JURA POPULI ANGLICANI: OR THE SUBJECT'S RIGHT OF PETITIONING SET FORTH
London: [n.p.], 1701. Presumed First Edition. Small Quarto, 64 pages. In Good plus condition. Blue paper wraps significantly faded at edges and along spines, with light wear to edges, joints, and corners. Pages 19-22 loose, but intact. Text block has minor age-toning. Per ESTC entry, this is an example of the second variant: p. ix, line 1 reads "Ha-nd". RW Consignment.
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In 1701, five men from Kent petitioned the House of Commons on matters of policy, and demanded that Parliament "have regard to the voice of the people." These individuals, who became known as the "Kentish petitioners", were imprisoned - sparking an intense public debate around the powers of Parliament and the meaning of the Bill of Rights established in 1689. The lawyer and whig politician John Somers (1651–1716) argues here that imprisoning the Kentish petitioners "was repugnant to Magna Charta … and all the other Acts which designed to secure our Liberties from the Invasion of our Kings’ leaving the public ‘expos’d to the Arbitrary Will of our Fellow Commoners." This episode laid bare the risks to individual liberty posed not only by Kings, but by the newly empowered Parliament. A spirited defense of the Right to Petition, and representative of the debates that would ultimately inform the creation of the Bill of Rights in the United States. References: ESTC T18484.