Observations made Parker the Observator (or, sometimes, the Observer), the celebrated but nameless author of the most notorious pamphlet of the day. For an astonishingly long time, well into 1643, royalist authors queued to refute Observations, which they still thought of as being dangerous. As late as 1648, Sir Robert Filmer's attacks on the “Observator” required no special justification or explanation. In his own camp, Parker did not altogether lack defenders – although they were less numerous than one might have anticipated from the number of attacks. To an extent this probably reflected confidence that the Observator could take care of himself. But others sought to make parliament's case on grounds other than Parker chose, and in so doing implicitly passed judgment on Parker. In both cases, the most significant point is the degree to which Observations gave shape to subsequent debate. Along with parliamentary absolutism itself, the Observator's slogans and formulas, particularly the maxims that the king was singulis major, universis minor and the obscure quod efficit tale est magis tale (or quicquid efficit tale est magis tale), were the special targets of Parker's opponents, and in that sense bound the emerging debate. Equally, though, Parker's drift from known law and constitution into equity, popular sovereignty, and the law of nature released what had been the constitutional stream of the official war of words into broader political, religious, and (in several senses) moral waters. Eventually Observations' currents were scarcely distinguishable in the increasingly vast river of pamphlets and issues.