SIR. Re: Genesis of our liberty, October 24.

Royalists were excluded from the Putney Debates of 1647, which were consequently not representative of the country as a whole and, so far from paving the way for our modern civil liberties, were very soon followed by the military dictatorship of Oliver Cromwell.

It was the accession of William and Mary in the Glorious Revolution of 1689 which began the development of our constitutional monarchy and parliamentary democracy.

JENNIFER MILLER Heathview Gardens Putney