ment. Such ideas led them further still--almost
to the conclusion that the interpretation of their
constitution was of necessity a judicial function
belonging to the courts.

So defined, the Leveller movement has more than
antiquarian interest. The fact that such a thing
as the Leveller party existed, and professed con-
stitutional ideas and methods similar to those
developed in American constitutional history is
more than an interesting coincidence. In truth
it reveals at a critical point in the development of
English political institutions a trend toward the
supremacy, not of government, nor of a branch
of government, but of law.

Historians, it is true, have assigned the idea
of the supremacy of law an important position
in the earlier stages of the Puritan Revolution.
They have quoted Coke's saying of 1628, "Sover-
eign Power is no Parliamentary word; . . . .
Magna Charta is such a Fellow that he will have
no Sovereign," ¹ and they have assigned due sig-
nificance to the fact that in the Petition of Right
Parliament defined the ancient statutes of the
realm as a law paramount to the prerogative.
On the other hand they have recognized the fact
that the indirect consequence of 1640, 1660, and
1688 has been to make Parliament sovereign over
the law. "We have," wrote Professor Maitland,
"no irrepealable laws; all laws may be repealed
by the ordinary legislature, even the conditions
upon which the English and Scottish parliaments

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