In a second letter Mr.Jenks rides off into fresh country.

I do not propose to follow him into the history of the conferences which took place in May, 1628, after the framing of the Petition of Right, except to remark that what passed at these conferences is irrelevant to the interpretation to be placed upon the Petition, and, if relevant, would be opposed to Mr.Jenks's contention.

It is well known that the Lords pressed the Commons to introduce various amendments into the Petition and to add to it the famous reservation of the "sovereign power" of the King.

One of the proposed amendments referred, as Mr.Jenks says, to martial law, forbidding its application to "any but soldiers and mariners," or "in time of peace, or when your Majesty's Army is not on foot." The Commons' objection to this seems to have been that it was both unnecessary and obscurely expressed.

"Their complaint is against commissions in time of peace." "It may be a time of peace, and yet his Majesty's Army may be on foot, and that martial law was not lawful here in England in time of peace, when the Chancery and other Courts do sit." "They feared that this addition might extend martial law to the trained bands, for the uncertainty thereof." The objections of the Commons were, however, directed not so much to the amendments in detail as to any tampering with the text of the Petition.