Petition of Right
77
against their wills have been compelled to receive them into their houses,
and there to suffer them to sojourn against the laws and customs of this
realm, and to the great grievance and vexation of the people.
VII. And whereas also by authority of Parliament, in the five-andtwentieth year of the reign of King Edward III., it is declared and enacted,
that no man shall be forejudged of life or limb against the form of the
Great Charter and the law of the land; and by the said Great Charter, and
other the laws and statutes of this your realm, no man ought to be adjudged to death but by the laws established in this your realm, either by
the customs of the same realm or by acts of Parliament: and whereas no
offender of what kind soever is exempted from the proceedings to be
used, and punishments to be inflicted by the laws and statutes of this
your realm; nevertheless of late time divers commissions under your
Majesty’s great seal have issued forth, by which certain persons have
been assigned and appointed commissioners with power and authority
to proceed within the land, according to the justice of martial law, against
such soldiers or mariners, or other dissolute persons joining with them,
as should commit any murder, robbery, felony, mutiny, or other outrage
or misdemeanour whatsoever, and by such summary course and order
as is agreeable to martial law, and as is used in armies in time of war, to
proceed to the trial and condemnation of such offenders, and them to
cause to be executed and put to death according to the law martial.
VIII. By pretext whereof some of your Majesty’s subjects have been by
some of the said commissioners put to death, when and where, if by the
laws and statutes of the land they had deserved death, by the same laws
and statutes also they might, and by no other ought to have been, judged
and executed.
IX. And also sundry grievous offenders, by colour thereof claiming an
exemption, have escaped the punishments due to them by the laws and
statutes of this your realm, by reason that divers of your officers and ministers of justice have unjustly refused or forborne to proceed against such
offenders according to the same laws and statutes, upon pretence that the
said offenders were punishable only by martial law, and by authority of