Before I start, Simon of this parish, got in touch with me; he’s been listening from the start so he can’t be a young man anymore, but either way Simon is full of wisdom. And he tells me that by tradition, the Death’s-head Hawkmoth was first seen in England on the execution of Charles I. Wild. Have a look at a pic – there really is a skull on the back of that beauty.

Anyway, let me take you to just outside the houses of parliament. And there are hundreds of women Katherine Chidley very probably among them, because it is she who wrote the petition from the women of London in support of the imprisoned Levellers, demanding their release, and demanding also, that the MPs listen to their voices, because as Chidley’s petition declared

‘our creation in the image of God, and of an interest in Christ equal unto men, as also of a proportionable share in the freedoms of this commonwealth’

The petition had been signed by 10,000 people. For three days in April 1649, the women besieged parliament and heckled the MPs coming too and fro; the soldiers guarding the doors were not polite, pointing their guns and telling them to clear orff. They did no such thing. But nor would parliament receive and debate their petition, so the volume of protest rose. One MP did address one of the women

It is not for women to petition, they might stay at home and wash the dishes

Sir we have scarce any dishes left to wash and those we are not sure to keep

Came the answer. Another MP remarked to them that it was odd for women to petition

It was strange that you cut off the king’s head yet I suppose you will justify it

She shot back. Cromwell was also button holed; in vain he pointed out that the levellers imprisonment was legal since there was a parliamentary ordnance, but the reply was suitably uncompromising

Sir, if you take away their lives, or the lives of any contrary to law, nothing shall satisfy us but the lives of them that do it.

The Levellers were now in activist overdrive. As far as they were concerned, the Revolution had been betrayed. They were conflicted over the execution of the king, but they were utterly convinced that the new Commonwealth was betraying the revolution. They aimed foursquare at the Rump and at the Grandees of the Army, particularly Cromwell. Richard Overton wrote a pamphlet

The grandee-deceivers unmasked that you may know them

Lilburne added another, and in ‘England’s New Chains’ appealed for a new parliament – accusing the Rump of simply being a conduit for implementing the demands of the military junto. The Rump did debate that petition. They didn’t like it.

Lilburne, Wildman, and Overton were essentially now trying to mobilise the soldiers of the New Model against their officers, and mobilise the people against the parliament to save their revolution. Walwyn, typically, was a lot more moderate, trying to build bridges with the Rump, but his colleagues were breathing fire. And they were having an impact. Many in the army were very ready indeed to agree with Lilburne; agitated by the lack of social reform, worried still about their pay, determined to see parliament implement a Godly reformation of manners, and most of all – in a blind panic that they would all be sent to Ireland to fight the revolt there. Because that was where the Rump was focusing its attention not – not on fresh elections, not on social reform.

The Levelers keen on the idea of sending the army to Ireland either. And not just because their clearest route to power lay through the soldiers. But because, almost alone in a sea of English and Scottish fear, panic and bigotry, the Leveler’s would have no truck with a war against the Irish. Walwyn for example wrote

‘the cause of the Irish natives in seeking their just freedoms…was the very same with our cause here, in endeavouring our own rescue and freedom from the power of oppressors

More and more of the rank and file soldiers began to demand change. Near the end of April, 15 troopers in Colonel Whalley’s regiment in London refused to obey orders. The atmosphere in the regiment was febrile, taught and tense. Whalley managed to keep things under controlled; some loyal troopers seized the men, they were court martialed and they caved. Fairfax insisted an example be made though. The following day, in the churchyard of St Pauls, one of the mutineers, Richard Lockyer, was shot.

The Levelers had a martyr, and Rainsborough’s funeral was outdone, this time, 4,000 followed Lockyer’ funeral procession through London. Once again with many were women among them, and once again sea green was worn everywhere, the levelers colour now. This time, hundreds of soldiers actually joined in. The army officers seemed to be losing control – and indeed some of the most radical were themselves officers.

Lilburne pushed harder. A new Agreement of the People was prepared, Overton and other presses poured them out in secret, they were carried and distributed through the streets, hucksters and runners handing them out. But most of all – their friends and supporters spread them through the army.

It was all getting out of hand. An ex soldier, William Thompson posed as an officer raised a troop of 300 men, published a full throated attack on the Rump and marched towards Bristol to join rebellious units there. He never made it, met by a loyal force of the New Model and routed. But around Bristol, a regiment had indeed revolted, and were joined by some of Henry Ireton’s troop too, though Skippon’s men stood aloof and remained loyal. The rebels started to march towards London, reaching Salisbury at the start of May, they chose their own new officers and issued a declaration that their aim was to restore

Magistracy, liberty and freedom

Among other things, they also wanted their General Council of the Army back; 1647 was already beginning to look like the good old days. Agitators were spreading the word as hard as they could through the ranks and more men were joining the Leveler rebellion as they crossed the Thames and into Oxfordshire, heading west. The Levelers told Fairfax that he had failed to implement the Engagement of 1647 so that, as they put it

You keep not covenant with us

Fairfax and Cromwell knew that they stood on the edge – discontent had even spread to Cromwell’s men now, and they knew they had to act, decisively, firmly and ruthlessly against their brothers in arms. This time there could be no Putney. Fairfax issued a declaration which was essentially a bit of propaganda, declaring that the Agreement of the People was in the process of being implemented which it, to be fair, it really wasn’t, and set out to Oxfordshire with a force of 4000 men. Ahead of them, the mutineers had reached the prosperous stone Cotswold town of Burford by 9 o’ clock at night on 14^th May and settled down, confident Fairfax and Cromwell were too far away to trouble them.

They were wrong, as it happens. That day, Fairfax had force marched an extraordinary 35 miles. But it was not enough; he knew that if he could get to Burford this same night, he could surprise the Levelers and defeat them. But 35 miles. Any more was surely beyond them. So he canvassed his men – could they do 10 more miles? The answer was a rousing yes – they would follow Fairfax wherever he lead. Even to Burford, which to be fair does have a good garden centre. They set off once more, while Cromwell and Okey’s Dragoons went ahead as fast as they could on horseback.

Cromwell and the Dragoons reached Burford by Midnight, stormed into the town and caught the levelers completely by surprise. So complete was it there was no resistance; only one man was killed; most mutineers escaped into the night, 340 were taken prisoner and locked in the parish church.

The following morning Fairfax convened his Army Council. All agreed that the men were equally liable to the penalty of death. When the prisoners heard this news, it appeared they didn’t take it very well. ‘Copious tears were shed’ as Fairfax put it. The general vibe in the air appears to have changed from rebellious to contrite. They all said that they were really really sorry. They had no idea what they were thinking. Hearing this, the Council decided that just the 4 ringleaders would be shot, though in fact Fairfax reprieved one of them. And so that is what happened. On 17^th May 1649, 3 levelers were shot – Cornet Thompson, Corporal Perkins and Corporal Church. There is still a Levellers day every year at Burford, and there is a plaque at the church in memory to those that were shot.

Both Fairfax and Cromwell probably felt broadly the same about the whole affair. Both hoped that the political and legal reforms would still come from the Rump. But both were done with the radicalism of the people who would, Cromwell feared

Cast off all government and choose among themselves to have made new laws.

They both also agreed with Fairfax’s thoughts that

Only by settling this poor nation upon foundations of justice and righteousness

Would all be reconciled. We’ll see how that one goes.

As the 3 soldiers died, so did the Leveler cause. There was the odd abortive rumble, in Derbyshire, Lancaster, Portsmouth, and most notably in Oxford, but that was it really curtains. The Revolution would not belong to the Levelers.

Why the levelers failed is a question, and indeed the first thing to say is did they fail? As Freeborn John himself said, ‘though we fail still our ideas endure’, and many of their ideas would be adopted in part through the 1650s. Their radical idea of inalienable rights came to fruition in the Bill of rights in 1689.

Why they failed is sometimes explained away by the idea that they were before their time. That’s not a gimme when you go into detail. The 1653 Instruments of Government for example, changed constituencies, and instituted the franchise for all householders over 40s, including Leaseholders which is broadly where the Agreement of the People ended up. The idea of legal reform wasn’t bonkers – it’s the vested interest of professional lawyers among the Rumpers that sink that one. Some of their initial ideas like universal suffrage were before their time, but they had modified those anyway at Putney. And the idea of sovereignty of the people was embedded in 1649, however imperfectly reflected.

Essentially political events and tactics played against them. Lilburne, Wildman and Overton suffered the traditional weakness of the activist – they were rubbish politicians. Their ideas and strength derived from religious independency; but in 1649 Independent ministers thoroughly disliked their vitriolic attacks on the Commonwealth. Because they saw clearly that the Commonwealth was their best chance ever and forever to be able to practice their religion freely. They didn’t want the Levelers to destroy it. Although the levelers began to mobilise support among the general populace, the thing that gave them their big chance was support of the army grandees; and yet they drove Cromwell and Ireton away, attacking them viciously and personally. They would surely have been better to keep plugging away with the Agreement of the People; after all Cromwell in particular and the army officers in general will continue to push for reform. Maybe a basic platform would have been better. Lilburne was not a man to compromise his principles or play a long game.

Anyway; John Wildman will stay radical but for a while content himself working for Henry Marten in his estates; Richard Overton flits in and out of anti protectorate plots, even turning royalist for a while; William Walwyn gets on with life, accommodates himself with the Commonwealth and protectorate and pursues his ideas about medicine. In a way it’s a shame Walwyn was not the leader of the Levelers; he was more emollient, more patient, more politically ept. Didn’t have the fire I suppose; he was to Lilburne as Fairfax was to Cromwell in a way.

Which leaves us with the far from emollient Honest John Lilburne. And let’s give the Freeborn one his due – he saw much more clearly than the Rumpers when he gave Hugh Peters a message for them

If they go on with that tyranny they are in, they will make Charles have friends enough…to bring him into his father’s throne

Anyway, with your permission let me finish the story of the Freeborn One so we don’t need to come back to it.  In July he was released for compassionate reasons, because Elizabeth was ill, and two of their children were ill too and would die. Elizabeth gave birth to 10 children, only three of whom will make it to adulthood. That is cruel. In October the Rump accused John of High Treason, for inciting rebellion. And there was to be a trial, in the heart of London, at the Guildhall.

Well, this was a situation made for Honest John, just made for him. In a way it’s a fitting send off, total sui generis. The Leveler jungle telegraph buzzed, and when the trial opened the Guildhall was jam packed with raucous fans. The prosecution put their case by reading long tracts from his leaflets. Which, as one of the spectators wrote,

Pleased the people as well as if they had acted before them one of Ben Jonson’s plays’

You can just see it can’t you? Lots of laughter and joining in. To be fair to the judges they were patient and fair and allowed Lilburne to speak to his heart’s content – which was a very expensive error. John had planned it to the fine detail, and kept his tactics close to his chest, telling no one; the Judges expected him to deny the authority of the court. He didn’t – he fought a war of attrition over every fine point of procedure. He won point after point, tied the court up in trivialities, made the judges look like dipsticks. One of his bigger arguments, which he’d used with the court of Star Chamber a lifetime ago, was this: that no man could be forced to incriminate himself, that he must have counsel, that he must see the indictment in detail in advance – none of these things were allowable at the time, standard now of course, and it’s these things actually Lilburne will be remembered for affectionately in the next century. He will not be remembered affectionately for political radicalism and reputed leveling.

He hammered away with such persistence that there’s a rather lovely bit where John flourishes rhetorically that the court wished to murder him, at which the tortured Judge Keble wearily replied

We are willing to die too

His brother Colonel Robert Lilburne appeared in his defence, which is interesting, and watched as his brother insisted on being allowed a Chamber Pot to relieve himself in court to general hilarity. All through a second day, Lilburne quoted from legal texts he had with him, and then began to appeal directly to the Jury telling them to

‘…Know your power… consider your duty to God, to me to yourselves…do that which is just and for his glory

The crowd erupted with cheers and hubbub and loud cries of Amen. Philip Skippon nervously sent for another company of soldiers. The Jury retired for an hour, when they came back were asked if Lilburne was guilty of any of the various charges of treason to which the Foreman replied

Not guilty to all of them,

Everyone went potty, cheering and shouting for half an hour until he was taken back to the tower, there was a great crowd yelling and partying along the way. A spectator noticed that the soldiers themselves were

Hollowing and shouting as they rode in the streets for joy at his deliverance

Bonfires were lit, Londoners made an unofficial day of thanksgiving. On 8^th November all the levelers were released from prison, and there was another party.

John and Elizabeth have a difficult decade or so to the end of her lives, Elizabeth constantly making appeals on behalf of her husband to the authorities; they would be in exile in the Dutch Republic, then back home in jail again; at one point she petitions for John’s release, promising he would be, and I quote, ‘quiet and thankful’. Yuh. Right.

He was put on trial again in 1653 and it was every bit as wild; he managed to convince the Jury that they were judges of ‘law as well as of fact’. And they found him ‘not guilty of any crime worthy of death’. Queue the eye rolling of despairing judges, no doubt, cheers and celebration of the crowds.

He became a Quaker though in 1654, and that seems to have quietened him, though lord knows the Quakers were not the quietists we know them as now. His relationship with Cromwell fascinates me; Deepdown, I don’t think either of them ever quite lost that sense of brotherhood they had through the wars. In 1654 he writes to Oliver for financial help, and Cromwell manages to get a grant for him; meanwhile Lilburne was describing him as ‘the grandest Tyrant and Traytor that ever England bredd’. And his is the man lead a party Cromwell had angrily said must be broken, lest the state be broken.

He died in 1657; Elizabeth applied for a pension and lifting of his fines which were now hanging over her. Cromwell granted both requests, and she died in 1663. John was a remarkable figure – charismatic, dogmatic, capable of wide and vast vision, and of frighteningly nit picking detail, extraordinarily volatile – generous one moment, vitriolic the next, an extraordinary orator and publicist – and the very model of a new unheard of breed – a populist political activist. Elizabeth was equally remarkable – full of courage, think of her making her way to war torn Oxford to plead with the king, yet managing a family and chaotic finances along the way, holding the baby while pumping out activist leaflets. Anyway, it’s goodbye to the Lilburnes from our story.

It’s Whitehall, April 1649, offices of Sir Thomas Fairfax, commander of the forces of the Commonwealth and member of the Council of State. A gentleman entered. They came in without taking their hats off. Fairfax was a courteous man, but this shocked him, and he asked them why.

Why he said  ‘you are but our fellow creature’.

The man was Gerald Winstanley, and he wanted to change the world.

Fairfax got the hump a bit and quoted the bible, as you do about honour where honour is due, Winstanley swore fervently that he meant no disrespect. And was allowed to continue to explain what he and his fellows were doing and their plans and vision.

I must admit I rather like the idea that almost anyone could have a chat with one of the most powerful men in the kingdom. But to be fair they were there because the president of the Council, John Bradshaw, had noticed them, and asked Fairfax to understand what they were up to. Because they’d had reports from the parish of Cobham, not far from London in Surrey. The reports told of  bunch of people who had arrived on the local common, the least productive heathland. And they’d started digging.

Winstanley would soon produce a fuller description of what he told Fairfax in his work, The True Levelers Standard Advanced, published by the radical publishers at the sign of the Black Eagle, Elizabeth and Giles Calvert. It explained why, as it said,

The common people of England have begun to dig up manure and sow corn upon George Hill in Surrey

Because that was what they were doing. Winstanley explained how since the arrival of the Normans, a disease had entered peoples’ souls; the pursuit of power led to the idea of private ownership of the earth—

‘as if the earth were made for a few, not for all men’

It had produced a system of buying and selling of commodities and labour; and bred law that enforced and legitimized the tyranny of the propertied and the slavery of the propertyless. It had perverted the way things were meant to be

And hereupon the earth  (which was made to be a common treasury of relief for all…) was hedged into enclosures by the teachers and rulers, and others were made servants and slaves…

So at St George’s Hill, Winstanley and his diggers, as they would be called, were going to set things straight. [1]

To eat our bread together by righteous labour and the sweat of our brows

About 30 people had started to dig and work the common heath of Cobham; not the best agricultural land, but in starting their new utopia they did not want to cause trouble and start in violence, but instead to set an example. They were pretty ordinary people – shoemakers, artisans, shopkeepers; not gentry, not the landless poor; and all local people from around the neighbouring parish. Winstanley would develop his thoughts, in his pamphlets and writings, where he urged that all common land could be shared in this way, as this common treasury, while other kept their enclosures in peace. They planted beans, and barley and parsnips – though lord knows how they managed to persuade parsnip seeds to germinate I never can; I certainly wouldn’t build the new world on the bed of parsnips, no matter how delicious. We’d all starve.

Local people were bemused; and to be honest more than a bit appalled; they looked at them almost with disgust. When Fairfax came by in May to Cobham to see how things had developed, he found about 10 acres worth of fields dotted with simple timber houses.

He spoke with Winstanley, who told him about the hostile reaction of the people nearby, who had trampled a lot of their seedlings; but they did not fight back. They just leant into the wind, repaired the damage and started over, applying

To all the golden rule, to do to others as we would be done unto

Well that’s very Water Babies. Now – why now? you might ask, and where does all this communism come from? The Reasons are both general and specific to Winstanley. There are biblical inspirations   from the works of Daniel and Revelation, and the language is very religious, of building a promised land

The prophecies, visions and revelations of the scriptures, of prophets and apostles, concerning the calling of the Jews, the restoration of Israel, and making of that people the inheritors of the whole earth

And so on. And elegiac language of equality

We find the streaming out of love in our hearts towards all, enemies as well as friends; we would have none live in beggary, poverty or sorrow, but that everyone might enjoy the benefit of their creation

Then the vibe of the times was its own inspiration; both one of the world turned upside Down, of the loosening of old bonds and certainties, the feeling that this was a time of creation, remaking; so there is an explosion of religious sects – Ranters, Muggletonians, Socinians, fifth monarchists etc etc. There is that feeling of potential for this new world, just as the Levelers would have had it. Winstanley was asked, indeed, why now, and he said that England

Hath lain under the power of the beast, kingly property. But now England is the first of nations that is on the point of reforming[2]

A powerful incentive for hope was the reality of chaos – things could only get better; 1649 was yet another terrible year for weather and agriculture, to add to all the disruption caused by the wars. A

And finally, tradition and folk memory was an inspiration. The longing for the old moral economy where each was owed their due whatever their station; the story we’ve heard so often in these pages of the fight against enclosure, the enormous emotive power of working the land in common – such as Captain Pouch And the original Levelers, who had taken down the hedges in the Midlands Rising in 1607 and fought the removal of age old common rights.

So there’s all of that – so many reasons you wonder it had never happened before! But there are personal reasons too. Although Winstanley had been raised in Lancashire, in Wigan, he had walked off the end of the pier and come to London to make his fortune, set up a little business – and duly gone bust. He’d had a breakdown and was deeply confused and upset at this disaster. And then had a vision, a damascene moment; a voice that told him three times

Work together, eat together, declare this abroad

Gerald Winstanley had a vision.

The story of the settlement in Cobham is kind of predictable. The local communities they had invaded were horrified and responded in multiple ways; from trampling crops, to sett9ing the law on ’em, to physical assault. After a few months they moved and started again; and the same happened, they were violently driven from the common land by local people, clergy and landowners who were understandably touchy about their own rights of Common.

As time went by Winstanley’s ideas developed. He had that feeling which will be widespread, that the Rump were betraying the potential of the revolution. So little change and reform was coming from the parliament, why should people accept then the destruction of the old order if there was no transformation for all that blood shed? He took the Rump to task in print

Now the common enemy is gone, you are all like men in a mist, seeking for freedom and know not where, nor what it is

The legal system had proved to be inaccessible, expensive, the preserve of highly paid lawyers. According to Winstanley, the law was

An old whore that picks mens’ pockets and undoes them

He proposed, like the other levelers, that law must be in English, cheap and underpinned by arbitration before lawyers became involved.

Winstanley had a genius for writing. The Diggers, or True Levelers, were known far more widely than their numbers warranted. Winstanley’s ideas were repeated and reported in newsbooks and pamphlets. For a short while it seemed become a movement, swelling and general; there were settlements in Northamptonshire, Bucks, Hertfordshire, Middlesex, Bedfordshire and Leicestershire. But by the end of 1650 all was gone.

He would return to live out his life as a solid citizen near Cobham, returning to his pastoral farm and becoming a Quaker, but before he did he wrote his most famous work in 1652, The Lawe of Freedom. It was dedicated to Oliver Cromwell probably because he seemed to be the main proponent of continued reform, and the only single man powerful enough to make something happen. The laws of freedom set out this Christian utopia of equality.

In addition to that common treasury being open to all there would  be free, universal education for both girls and boys, free and open communal life.

Buit there would also be draconian laws against those evils that had perverted the vision. Buying and selling would be outlawed, for all would be shared. Landowners would of course no longer exist, but the other enemies of a free and open society would also be banned – and the penalty for joining one of these dreadful professions would be death.

Through the ages, the Diggers were viewed, essentially, as crazies, or at best, in the hands of S R Gardiner, as unrealistic visionaries. But in the late 19^th century, left wing commentators  began to discover him; a stream of books rediscovering and celebrating Winstanley as a precursor of modern socialism. As a unique slice of working class struggle for social justice, and his fame came to full flower in Christopher Hill’s World Turned Upside Down in 1972. For Hill, the failure of Winstanley and the Revolution to achieve genuine social equality would scar England for three centuries. Bit of an old Trot basically. Not a fan of property, or indeed looseleaf tea.

OK, I think that’s enough for now.

The music by the way was the Diggers Song, the words apparently written by Winstanley himself. This version is sung by the British anarcho-punk band, Chumbawumba, and I will post the lyricvs on the website post for this episode.

To sum up; we have a new Commonwealth struggling a bit to find its feet; with a narrow base of support, and not really doing much to give people a reason to get enthusiastic about a new world; I mean, they hadn’t even held those new elections. There was a reason for that, or an excuse; which was that there was just too much danger around, the revolution was not safe. The next two biggest challenges would have to be faced. The Irish revolt must be finally defeated – and that route denied to Charles the Pretender and his buddies. And then there was the small matter of the Scots, who had already proclaimed Charles King of England as well as King of Scotland. But, Ireland first.

We’ll talk then next time about Cromwell’s infamous campaign in Ireland, which is not really something to look forward to, but it needs to be done. And so, next time, let’s do it!

[1] Keay, Anna: ‘The Restless Republic’, pp39-66; Hunt, T: ‘The English Civil War at First hand’, pp236-239

[2] Healey, J: ‘’The Blazing World’, p265