This episode states Filmer’s case at full strength before answering it, because an argument answered in its weakest form has not been answered at all — and his hard question has never entirely gone away. When, exactly, did you consent? Where is this original agreement? Produce it. You were born into a country, under laws written before you existed, enforced by a government you never chose, and you did not sign anything.

Episode 9 traces the Levellers, the print-and-petition network of London radicals and army agitators who took Sir Edward Coke’s defense of English liberty and moved its foundation out from under it.