Page:The Leveller movement; a study in the history and political theory of the English Great Civil War (IA levellermovement01peas).djvu/139

 Two pamphlets continued this line of reasoning. One of them, The Interest of England Maintained, was prefaced by a disquisition on the power of Parliament, and the iniquity of anyone who sought to prescribe to it, with special application to the authors of the remonstrance. The Interest of England Maintained was plain spoken when it discussed the king’s claims to consideration; it remarked that in the past the reigns of the best of kings had been tyrannical, and raised the question whether it was not best for the Parliament to use its military advantage over Charles in such a way as to secure in the most effectual manner possible the dawning freedom of the people from danger of him and his adherents. The words would permit of some extreme interpretations.

One, John Bellamy, undertook to uphold the Presbyterian side of the controversy. The second of the Independent tracts mentioned above, A Moderate Reply To The Citie Remonstrance, had criticised the remonstrance for attributing only a share of the supreme power to the House of Commons; and the author of the Interest of England Maintained, by ascribing supremacy to the two Houses, had excluded the king from any share in it. Bellamy