Struggle in England betiveeji King and Parliament 663 his agents who had in sundry ways molested and disquieted the people of the realm. Parliament therefore " humbly prayed " the king that no man need thereafter " make or yield any gift, loan, benevolence, tax, or such like charge " without consent of Parliament; that no free man should be imprisoned or suffer any punishment except according to the laws and statutes of the realm as presented in the Great Charter ; and that soldiers should not be quartered upon the people on any pretext whatever. Very reluctantly Charles consented to this restatement of the limitations which the English had always, in theory at least, placed upon the arbitrary power of their king. The disagreement between Charles and Parliament was ren- dered much more serious by religious differences. The king had married a French Catholic princess, and the Catholic cause seemed to be gaining on the Con- tinent. The king of Denmark had just been defeated by Wallenstein and Tilly (see above, p. 647), and Richelieu had succeeded in de- priving the Huguenots of their cities of refuge. Both James I and Charles I had shown their readiness to enter into agreements with France and Spain to protect Catholics in England, and there was evidently a growing inclination in England to revert to the older ceremonies of the Fig 227, Charles I of England This portrait is by one of the greatest painters of the time, Anthony Van Dyck, 1599-1641 (see Fig. 229)
