Page:The Leveller movement; a study in the history and political theory of the English Great Civil War (IA levellermovement01peas).djvu/129

 often enough as safeguards to the Parliament and the nation against the king. The novelty in Lilburne’s use of them was his emphasis on the fact that they safeguarded certain rights and privileges not merely to the nation, but to individual men as well. “By vertue of being a freeman,” wrote Lilburne, “I conceive I have as true a right to all the priviledges that doe belong to a free-man, as the greatest man in England.” He distinguished as pertinent to his own case the privileges assured in the thirty-ninth and fortieth articles of Magna Charta; but he did not distinctly assert those privileges against the House of Commons. He drew a comparison between the actions for which Parliament abolished the Court of Star Chamber, and the doings of the Commons’ committees in sitting with closed doors and questioning men under accusation. Yet even in these particulars he was willing to allow the Parliament itself reasonable latitude when it had treasons to search for, or other business of public concern requiring secrecy.

England’s Birth-right Justified contained a closer and more distinct statement of the powers of Parliament than any other of Lilburne’s pamphlets of 1645.