Petition and security. RECEIVED BY: The court that made the decree. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 52. THE PETITION FOR ADMISSION TO AN OFFICE (Ireland: mandamus) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- DATE: 7 Geo. IV c.21 (1826). TYPE: A person entitled to an office may apply to the court by petition to be forthwith admitted without another person's being removed. PURPOSE: Court appoints a hearing and notice. RECEIVED BY: The court (King's Bench, Ireland). ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 53. THE PETITION FOR INQUIRY AND COMPENSATION BY COURT OFFICERS ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- DATE: 4 and 5 Geo. IV (1823, 1824). TYPE: Officers of the Irish courts may petition the Chancellor or the judges of their court for an inquiry into their fees and emoluments and for compensation on abolition of office. PURPOSE: Petition, with affidavit, to the head of the court. RECEIVED BY: The Lord Chancellor (Ireland); the judges of King's Bench. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 54. THE PETITION FOR SOCIETIES AND CHARITIES BEFORE THE COURTS (free counsel) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- DATE: 33 Geo. III (1793); 39 Geo. III (1799); 10 Geo. IV (1829). TYPE: A society may exhibit a petition in the courts of chancery, exchequer or session; the court assigns counsel and a clerk to advise and carry it on without fee. PURPOSE: The Act says the court shall grant "the desire of the petition" if no valid objection is stated. RECEIVED BY: The court (Chancery, Exchequer, Session). NOTE: Compare item 26 (in forma pauperis) in Part F. Purpose to be checked against the volume. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 55. THE PETITION FOR CHURCH BRIEFS AND CHURCH AFFAIRS ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- DATE: Anne (1700s) briefs; 43 Geo. III (1803); 1810 Scotland. TYPE: Petitioners for a church "brief" (a licence to collect charity) may authorise the persons who lay out the printed copies. 1803: a spiritual person petitions his bishop in writing (purpose to be checked). 1810: a Scottish minister petitions the Lords of Council and Session as Commissioners of Teinds about his stipend. PURPOSE: Petition, with affidavit before a surrogate where the bishop requires. RECEIVED BY: The bishop of the diocese; the Commissioners of Teinds. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 56. THE ABOLITION OF A PETITION: STANNARIES VICE-WARDEN (4 & 5 Will. IV, 1834) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- DATE: 4 & 5 Will. IV (1834). TYPE: The Act ends the practice of moving in the Vice-Warden's court by petition. Entries are made in the rule books without petition except where the nature of the case or a statute requires one. PURPOSE: Rule book entry. RECEIVED BY: The Vice-Warden of the Stannaries. NOTE: Shows that in the courts a petition is a form of motion and can be swapped for one. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 57. THE STATUTORY POSTAGE OF PETITIONS TO PARLIAMENT ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- DATE: 7 Will. IV & 1 Vict. (1837), Post Office Act. TYPE: Petitions addressed to either House, not exceeding six ounces, are carried free of postage if sent without covers or in covers open at the sides. The Act keeps the privilege of "receiving Votes and Proceedings". PURPOSE: Post Office. RECEIVED BY: Either House of Parliament. NOTE: The first statute seen that treats petitions to Parliament as a routine postal flow, five years after the 1832 report. =============================================================================== PART I — EVIDENCE FROM 1688-1839 ON "PETITION" VERSUS "BILL" =============================================================================== Statutes after 1688 keep the two words apart. Passages seen: 1. 1 Anne (Pickering vol. 11, Scots Exchequer, 1707): the Court of Exchequer in Scotland may hold plea in equity "by English bill, petition, or suit". 2. 2 Geo. II (1729, Carolina surrender): no action or suit against the King "by petition of right, English bill or otherwise". 3. 1 Geo. I (1715): parties may go to the Lords of Session "by bill or petition". 4. 5 Geo. III (1765) stamp duty: on any copy of "any petition, bill, answer, claim, plea, replication, rejoinder, demurrer, or other pleading". 5. 50 Geo. III (1810), Irish court fees: cases arising "upon Summons, Bill or Petition, or Petition and Complaint". 6. 59 Geo. III (1819), Scottish Jury Court: "the Bill of Exceptions shall be returned to the Division to which the previous Petition was presented". Bill of Exceptions and petition again appear as two things. 7. 41 Geo. III c.105 (1801): a "Petition for any Bill" is referred to judges for witnesses to be sworn. The petition asks for the bill; it is not the bill. 8. 1813 and 1834: statutes say things are to be done "without any Petition or Motion" and abolish petitions in the Vice-Warden's court. A petition in the courts is a written kind of motion. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++ [P5 - CAUTION] PART I CONCLUSION HAS ONE EXCEPTION +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ The conclusion below holds for the sealed instrument and the pleading, and for the lists of court process. It does not hold for Strode's Act (1512), where "bill" means a proposal put forward in Parliament. See P2(b) and P6. +++++ END [P5 - CAUTION] +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ **CONCLUSION FROM PART I: in every statute seen from 1688 to 1839, a BILL is a sealed or signed written instrument or a form of pleading in a court (an English bill, a bill of exceptions, a bill of advocation, a bill signed), or in Parliament the draft law that a petition asks for. A PETITION is the request. No statute seen treats a petition as becoming a bill because an MP or a judge receives or signs it.** =============================================================================== PART J — HOW FAR THE SEARCH HAS GOT (REPLACES THE OLD FOOTER) =============================================================================== SEARCHED: 1215-1377 Statutes of the Realm vol. I (Parts A-E) 1377-1680 Statutes of the Realm vols. II-V (Parts F-G) 1660-1806 Pickering vols. 8-46 (Part H) 1801-1839 Butterworths annual Public General Acts (Part H) NOT SEARCHED, AND WHY: 1685-1713 Statutes of the Realm vols. VI-XI are not in the zip. Pickering covers the same acts, and was searched instead. Ruffhead Same statutes as Pickering (to 1764); not searched. Raithby, "The Statutes" 1-4, Collection of Public General Statutes 1837 and later, Public General Statutes 1870-78, Law Reports statutes 1879-1921, and the Public General Acts 1905-1975: not searched. Local and Personal Acts (1801-1849) and private Acts: only what Pickering printed was seen. WHAT THE SEARCH CAN AND CANNOT CLAIM. About fifty-seven petition types are now listed, from Magna Carta to 1839. The 1839 election-petition Act is the last point reached. Sixteen of them in Part H (items 34, 35 and 42-49 especially) recur through the whole period, so later volumes are likely to add refinements rather than new families. That is an expectation, not something the search has proved. Nothing after 1839 has been read. THE FOUR FAMILIES STILL STAND (Part G), with the additions of Part H: (a) LEGISLATIVE petitions: items 16-17, 34-38. (b) LITIGATION petitions against the Crown: items 18, 29-31 (petition of right and monstrans de droit, with the "English bill" as its twin). (c) JUDICIAL petitions to Parliament: items 20-22, 34. (d) LOCAL and DEPARTMENTAL petitions: items 26, 42-56 (courts, Quarter Sessions, Treasury, Excise, Navy, Lord Lieutenant). A fifth strand is now visible: laws that regulate how far people may gather to petition (items 28, 33) and the 1689 right (item 32). NO JUDGE APPROVES A LONE PETITION TO PARLIAMENT (Part G, 6) remains true of everything read in Part H. The 1795, 1817 and 1820 Acts, like the 1661 Act, bear only on meetings above a set size. =============================================================================== PART K - PROTECTION OF PETITIONERS AND OF THOSE WHO PUT BUSINESS BEFORE PARLIAMENT: TUDOR TO 1832 (marked +++++ so it can be found) =============================================================================== +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++ [P6] STRODE'S ACT, 4 HEN. VIII c.8 (1512): THE TUDOR STATUTE THAT PROTECTS +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ SOURCE: Statutes of the Realm, vol. III, 4 Hen. VIII c.8 (1512), headed "Richard Strode". The Act is itself framed as a petition: "Lamentably complaineth and sheweth unto your most discrete wisdoms in this present parliament assembled Richard Strode ... one of the Burgesses of this honorable House for the Burgh of Plympton". FACTS AS RECITED: Strode, a Devon tinner and a member, joined with others to put forth "bylles" in Parliament against certain tinners, for the reform of harbours and creeks. For that, the under-steward of the Stannary, sitting in the Stannary courts, fined him at four courts, 8 pounds in all, imprisoned him in Lydford Castle in irons on bread and water, and made him enter a bond. He was freed by a writ of privilege out of the Exchequer because he was a collector of the subsidy. WHAT THE STATUTE DOES: It voids the fines, judgments, executions and bond against Strode. It then enacts, for every other person "that nowe be of this psent parliament or that of any Parliament herafter shalbe", that "sutes accusementes condempnacions execucions fynes amerciamentes punysshmentes correccions grevances charges and imposicions" put on them "for any bill spekyng reasonyng or declaryng of any mater or maters concernyng the parliament" are utterly void. A person so troubled has an action on the case for TREBLE damages and costs, with no protection, essoin or wager of law allowed. QUOTED WORDS: spelling is taken from the OCR text and is partly damaged in the print; the reading of the operative words should be checked against the page image. READ THIS WAY, THE ACT (1) protects a person who has put a bill before Parliament from being pursued in another court; (2) gives him a remedy against those who do; (3) uses "bill" for a proposal put forward in Parliament, so it is a counter-example to the claim in Parts E, G and I that a Tudor "bill" is never legislation. LIMITS: it names MEMBERS ("that nowe be of this psent parliament or ... herafter shalbe"), not outside petitioners. It is a statute of the same kind as Article 5 (1689), but for members' bills and speech, not for petitions to the King. Whether later lawyers treated it as private to Strode or as declaring general law has not been tested here. THE CHAIN: Strode (1512: members, bills and speech, statute) -> privilege of the Houses for petitioners and their agents (P7 below, Journals from 1547-1628, not statute) -> Article 5 (1689: the subject's right to petition the King, prosecutions for it illegal, statute). Three sources, three groups of people. +++++ END [P6] +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++ [P7] PRIVILEGE PROTECTING PETITIONERS: ERSKINE MAY p.131, "MISCONDUCT AFFECTING PETITIONERS..." +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ NOT A STATUTE. From the practice of Parliament as recorded in the Journals and cited by Erskine May (edition not stated on the image; please add it). Included because it is the practical companion to Strode and to Article 5. WHAT THE PAGE SAYS: petitioners and others soliciting business before either House or its committees (counsel, agents, solicitors) are under the protection of the High Court of Parliament. Obstructing them, or conduct calculated to deter them from "preferring or prosecuting petitions or bills", may be treated as a breach of privilege. Instances listed: - Arrest on civil process of petitioners, knowing them to be such, during their privilege from arrest "eundo, morando et redeundo" (C.J. 1547-1628, 702, 767, 787; C.J. 1644-46, 31). - Assaulting, insulting or threatening persons attending to prefer petitions (Amenz and Sir William Sharpe, C.J. 1667-87, 341; Day's Case 1714, L.J. 1709-14, 752; Allison's Case 1832, L.J. 1831-32, 384, 387). - Threatening persons having bills depending with punishment for applying to the House (Camphire's Case, C.J. 1757-61, 264, 274). - Scandalous words against petitioners whose petition is appointed to be heard (Yendall's Case, C.J. 1708-11, 446). - Assaulting or insulting the solicitor to opponents of a private bill (Allison's Case 1832), or challenging him to fight (Abbs's and Thorpe's Cases 1832, L.J. 1831-32, 388). - Sending an insulting letter to counsel about a speech at the Lords' bar (Wharton's Case 1826, L.J. 128, 142, 145). - BRINGING AN ACTION AGAINST PETITIONERS FOR A LIBEL ALLEGED TO BE CONTAINED IN A PETITION PRESENTED BY THEM TO THE HOUSE OF COMMONS (Gee's Case, C.J. 1693-97, 599, 699). This is the closest match to Article 5 in the list, and it falls just after 1689. - Publishing a libel on counsel (Bell and Bonsor 1800, L.J. 1795-1800, 638, 646). - Casting aspersions on persons for having petitioned the House of Commons (Montagu's Case, C.J. 1547-1628, 805, 806). NOTE ON WORDING: the page says "petitions or bills" side by side, as two different things that both come before the House. +++++ END [P7] +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++ [P8] HOW FAR THIS SUPPORTS "PROTECTION WHILE PETITIONING": HONEST SUMMARY +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 1. The Tudor pardon wording (P1) does NOT support it. Those Acts release subjects from Crown proceedings as an act of grace; they say nothing about petitioners. 2. What does support it in the Tudor period is Strode's Act (P6): a statute voiding proceedings in another court against a person for a bill or speech in Parliament, with treble damages against whoever troubles him. It covers members. 3. For petitioners who are not members, the protection shown here is the Houses' own privilege (P7, from the Journals, 1547-1628 onward) and Article 5 (1689, a statute, but for petitions to the King). 4. Gee's Case (1693-97) shows the Commons treating a libel action over the contents of a petition to them as a breach of privilege, within a few years of Article 5. Only the entry on the Erskine May page has been seen, not the case itself. 5. Not found in the statutes searched: any statute before 1689 that in terms protects a non-member who petitions Parliament from prosecution elsewhere. That describes this search and is not a finding that none exists. +++++ END [P8] +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ =============================================================================== END OF PARTS H, I, J AND K ===============================================================================