prepared to yield on the domestic question, he proposed and carried the adjournment of the debate to the 4th. The adjournment only brought a vague assurance from Charles that the liberties of his subjects were in no danger. When a new question of the king's right to press soldiers for foreign service was raised by Selden, Wentworth carried a motion referring it to a committee.
So far as was in those days possible, Wentworth stood forth as the leader of the House of Commons. Representing faithfully the general temper in favour of an accommodation with Charles on the basis of his abandonment of what were understood to be unconstitutional claims, he secured the adoption (4 April) in committee of supply of a motion that five subsidies should be granted, without specification of the purposes to which they were to be applied. He followed up this success by carrying another motion that no report of the grant should be made to the house, so that the king could not, as he had done after the session of 1626, demand payment, in the shape of a forced loan, of subsidies on the ground that the house had signified its approval of a grant, though no bill had been passed on the subject. The present offer, as Wentworth said, was conditional on the settlement of the fundamental liberties. To secure this, Wentworth asked that a sub-committee be appointed to draw up a bill in which these liberties should be set forth.
Wentworth was now known as the man ‘who hath the greatest sway in parliament.’ But the motion to avoid reporting the grant had given offence to the king, and when the four resolutions had passed the house and had been laid before the lords, it seemed as if Charles would, to some extent, find an ally in the upper house, which on 25 April drew up counter-proposals, allowing the king to imprison without cause shown, till he found it convenient to do so. In the commons, Noye, who was under Wentworth's influence, proposed to provide for the case by the more ready issue of writ of habeas corpus, and by an enactment that ‘if there be no cause of detaining upon that writ,’ the prisoner was ‘to be delivered.’ Wentworth supported Noye's desire of proceeding by a bill declaring ‘that none shall be committed without showing cause,’ with a penalty attached to its violation. If it was violated, he added, ‘on any emergent cause, he thinks no man shall find fault with it.’ Wentworth's view of the case was what it remained to the end. Let the law be declared with provision for enforcing it. If some real necessity arose, let the king use his prerogative boldly, and violate the law for the safety of the state. The real weakness of Wentworth's position lay in the impossibility of securing that Charles would not discover a necessity where it could be seen by no one else. Wentworth's proposal was, however, adopted, and on 28 April a bill was brought into the house by a sub-committee, making no reference to the past conduct of the government, but declaring in set terms that by the existing law every freeman committed by the king's sole command was to be bailed or delivered, that no tax, tallage, or other imposition was to be levied, nor soldier billeted. The question of martial law was left over for further consideration. On 1 May Wentworth proposed to modify the bill by softening it down. It would be enough to confirm the old laws, adding that every prisoner should be bailed if cause were not shown in the writ. There would then be no denial of the king's right to commit; but whenever he did commit without showing cause on which the prisoner could be tried, the judges would be required to bail him.
Wentworth might carry the house with him; he could not depend on the king. Charles replied by a message asking the house to depend on his royal word and promise; and Secretary Coke explained that whatever laws parliament might please to make, he should find it his duty to commit without showing cause to any one but the king. The ground was thus cut from under Wentworth's feet. On 2 May, indeed, he replied that, though the house had no ground of complaint against the king, the law had been violated by his ministers, and a bill was therefore needed. The house drew up a remonstrance to bring the substance of Wentworth's argument before the king, and this remonstrance was presented on 5 May. Charles would have none of Wentworth's bill, and he merely offered to confirm the old laws ‘without additions, paraphrases, or explanations.’ For the rest, the houses must be content with his royal word. Wentworth's mediation between king and parliament had hopelessly broken down by the obstinacy of the king. It was not for him to lead the house further. The petition of right occupied the place of his bill, but it was drawn up by other hands. When it was before the house, indeed, he favoured its modification in such a way as to secure the consent of the lords, and thereby (23 May) came into collision with Eliot; but he expressed his general concurrence in the petition as it stood. Charles had left no other course open to him. On 7 June the petition was accepted by the king (Gardiner, Hist. of England, vi. 230–309, with references to the original evidence).
