Page:The Leveller movement; a study in the history and political theory of the English Great Civil War (IA levellermovement01peas).djvu/148

 simple demand that Parliament walk according to the law was amplified, till out of it there evolved a new constitution for England. The specific measures proposed tended to be less destructive and more constructive. Among them a few may be singled out for especial consideration: reform of the common law, decentralization of government, and restoration to the citizens of London of a voice in their city’s affairs.

Traces of dissatisfaction with the law and its administration may be found in pamphlets of 1645. Lilburne had then wished that Parliament would substitute for the cumbrous, expensive, and intricate common law a few rules that should be simple and easily understood; would, he said, that the law, like the Bible, were published in English! In general, however, he had been content to base his contest with the House of Commons on the law as revealed in Magna Charta, though writers had not been wanting to inform him that, when tried by the natural rights of the people, Magna Charta itself was but a mess of pottage.

But Lilburne had himself developed a similar antagonism to the common law in his The Iust Mans Iustification, which he had written in June of 1646 when confronted with a common law-suit based on what he considered a vexatious technicality. The common law, according to The Iust Mans Iustification, was a badge of slavery imposed on the free people of England by the Norman conquest. In judgments like the ship-money judg-