Page:The Leveller movement; a study in the history and political theory of the English Great Civil War (IA levellermovement01peas).djvu/51

 take it to be an evident truth that in a mixed government no power is to be attributed to either Estate which directly or by necessary consequence destroys the liberty of the other.” Hunton’s belief that the king was an integral part of the state forbade him to identify the “reason” of the two Houses with the “reason” of the state. A judgment of Parliament lacking the king’s presence and assent could not be called the king’s judgment, because a similar judgment in his courts was so called; for in his courts the king was represented whether he were present in person or not; but in Parliament he could be present only in person. Hunton could offer no constitutional remedy to prevent a deadlock between king and Parliament. He could only suggest an appeal to arms; if each individual rallied to the side he thought just, the opinion of the majority of the people would in the end prevail.

Hunton was not the only apologist for Parliament who eschewed the extreme view of its supremacy. Thus, Scripture And Reason Pleaded For Defensive Armes, a tract with official sanction, significantly condemned as unsound the analogy drawn by Royalist writers between resistance to the king by the people, and resistance to the head