Part 7 (2/2)
”The things, Lords, Barons, etc., cry for a king, else their tyrannical House of Peers falls down, and all their rotten honour, and all Patents and Corporations: their power being derived from him; if he go down, all their tyranny falls too.”
But now, it continues:
”The honest man that would have liberty cries down all interests [or special privileges, as they would be termed to-day] whatsoever; and to this end he desires Common Rights and Equity: which consist of these particulars following:
”1. A just portion for each man to live, that so none need to beg or steal for want, but everyone may live comfortably.
”2. A just Rule for each man to go by, which Rule is to be found in Scripture.
”3. All men alike under the said Rule, which Rule is, to do to one another as another should do to him....
”4. The government to be by Judges, called Elders, men fearing G.o.d and hating Covetousness, to be chosen by the people, and to end all controversies in every town or hamlet, without any other or further trouble or charge.”
These, then, were the four points of the People's Charter of 1648; the four fundamental reforms which Winstanley, if Winstanley be the author of this pamphlet, as we believe, deemed necessary to secure the peace and well-being of the ma.s.ses of the people. The pamphlet then indicates where the people are to look for their model, in the following words:
”And in the Scriptures the Israelite's Common-wealth is an excellent pattern.... Now in Israel if a man were poor, then a public maintenance and stock were to be provided to raise him again. So would all Bishops Lands, Forest Lands, and Crown Lands do in your Land, which the apostate Parliament men give one to another, and to maintain the needless thing called a king. And every seven years the whole Land was for the poor, the fatherless, widows, and strangers, and at every crop a portion allowed them.
”Mark this, poor people, what the Levellers would do for you. Oh why are you so mad as to cry up a king? It is he and his Court and Patentee-men, as Majors Aldermen, and such creatures, that like cormorants devour what you should enjoy, and set up Whipping-posts and Correcting-houses to enslave you. 'Tis rich men that oppress you, saith James.
”Now in this right Common-wealth he that had least had no want.
Therefore the Scriptures call them a Family or Household of Israel.
And amongst those who received the Gospel, they were gathered into a Family, and had all things common (Acts 2. 44); yet so that each one was to labor and get his own bread. And this is Equity as aforesaid. For it is not lawful nor fit for some to work and the others to play; for it's G.o.d's command that all work, let all eat.
And if all work alike, is it not fit for all to eat alike, have alike, and enjoy alike privileges and freedoms? And he that doth not like this, is not fit to live in a Common-wealth. Therefore weep and howl, ye rich men, by what vain name or t.i.tle soever, G.o.d will visit you for all your oppressions. You live upon other men's labors, giving them bran to eat, extorting extreme rents and taxes from your fellow-creatures. But now what will you do? for the people will no longer be enslaved by you, for the knowledge of the Lord shall enlighten them.”
The pamphlet then details the doings of William the Conqueror, contends that the n.o.bility and Gentry owe all their special privileges to his innovations, that ”their rise was the Country's ruin, and the putting them down will be the rest.i.tution of our rights again.” The very existence of Parliaments is attributed to the uprisings of their forefathers; and after emphasising the manner in which all power was still secured to the King and the House of Peers, it concludes with the following exhortation: ”So when all Israel saw that the King hearkened not unto them, the people answered the King, saying, What portion have we in David; neither have we inheritance in the Son of Jesse. To your tents, O Israel.”
Within a few days of the publication of the second edition of the above pamphlet, its author was ready with the second part, which appeared on March 30th (1649), and was ent.i.tled:
”MORE LIGHT s.h.i.+NING IN BUCKINGHAMs.h.i.+RE:[83:1]
Being a Declaration of the State and Condition that all Men are in by Right. Likewise the Slavery all the World are in by their own kind, and this Nation in particular, and by whom. Likewise the Remedies, as Take away the Cause and the Effect will cease.
Being a Representation unto all the People of England, and to the soldiery under the Lord General Fairfax.
THE SECOND PART.
'Whatsoever doth manifest, is Light.'--EPH. v. 13.”
As this pamphlet covers much the same ground as the former, our notice of it will be but brief. After emphasising the importance of the observance of the Golden Rule, it declares that ”All men by G.o.d's donation are alike free by birth, and have alike privileges by virtue of His grant.” ”So that for any to enclose the creation wholly from his kind, to his own use, to the impoverishment of his fellow-creatures, whereby they are made his slaves, is altogether unlawful. And it is the cause of all oppressions, whereby many thousands are deprived of their rights which G.o.d hath invested them withal, whereby they are forced to beg or steal for want.” It then details the various means taken to this end, and declares them, as well as the kingly power which its author holds, to be their source and origin, to be opposed to the direct command of G.o.d as expressed in the Holy Scriptures. Hence it denounces the oppressing privileged cla.s.ses as ”rebels against G.o.d's commands,”
and as ”traitors against G.o.d's Annointed, Jesus Christ, who alone is Lord and King over men, and all men are equal.” The writer contends that with the fall of the King, all the special privileges, grants, patents, monopolies, etc., created by him, should have fallen also. But since ”it is apparent that the Grandees of the Parliament intend still to uphold them, and to take a large share thereof unto themselves,” he finds himself forced to appeal ”to all our dear Brethren in England and to the Soldiers in the Army to stand everyone in his place to oppose all Tyranny whatsoever and by whomsoever intended against us.”
At the foot of this pamphlet we find the following notice: ”Reader, You may expect in the Third Part to have an Anatomising of all Powers that now are, etc. And in the Fourth Part, the Grounds and Rules that all men are to go by. Farewell.” Whether these notices refer to some of Winstanley's pamphlets, the second seems to point to _The New Law of Righteousness_, or not, we have no means of knowing. Nor, indeed, whether the above pamphlets were from his pen, though we strongly believe them to have been so. In any case they seem to us to have sufficient bearing on the Digger Movement to justify our noticing them here.
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