Page:The Leveller movement; a study in the history and political theory of the English Great Civil War (IA levellermovement01peas).djvu/165

 all its violence of expression there runs an ideal of democracy that perhaps only the twentieth century can parallel. As a previous quotation would indicate, the Remonstrance professes the extreme democracy which teaches that the people need not on all occasions act through a duly constituted government. “For,” runs another passage, “the effecting whereof [freedom from the yoke of conquest] we possessed you with the same Power that was in our selves, to have done the same: For Wee might justly have done it our selves without you, if Wee had thought it convenient.” In the year of grace 1916 this seems modern enough; but doctrine still more modern is to come.

Needless to say, the Remonstrance complains that the House of Commons has not done the bidding of its masters. Instead of quelling the king as a Norman tyrant it has used the doctrine of ministerial responsibility to cloak his misdeeds, “begging and intreating him in such submissive language as if you were resolved to make us beleeve hee were a God”.

The House of Commons must completely reverse its policy. It must discard the forms under which it addressed the king with reverence and respect, and arouse the people to see the fruits of kingly tyranny only too apparent in the nation. It must declare its intention to have done forever with such tyranny; and in earnest of its intention must appropriate the king’s revenue for the nation. The