Page:The Leveller movement; a study in the history and political theory of the English Great Civil War (IA levellermovement01peas).djvu/59

 the nation; and after their writings had familiarized men with abstract reasoning of the sort, other books by parliamentary writers had shown that the compact theory could not logically lead to the conclusion that the Houses were above the law. Rather it must lead to a democracy, however narrow and limited. The Royalists insisted that this conclusion was the only one possible. They stirred up class feeling in the parliamentary ranks; they undoubtedly began to teach men to distrust the arbitrary power assumed by Parliament. From 1642 to 1645 Englishmen were continually irritated by Parliament’s absolutist claims and practice. At the same time, they were reminded that there were excellent arguments against an absolute Parliament—arguments based on the laws of nature and the fundamental laws of the land.

I have reserved to this note a few significant utterances by parliamentary leaders on the judicial power of Parliament. Instances in which Parliament is termed a court are frequent enough. “This great and high Court,” said Sir Harbottle Grimston in his Guild hall speech, January 6, 1641/2, “is not only the powerfullest of all other Courts whatsoever ”. E. 200 (5). Instances in which the typical function of Parliament is described in terms applicable to a court may occasionally be found also. “To remove therefore this uncertainty,” wrote Henry Parker, “which is the mother of all injustice, confusion, and publike dissention, it is most requisite that this grand Councell and Treshault Court (of which none ought to thinke dishonourably) would take these Ardua Regni, these weighty and dangerous difficulties, into serious debate, and solemnly end that strife, which no other place of Judicature can so effectually extinguish.” The Case of Shipmony, p. 2.