Page:Collier's New Encyclopedia v. 07.djvu/265

PETITION OF RIGHT 209 PETRARCH in legal language to an application to a court or judge, as a petition for a divorce. PETITION OF RIGHT, a declaration of the rights of the people put forward by the Parliament of England in the third year of the reign of Charles I., and assented to by him. They are: (1) That no man be compelled to pay any moneys to the state without common consent by act of Parliament. (2) That no person be imprisoned for refus- ing the same, nor any freeman be im- prisoned without any cause showed, to which he might make answer. (3) That soldiers and mariners be not bil- leted in the houses of the people. (4) That commissions be no more issued for punishing by the summary process of martial law. PETLURA, SIMON, nationalist leader of the Ukrainians, or Little Russians; born in Poltava, south Russia, 1880, son of a coachman, educated in the lower clerical schools, then expelled from the higher schools because of his revolution- ary activities. Inspired a peasant upris- ing in the Ukraine in 1902, through a pamphlet entitled "Uncle Mitra." The repression of the rebellion was followed by his flight into Austrian Galicia. At the outbreak of the war, in 1914, he en- listed with the workers behind the lines in the Zemstvo Union, for which he did good service until the revolution which dethroned the Czar. It was not till the overthrow of the Kerensky government that he became an open advocate of a separate national government for the Ukraine. When the Germans obtained control of the Ukraine, through the Sko- ropadsky government, Petlura was im- prisoned, and remained in prison until the German defeat brought about the dovnfall of Skoropadsky. The National Ukrainian Union, composed of the peas- antry who desired an independent na- tional life, then set up a government represented by an executive committee of four, chief of which was Petlura. On Dec. 21, 1918, Petlura, having organized an army in the name of this government, entered Kiev, the capital. Though a So- cialist by sympathy, Petlura resisted the advance of the forces of the Bolshevist Soviet Government. He was, on the other hand, also hostile to the reactionary forces under Denikine. He was driven cfut of Kiev by the Bolshevist forces in the summer of 1919. Early in 1920, he reached an agreement with the Polish Government, whereby he joined forces with the Poles for the purpose of ex- pelling the Soviet armies from the Ukraine. Early in May, 1920, his forces, together with the Polish army, entered and took possession of Kiev. PETRA, a ruined city, formerly the Nabathaean capital of Arabia Petraea, in a narrow valley of the Wady Musa, about 110 miles S. S. E. of Jerusalem. It ap- pears to have been a place of considerable extent and great magnificence, for its ruins, partly temples, etc., cut out of the solid rock, cover a large space. It seems to have been the Joktheel of the Old Testament, taken by Amaziah from the Edomites. PETRARCH, FRANCESCO PETRAR- CA, an Italian poet; born in Arezzo, Italy, in 1304. His father, a friend of Dante, and, like him, an exile from Flor- ence, settled afterward at Avignon, and brought him up to the law, for which he had no relish. He studied at Montpellier and Bologna and afterward returned to Avignon, where his deep, hopeless pas- sion for the beautiful Laura gave shape and color to the rest of his life. ^ Pe- trarch took part in the political affairs of his time, was the friend of popes and princes, and was employed in many im- FRANCESCO PETRARCH portant negotiations. He rendered very great service to literature and learning by his diligent researches for, and col» lections of, ancient manuscripts and other remains; and by the gift of his books to the Church of St. Mark, Venice, he became the founder of its famous library. He was the friend of Boccaccio, who shares with him the honor of reviv- ing classical literature, and of Rienzi. In 1341 Petrarch was crowned laureate in the capitol of Rome. Petrarch was at Rome during the Jubilee of 1350; lived afterward at Vaucluse, Milan, Padua,