Page:The Leveller movement; a study in the history and political theory of the English Great Civil War (IA levellermovement01peas).djvu/27

Rh men of 1640, was a special privilege pertaining to the king for the defense of his subjects and the support of his personal dignity; but the extent of the prerogative and the manner in which the subject was bound to supply the king with money for its support were strictly defined by the fundamental laws of the land, unalterable save by the assent of king and people in Parliament. In 1640 most Englishmen were ready to pronounce the fundamental laws of England a special bounty of divine Providence, so perfectly were those laws contrived to the end of keeping the balance even between the due liberty of the subject and the due prerogative of the king.