Page:The Leveller movement; a study in the history and political theory of the English Great Civil War (IA levellermovement01peas).djvu/133

 men) who affirme, that a Parliamentary authority is a power intrusted by the people (that chose them) for their good, safetie and freedome, and therefore that a Parliament cannot justlie doe any thing to make the people lesse safe or lesse free then they found them.”

So far the unknown had merely approved Lilburne’s reliance on Magna Charta. Now he made a startling commentary of his own. “Magna Charta (you must observe) is but a part of the peoples rights and liberties, being no more but what with much striving and fighting, was by the blood of our ancestors wrestled out of the pawes of those Kings, who by force had conquered the Nation, changed the lawes and by strong hand held them in bondage” for, “though Magna Charta be so little as lesse could not be granted with any pretence of freedome”, kings had often with the unnatural assistance of Parliament striven to make it less. For Parliament had often in the past been amused with the making of trivial statutes, and its members thereby diverted from thought of their freedoms; and when waked out of their stupor all they could do was to call loudly for Magna Charta, “calling that mess of pottage their birth right.”

Clearly here was an application of the doctrine of natural right far beyond any that Lilburne had so far imagined. He had taken his stand on Magna Charta, considering it as an excellent epitome of the people’s liberties as set forth by the law of