rate," it will be well to extract a few cases from the Roll of 10 H. 3 (7). The king by his writ in the form above given, commands the treasurer and chamberlains of his Exchequer to pay ("liberate") the following sums to the people and for the purposes following: "To William, a monk of Beaulieu, going on our em bassy beyond sea, for his expenses, 2 marks. castle at Corfe, to make our slings there, 4 marks. "To Robert Brimman and Roger Fegg, for the use of "To Richard de Chilleham, 10 marks, as a loan. Besides these there are many others to carpenters, masons, This form of payment lasted down to the reign of Wm. IV., the two last people who received money in this way being the Master of the Rolls, for whose benefit a writ of Liberate passed under the Great Seal as late as 1837, and the Usher of the Exchequer, who received payment in this way in 1844 (m). sham's We are now in a position to understand what was done in AyneAynesham's case: here is the account of the matter case one extracted from the Rolls of Parliament by Ryley (n). Issues of the Exchequer, F. Devon, supra. (m) Rotuli de Liberate cura Hardy, supra, introduction. of petition for a "liberate." Petitions for "libe petitions of right. "Ad petitionem Henrici de Aynesham Cementarii petentis quod Rex velit precipere quod solvatur de xix1. v1. q qui ei debentur de tempore quo operabatur in operibus Castri Regis de Carnarvon unde Thesaurarius habet Certificationem, &c. "Ita responsum est:- Fiat breve de Cancellaria de Liberate Thesaurario et Camerariis quod liberant ei tantam &c." summam, Shortly, that is to say, Aynesham petitioned the king for his" precept" for a writ of "Liberate," and was successful. A similar account may be given of Estrateleng's case, while it is sufficient to look at the entries of Yerward de Galeys' and the "general debtors'" cases in Ryley, to be satisfied that they were not petitions of right. Now Lord Somers seems to suppose that not only the foregoing petition, but also all the petitions in Ryley's "Placita Parliamentaria" are petitions of right; and as he founds his opinion that petition of right lies for damages for breach of contract upon this supposition, it will be as well to see if he is correct. As the question whether petitions for "liberates" can be rates" not considered as petitions of right has already been fully discussed, it is not proposed to recapitulate that argument: but upon the general question whether all the petitions in Parliament can be considered petitions of right, a few remarks may be offered. Position of By the common law of England, every subject has, as we petitions in Parlia- have seen, the right of petitioning the Sovereign for the ment. redress of grievances. Such grievance may be either a complaint of a violation of some right by the Sovereign, in which case the subject will have not only the right to petition but, in a non-legal sense, a right to redress, and his petition will be what is called a petition of right; or his grievance may be merely in the nature of a complaint not giving him any title to redress, but of which the king may of his grace take notice, and afford such alleviation as the circumstances of the case seem to require, and he is competent within the order of the law to give, but of which he is not bound to take any notice at all. There are other petitions upon the border-land between these two classes, in which it is impossible to say whether redress is due to a suppliant as a right or as a favour; and it is this distinction among petitions that Lord Coke probably had in his mind when he said "Of petitions in Parliament some be of right, some of grace, and some mixt of both " (0). Parliament petitions of Now, if it could be positively affirmed with respect to all Petitions in the petitions presented in Parliament that they belong to not all the first of these classes, in which redress is given as a matter right. of right, the difficulty of determining whether a petition lay in any particular case would be at an end; there are, however, certain difficulties in the way of those who (00), like Lord Somers, take this view of them, which difficulties are as follows: for so The first is this; unless we are prepared to say that there Reasons never were such things as "petitions of grace," and some holding. "petitions mixt of both," as Lord Coke says, we must be at some loss to know where the records of such petitions are to be found; they were certainly presented in Parliament, and it is at least singular that no mention of them should appear upon the Rolls. Again, if all the Parliamentary petitions are petitions of right, and are at the present day binding authorities upon the Courts, then why should any line at all be drawn as to what can or cannot be recovered by this method of proceeding, other than that which we find drawn in the answers by Parliament ?—but when we come to examine them, we find (0) 4 Inst. 11. (00) Serjeant Manning in Smith v. Upton, 6 M. & G. 251. there is no such line. For instance, it is quite plain that a subject can recover in contract, as the following examples shew. For bread and meat sold to late king 6 Ed. 1; 1 Rot. Parl. 1 b. Work done as a mason Aynesham's Case, 33 Ed. 1; 1 Rot. Parl. 164 b; Wages and loss of horses Estrateleng's Case, 33 Ed. 1., ibid. Price of wax— Basyng's Executors, 35 Ed. 1; Ryley, 334. Services in Gascony Fitzwalter's Case, 33 Ed. 1; Rot. Parl. 169 a; Ryley, 259. Price of a horse Beisney's Case, 33 Ed. 1; 1 Rot. Parl. 164 b.; Ryley, 251. Money paid Lodelawe's Case, 33 Ed. 1; 1 Rot. Parl. 169 b. Wages John de la Dolyne's Case, 33 Ed. 1; Ryley, 245. Arrears of pay 14 Ed. 2; 1 Rot. Parl. 378 a; Ryley, 414; Yerward's Case. Surcharge of rent 14 Ed. 2; Ryley, 402; Cotingham's Case. Price of oats Bissop's Case, 14 Ed. 2; Ryley, 408. Rent of land seized by king Abbot of Faversham's Case, 4 Ed. 3; Ryley, 646; 14 Howell, 60. Value of ship lost in king's service— Adam le Clerk's Case, 8 Ed. 2. 1; Rot. Parl. 317 b. Debts owed to suppliant's husband attainted by king— 15 & 16 Ed. 2.; 1 Rot. Parl. 415 b. And also in tort, as the following cases shew:- Prior of Chr. Ch. Case, 31 Ed. 1; 1 Rot. Parl. 59 b.; Tithes subtracted by the king's officers 8 Ed. 2, 1; Rot. Parl. 319 a. Wrongful distress— John Mowbray's Case, 33 Ed. 1; 1 Rot. Parl. 163 a; For wool wrongfully taken for king's use Michael de Harcla's Case, 33 Ed. 1; 1 Rot. Parl. 163 a; Wheat seized under pretence of a royal commission— 14 Ed. 2; 1 Rot. Parl. 320 a. And lastly in cases where one would certainly have imagined that relief would have been a pure matter of favor; for instance, in one case (p) Caddell asks for a reward because he has lost his brother and cousin in the wars in Ireland, and the king certainly entertains the request. If this is law at the present day, why should not any one who has suffered from a tort by the servants of the Crown, or who lost a relative in war, recover upon a petition of right? It is hard to find any answer, and yet it has been absolutely decided by the Courts that in neither of the above cases (q) has the suppliant any claim. Such doubts having arisen in reference to these parliamentary petitions, are there any reasons which might (7) Ryley, P. P., p. 414. A nostre Seign le Roy prie pur Dieu Johan Cadel Direland, quad este sovent en sa guerre en Ireland & a la saut de Berewyk quil lui plese grauntier en reward de son service l'office desliere portier du Chastiel de Dyvelyn a terme de sa vie a tenir en reward del mischief que lui avient quant il perdit son frere et son cosyn per les Escotz en Ireland. Ita responsum est: Expectet adventum Justiciorum et Rex inde habebit eorum avismentum. (g) Tobin v. Reg. 16 C. B. N. S. 310; 33 L. J. C. P. 199; Feather v. Reg. 6 B. & S. 294; 35 L. J. Q. B. 200. K |