o their Laws: as those good
lines of freedom in Magna Charta were obtained by much hardship and
industry.

"_Secondly_, They were the King's Laws, because the King's own
creatures made the Laws: Lords of Manors, Freeholders, etc., were
successors of the Norman soldiers from the Conquest, therefore they
could do no other but maintain their own and the King's interest.
Do we not see that all Laws were made in the days of the King to
ease the rich Landlord? The poor laborers were left under bondage
still; they were to have no freedom in the earth by those
pharisaical Laws. For when Laws were made and Parliaments broke up,
the poor oppressed Commoners had no relief; the power of Lords of
Manors, withholding the free use of the Common-land from them,
remained still. For none durst make any use of any Common-land but
at the Lord's leave, according to the will and law of the
Conqueror. Therefore the old Laws were called King's Laws."

OF COMMONWEALTH'S LAWS.

"These old Laws cannot govern a Free Commonwealth; because the Land
is now to be set free from the slavery of the Norman Conquest, and
the power of Lords of Manors and Norman Freeholders is to be taken
away. Or else the Commoners are but where they were, if not fallen
lower into straits than they were. The Old Laws cannot look with
any other face than they did; though they be washed with
Commonwealth's water, their countenance is still withered.
Therefore it was not for nothing that the Kings would have all
their Laws written in French and Latin, and not in English; partly
in honor to the Norman Race, and partly to keep the Common People
ignorant of their Creation Freedom lest they should rise to redeem
themselves. And if those Laws should be writ in English, yet if the
same Kingly Principles remain in them, the English language would
not advantage us anything, but rather increase our sorrow by our
knowledge of our bondage."

"WHAT IS LAW IN GENERAL?"

Winstanley then proceeds to consider the question, What is Law? and to
emphasise the essential difference between customary, conventional or
written Law and that unwritten Law, proceeding from the Inward Light of
Reason, that inspires men, in action as in words, to do as they would be
done unto. He first gives the following clear, rational and sufficient
definit