Page:The Leveller movement; a study in the history and political theory of the English Great Civil War (IA levellermovement01peas).djvu/136



N 1646 Lilburne and his associates accomplished the task of fusing their scattered criticism of the Long Parliament into a new political philosophy. They asserted that all power not originating in the people’s assent was arbitrary and tyrannical. Accordingly, they denied that the king and the House of Lords could justly claim any authority over the nation, and ascribed supreme power to the House of Commons as the representative of the people. In support of their assertions they advanced a theory of natural right based on the political writings of 1642–1644, but in content quite different from them, and in many respects a startling anticipation of Locke and Rousseau.

In part, the new constitutional position of the radicals represented merely the natural development of the Independent party. Lilburne could still consistently regard his political affiliations as Independent, partly because of his interest in the principle of liberty of conscience at stake in the ecclesiastical controversy until that controversy reached a temporary solution in July, but partly also because the winter and spring of 1646 had