Page:The Leveller movement; a study in the history and political theory of the English Great Civil War (IA levellermovement01peas).djvu/36

 having been declared by the Lords and Commons in Parliament; there needs not the authority of any person or Court to affirme; nor is it in the power of any person or Court to revoke that judgement.

The assumption that when the king’s actions tended to the ruin of the kingdom his evil counsellors were responsible, was sanctioned by centuries of precedent. In view of the general distrust of the men like Lord Digby who had the king’s ear, what was more natural than to apply the doctrine to Charles’s refusal to assent to the Militia Ordinance? In view of the fact that Parliament was the king’s supreme council, too, it seemed only reasonable to infer that the king’s duty was to follow its advice, and during its sittings to pay no heed to counsel from any other quarter. This doctrine had great possibilities. If every regal act on the part of the king could be supposed to be the result of counsel, and if he were debarred from accepting other counsel than that of Parliament, he became a mere automaton to register its decrees.

Indeed, the Houses found this a convenient line of attack on the king’s veto power, or “negative voice.” May 16, the Lords set a committee to make research as to whether kings had ever denied assent to public bills, save by withholding their