Page:The Leveller movement; a study in the history and political theory of the English Great Civil War (IA levellermovement01peas).djvu/140

 cited these passages and added to them two or three from Lilburne’s books, which attributed the supreme power to the Commons, and to the people a power to recall their representatives in Parliament. From this evidence Bellamy argued that the principles of the Independents would inevitably lead to the overthrow of the ancient constitution of king, Lords, and Commons.

July 24 a pamphleteer, answering Bellamy, avowed the doctrine of the supremacy of the Commons in Parliament. “What meane you by fundamentall? you say the King Lords, and Commons are the three Estates, of which the fundamentall constitution of this Kingdome is made up, are there three fundamentals? I confesse I have not understood so much: I ever thought there had been but one, and that I took to be the Commons First, because I ever thought, that the Commons made the King, and the King made the Lords, and so the Commons were the Prime foundation.

“Secondly, I ever took this for a truth likewise, that both the King and the Lords, were advanced for the benefit, quiet, and welfare of the Commons, and not the Commons made for them, and if I was deceived, the Common maxim of salus popula suprema Lex deceived me.”

Bellamy had succeeded in fixing political doctrines on the Independents that, when carried to their logical result, would root up the authority of both king and Lords. Within a fortnight of the