‘On
17 May 1649, three soldiers were executed on Oliver Cromwell’s
orders in Burford churchyard, Oxfordshire. They belonged to a
movement popularly known as the Levellers, with beliefs in civil
rights and religious tolerance.
During
the Civil War, the Levellers fought on Parliament’s side, they had
at first seen Cromwell as a liberator, but now saw him as a dictator.
They were prepared to fight against him for their ideals and he was
determined to crush them. Over 300 of them were captured by
Cromwell’s troops and locked up in Burford church. Three were led
out into the churchyard to be shot as ringleaders.’
https://levellersday.wordpress.com/
The
following is from the Socialist Standard, December 1961
The
word “Leveller” was first heard in 1606 when a band of men roamed
the Warwickshire countryside, uprooting or levelling fences and
hedges enclosing the once-common lands. These detested barriers had
been going up all over England for eighty years.
Enclosing
the “waste-land” that from time immemorial had been common
property brought increasing misery to the poor and greater .wealth to
the rich. Large areas were turned into sheep walks to satisfy the
growing demand abroad for superior English wool. In Thomas
More’s Utopia we read, “ The sheep that
were wont to be so meek and tame and so small eaters now as I heare
say be become so great devourers and so wild, that they eat up and
swallow down the very men themselves.” Fresh ideas on farming
and improved methods of stock-breeding made squires land-greedy.
Enclosing was the polite name for stealing; people were driven from
their homes to give pasture to sheep. Their only hope of survival lay
in the towns, where they were fleeced even more closely than their
woolly competitors.
Inventions
and the necessity for larger ships meant bigger outlay and brought a
demand for more money in the form of capital. A rich, powerful
merchant class came into being. The first bank—the Bank of England,
1694—came with it.
The
land lost much of its aristocratic value; the traditional obligations
to tenant and labourer tended to disappear. The old tyrant with
titles was often superseded by a new tyrant with money. Farmworkers
were tricked out of rights of tenure. Though freed from the old
bondage they were enslaved in a new and often terrifying system.
Throughout
these tremendous changes Charles I remained obstinately feudal in
outlook. Something was bound to happen. By 1628 the House of Commons
was three times richer than the House of Lords. This gave its members
confidence to resist the king's demands for money. So in 1629 he
closed Parliament for eleven years, hoping to show his recalcitrant
M.Ps. that he alone held power. But in 1639 a rebellion broke out in
Scotland, and by 1640 he had been forced to recall Parliament to vote
the necessary money to quell the rising. Here was the opportunity the
Members had dreamed of. They knew that archaic notions of kingship
must give way to a governmental system favourable to the merchants.
As
a warm-up for their startling policy they executed the king’s chief
minister, the Earl of Strafford, who had been raising an army in
Ireland to crush Parliament. At the same time John
Lilburne
leader of a “left-wing” group—the Levellers—was released from
prison, where he had resided two years for issuing anti-State Church
pamphlets. Now free, he got an Army command.
With
this widespread opposition came a taste for democratic expression.
The popularity of Cromwell's rising faction gave the Levellers a
chance to speak out. How and where did they fit into the political
ferment?
Parliament
was divided. On the right were the Anglican Royalists, conservative
and pro-Charles. On the left were the Independents, radical but not
united. They were divided into a right-wing called Gentlemen
Independents headed by Cromwell, Ireton,
and Fairfax,
and a left-wing known as the Levellers. The latter reflected the
aspirations of small farmers, humbler-tradtsmen, work people and
soldiers. They advocated greater political equality than the
Independents and had a widespread popular support.
In
addition to political demands the civilian arm of the movement (the
Diggers) urged greater economic equality; and in recognising that all
political organisations and freedoms spring from or are crushed by
the particular mode of land-ownership, they earned for themselves the
undying hatred of Cromwell.
At
this stage the Levellers were welcomed by the Radicals. All through
the struggle the Levellers did best in the army, perhaps because
there they were better organised than the Diggers. Both issued a
considerable mass of literature, the Levellers maintaining that
economic freedom followed from political freedom, and the Diggers
seeing it rather the other way.
Common-ownership
of the land was the bed-rock of their philosophy. Stripped of its
Biblical overtones it stated a view that is still a staggering
novelty to millions today. “. . . the time will be when all men
shall willingly come in and give up their lands and estates and
submit to the community.” They added, “and of that for money
there was no need of it” (if men led communal lives). In the letter
to Lord Halifax, Winstanley asked, “I demand whether all wars,
bloodshed and misery came not upon creation when one man endeavoured
to be a lord over another.”
In
an article in the Leveller paper, The Moderate in
1649, after some men were executed for cattle-stealing, a writer
suggested private property was the cause of a great deal of crime
committed by the poor, “ We find,” he wrote, “some of these
felons to be very civil men, and say, that if. they could have had
any reasonable subsistence by friends, or otherwise they should never
have taken such necessitous courses for the support of their wives
and families.” The paper was suppressed after September, 1649, by
“democratic” Cromwell.
The
Levellers just as clearly saw that religion with its mirage of a
happy future life was the carrot that encouraged the poor donkey of a
labourer to stagger on. Winstanley wrote, ". . . to know God
beyond the creation or to know what he will do to a man after the man
is dead, in any other wise than to scatter him into his essences of
fire, water, earth and air of which he is compounded (a belief handed
down by the ancient Greeks) is a knowledge beyond the line or
capacity of man to attain to while he lives in his compounded body.”
Richard
Overton,
too, wrote in
Man's
Mortality that
the idea of the soul was ridiculous.
The
New Model Army (Roundheads) was Parliament’s striking force, its
job to overthrow the king. But because its ranks were filled with
many pro-Leveller men the Levellers saw in it a means of getting
better conditions for the poor. On May 20th, 1647, “a great
petition” was sent to the Commons demanding political reforms and
the re-organisation of the Constitution. When the re-imprisoned
Lilburne (he was in and out of gaol between 1646-1648 for various
attacks on authority) heard that the common hangman had been
instructed to burn it, he looked to the army for support. He declared
the power of the land vested in the army, and at this point Cromwell
agreed. Next, a manifesto, The Case of the Army Truly Stated,
was presented to General Fairfax on October 15th, 1647, and later An
Agreement of the People, which dealt more with civil matters.
Fearing
the support gained by the Levellers, the Presbyterians compromised
with Charles. Enraged, the Independents with the Levellers marched to
London, entered the House and passed a measure to thwart any attempt
to corrupt the army; the Presbyterians were crushed. Though Cromwell
had been aided by the Levellers, he refused to free Lilburne. When we
see what the Levellers were after, we can understand why! The Case
of the Army Truly Stated listed thirteen points:
1. New
election for new parliament.
2.
House of Commons to be cleared of royalist sympathisers.
3.Army’s
supremacy to be made known officially.
4.Excise
tax to be lifted from the poor, Better tax-laws.
5.Trials
to be speeded up and improved conditions for prisoners.
6.Greater
religious tolerance.
7.Abolition
of tithes.
8.Oath
of Supremacy to be abolished.
9.No
oaths from those with conscience scruples.
10.Law
reform to enable laymen to understand legal matters.
11.
Removal of privileges. All to be subject to same laws.
12.Enclosed
land to be returned to common use.
13.
Pensions for disabled soldiers, widows and children.
The
stir that these programmes made, forced Fairfax, Cromwell and the
others Grandees (as they were somewhat derisively called) to allow
their discussion in a series of debates held in Putney. Cromwell
reasoned that if these fiery demands could be proved too extreme or
impractical. Leveller influence would diminish and the threat to his
supremacy would disappear. The main point was that the vote was the
birthright of all men, and to this Ireton replied, “...voting was a
property right. Only those who owned a house worth 40s a year in rent
or who had a freehold interest in land should vote. The protection of
private property was of the utmost importance, now that freedom had
been won. Everyone was free to make money, and to own property, and
the law was there to protect them while they did it.”
Rainbotough for
the Levellers retorted that what was required in voting was reason
not property. And Sexby
added,
“... as things are today unless a man has fixed property, he has no
rights in England at all.”
Cromwell
had the Case of the Army condemned in Parliament. Next, he set
out to quell his army and persuade the least influenced to sign a
pledge of loyalty at Corkbush Field, Ware, in Hertfordshire. There
the Agreement of the People was presented to Fairfax. He accepted it,
but told the men to go on signing and they did. But then up rode two
dissenting regiments singing and wearing the Leveller colours.
Immediately Cromwell drew his sword and rode angrily among them,
tearing away their colours. His sudden action quietened them. The
ringleaders were arrested; three were found guilty and one of these
was shot.
It
was a serious defeat for the Levellers. They tried resistance again,
but were imprisoned and Lilburne remained in the Tower. At
Carisbrooke Castle, Isle of Wight, Charles in 1648 launched another
attack (the Second Civil War). All the contesting elements of
Parliament sank their differences again in preparation for the fray.
The artful Presbyterians released Lilburne, hoping he
would
stir the army to mutiny. But he supported Cromwell, presumably
regarding him as the lesser of two evils.
After
the royalist defeat more discussion on the Agreement of the
People followed and it actually reached Parliament, but lay
in abeyance while the king’s fate was decided. On January 30th,
1649, Charles, king by the grace of God, died by the grace of the
merchants.
M.
Brown.
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