ABSTRACT
The precise legal status of the army of Charles II was ill-defined and confused. The sole piece of legislation which gave any guidance to contemporaries was the Petition of Right of 1628. Although this was not a statute of Parliament but merely a statement that existing grievances were illegal according to the law as it then stood, it did receive the royal assent thereby forcing the judges to interpret the law in the light of its requests. The petition did not create new laws but simply emphasised certain aspects of the standing law which Parliament considered were being ignored by the king. 1 Much of the petition was concerned with martial law and the quartering of troops on civilians, issues which arose from the serious friction between soldiers and civilians during the preparations for the expedition to relieve La Rochelle in 1627. Charles I and Buckingham had given commissions for the operation of martial law amongst the levies, resulting in a number of soldiers and sailors being imprisoned or executed without recourse to the proper channels of the common law. 2 Infinitely worse, many of the military received light punishments from the courts martial when they would have been severely dealt with by the civilian courts:
Also, sundry grievous offenders by colour thereof, claiming an exemption, have escaped the punishment 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 forborn to proceed against such offenders, according to the same laws and statutes, upon pretence that the said offenders were punishable only by martial law. 3
