The Best of the OLL No. 42: Sir Edward Coke, “Petition of Right” (1628)

This is part of “The Best of the Online Library of Liberty” which is a collection of some of the most important material in the OLL. A thematic list with links to HTML versions of the texts is available [here](/pages/best-of-the-oll). The Petition of Right (1628) was an act passed by Parliament under Coke’s guidance in order to prevent King Charles I from using forced loans to fund his foreign wars. It became one of the foundation documents of English liberty and became a model for similar legal limits placed on the power of the Crown later in the 17th century and in 18th century America.