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- See Levellers (disambiguation) for alternative meanings.
The Levellers were a 17th century English political party, and were one of the largest factions on the Parliamentarian side during the English Civil War. They were organised at the national level, with offices in a number of London inns and taverns; they published a newspaper (The Moderate) and they used sea-green ribbons as an identifier. They were extremely well-supported from within the ranks of the New Model Army.
The most vocal of the Leveller leaders was John Lilburne. Other leaders included William Walwyn, Thomas Prince and Richard Overton. "Freeborn" John Lilburne regarded the term Levellers as pejorative. Lilburne called his supporters "Levellers so-called" and preferred to refer to The Levellers as "Agitators".
The Levellers' political ambitions involved a remodelling of the English political process along the lines of a more egalitarian, less class-driven regime. They held (in the words of Richard Overton) that "by natural birth all men are equally and alike borne to like propriety, liberty and freedom", and that government should be a contract between equal citizens. Their manifesto included: universal suffrage for all adult males; biannual or annual elections; complete religious freedom; an end to the censorship of books and newspapers; the abolition of the monarchy and the House of Lords; trial by jury; an end to taxation of people earning less than £30 a year and a maximum interest rate of 6%.
Their views were in stark contrast to groups such as The Diggers, who were led by Gerrard Winstanley and called themselves True Levellers. They called for a total destruction of the existing order and replacement with a communistic and agrarian lifestyle based around the precepts of the early Christians.
The whole basis of Leveller politics was original in that it was not founded on religious doctrine. What the Levellers sought was a secular republic, without religious direction from the state. In common with later liberals they called for the abolition of tithes, the feudal fee charged to pay for the state church. They argued for complete religious tolerance, a position which was markedly radical for the time.
Time Line
In July 1645 John Lilburne was imprisoned for denouncing Members of Parliament who lived in comfort while the common soldiers fought and died for the Parliamentary cause. His offence was slandering William Lenthall, the Speaker of the House of Commons, whom he accuses of corresponding with Royalists. He was freed in October after a petition by over two thousand leading London citizens was presented to House of Commons requesting his release.
In July 1646, Lilburne was imprisoned in the Tower of London for denouncing his former army commander the Earl of Manchester as Royalist sympathiser for protecting an officer who has been charged with treason. It was the campaigns to free Lilburne from prison which spawned the movement known as the Levellers.
The Putney Debates1, at the St Mary's Church, Putney, in the county of Surrey, started on October 28 1647 and lasted into November, took place between other factions of the New Model Army and the Levellers, whose supporters were elected from each regiment of the army to participate. The discussions centred around the Agreement of the People2, a written constitutional proposal drafted by civilian Levellers and endorsed by Army supporters and the preposals put forward by Henry Ireton, (son-in-law of Oliver Cromwell) The Heads of the Proposals3 putting forward a constitutional manifesto which included the preservation of property rights and maintaining the privileges of the gentry.
The Corkbush Field rendezvous on November 17 1647, was the first of three rendezvous to take place as agreed in the Putney Debates. The Army commanders Thomas Fairfax and Cromwell were worried at the strength of support which the Levellers had in the Army. So they decided to impose The Heads of the Proposals as the army's manifesto instead of the Levellers' the Agreement of the People. When some refused to accept this, because they wanted the army to adopt Levellers' Agreement of the People, they were arrested and one of the ringleaders, Private Richard Arnold was executed. At the other two rendezvous, the troops who were summoned agreed to the manifesto without further protest.
The Levellers' largest petition titled To The Right Honovrable The Commons Of England4 was presented to Parliament on September 11 1648 after amassing signatories including about a third of all Londoners.
On October 30 1648 Thomas Rainsborough was killed. He was a Member of Parliament and also a Leveller leader who had spoken at the Putney Debates. His funeral was the occasion for a large Leveller-led demonstration in London, with thousands of mourners wearing the Levellers' ribbons of sea-green and bunches of rosemary for remembrance in their hats.
In January 1649 Charles I of England was tried and executed for treason against the people. In February the "Grandees" (senior officers) ban petitions to Parliament by soldiers. In March Eight Leveller troopers went to the Commander-in-Chief of the New Model Army, Thomas Fairfax and demand the restoration of the right to petition. Five of them were cashiered out of the army.
300 infantrymen of Colonel John Hewson's regiment, who declared that they would not serve in Ireland until the Levellers' programme had been realised, were cashiered without arrears of pay, which was the threat that had been used to quell the mutiny at the Corkbush Field rendezvous.
In the Bishopsgate mutiny soldiers of the regiment of Colonel Edward Whalley stationed in Bishopsgate London made demands similar to those of Hewson's regiment, they were ordered out of London. When the refused to go, fifteen soldiers were arrested and court martialled, of whom six were sentenced to death. Of this six, five were subsequently pardoned while Robert Lockier, a former Levellers' Agitator, was hanged April 27 1649.
In 1649 Lieutenant Colonel John Lilburne, William Walwyn, Thomas Prince, and Richard Overton, were imprisoned in the Tower of London by the Council of State (see above). It was while the leaders of the Levellers were being held in the Tower of London that they wrote an outline of the reforms the Levellers wanted in a pamphlet entitled An Agreement Of The Free People Of England5 (written on May 1 1649). It includes reforms that have since been made law in England such as the right to silence and others, such as an elected judiciary, that have not.
Shortly afterwards Cromwell attacked the "Banbury mutineers", 400 troopers who supported the levellers and who were commanded by Captain William Thompson6. Several mutineers were killed in the skirmish, but Captain Thompson escaped only to be killed in another skirmish near the Digger community at Wellingborough. The three other leaders were hanged, William Thompson's brother, Corporal Perkins and John Church on May 17 1649. This destroyed the Leveller's support base in the New Model Army, which by this time was the major power in the land. Although Walwyn and Overton were released from the Tower and Lilburne was tried and acquitted, the Leveller cause had effectively been crushed.
In 1655 (?) Vane, Ludlow, Robert Overton, Harrison and Major Wildman, the head of the Levellers, were all arrested on the orders of Oliver Cromwell.
Other usage
In 1724 there was a rising against enclosures in Galloway, and a number of men who took part therein were called Levellers or Dykebreakers (A. Lang, History of Scotland, vol. iv.). The word was also used in Ireland during the 18th century to describe a secret revolutionary society similar to the Whiteboys.
See also
References
- The Putney Debates (http://privatewww.essex.ac.uk/~muss/webstuff/putney.htm)
- The Agreement of the People (http://www.constitution.org/eng/conpur074.htm) as presented to the Council of the Army October 1647
- The Heads of the Proposals offered by the Army (http://www.constitution.org/eng/conpur071.htm)
- Agreement of the People (http://www.constitution.org/eng/conpur081.htm), as presented to Parliament in January 1649
- Agreement of the People (http://www.constitution.org/eng/agreepeo.htm), extended version from the imprisonment of the Leveller leaders, May 1649
- The testimony of the Burford Levellers (http://www.bilderberg.org/land/case.htm)
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