Part 8 (1/2)
Some six weeks later, on May 10th, yet another pamphlet appeared from the same part of the country, ent.i.tled:
”A DECLARATION OF THE WELL-AFFECTED IN THE COUNTY OF BUCKINGHAMs.h.i.+RE:[84:1]
Being a Representation of the Middle Sort of Men within the three Chilterne Hundreds of Disborough, Burnum and Stoke, and part of Ailsbury Hundred, whereby they declare their Resolution and Intentions, with a Removal of their Grievances.”
This is a very short pamphlet, of some seven pages, in which these ”Middle Sort of Men” state that they had waited for eight years for redress of their grievances, but finding them still continue, and expecting little good from the Parliament and the Grandees of the Army, ”finding the Grandees of the Army to be the men that hinder both the honest soldiery that stand for absolute freedom, and doth imprison and put them to death that are for Just Principles of Common Right and Equity, so that those honest men are by those proud Commanders persecuted by the name of Levellers....”[85:1]
”Therefore we declare our intentions that the World may take notice of our principles, which are for Common Right and Freedom. And therefore--
”1. We do protest against all Arbitrary Courts, Terms, Lawyers, Impropriators, Lords of Manors, Patents, Privileges, Customs, Tolls, Monopolisers, Incroachers, Enhancers, etc., or any other interest-parties, whose powers are arbitrary, etc., as not to allow or suffer ourselves to be inslaved by any of those parties, but shall resist, as far as lawfully we can, all their Arbitrary Proceedings.
”2. We protest against the whole Norman Power, as being too intolerable a burden any longer to bear.
”3. We protest against paying Tythes, Tolls, Customs, etc.
”4 We protest against any coming to Westminster Terms, or to give any money to the Lawyers, but will endeavour to have all our Controversies ended by 2, 3 or 12 men of our own neighborhood, as before the Norman Conquest.
”5. We protest against any trial by a Martial Court as arbitrary, tyrannical and wicked, and not for a Free People to suffer in times of peace.
”6. We shall help to aid and a.s.sist the Poor to the regaining all their Rights, dues, etc., that do belong unto them, and are detained from them by any Tyrant whatsoever.
”7. And likewise will further and help the said Poor to manure, dig, etc., the said Commons, and to sell those woods growing thereon to help them to a stock, etc.
”8. All well affected persons that joyn in Community in G.o.d's way, as those Acts 2. v. 44, and desire to manure, dig and plant in the waste grounds and commons, shall not be troubled or molested by any of us, but rather furthered therein.
”We desire to go by the Golden Rule of Equity, viz., To do to all men as we would they should do to us, and no otherwise: and as we would tyrannise over none, so we shall not suffer ourselves to be slaves to any whosoever.”
That such views were not restricted to ”the Levellers” may be inferred from the very similar demands made in ”A Pet.i.tion of the Officers engaged for Ireland,” and presented to the House of Commons in July of the same year (see Whitelocke, p. 413), from which we take the following: ”That proceedings in law may be in English, cheap, certain, etc., and all suits and differences first to be arbitrated by three neighbours, and if they cannot determine it, then to certify the Court.”
They also ”humbly pray”--”That t.i.thes may be taken away, and Two s.h.i.+llings in the Pound paid for all lands, out of which the Ministers to be maintained and the Poor.” This, we should think, was the first pet.i.tion to the House of Commons in favour of the Taxation of Land Values.
In fact, religious and political speculation, as well as dissatisfaction and discontent, were rife amongst the active and thoughtful of the people, as well as in the Army. On the 17th of the previous month, some of the soldiers, who, according to Gardiner,[87:1] ”had resolved not to leave England till the demands of the Levellers [the political Levellers] had been granted--300 in Hewson's regiment alone,” had refused to go to Ireland, and had been promptly cas.h.i.+ered. On April 24th a dispute about pay in one of the troops of Whalley's regiment had resulted ”in some thirty of the soldiers seizing the colours and refusing to leave their quarters.” It was not till Cromwell and Fairfax appeared on the scene that they submitted. Fifteen of their number were carried to Whitehall, where, on the 26th, a Court-martial condemned six of them to death. ”Cromwell, however, pleaded for mercy, and in the end all were pardoned with the exception of Robert Lockyer, who was believed to have been their leader.” Lockyer, Gardiner continues, ”though young in years, had fought gallantly through the whole of the war. He was a thoughtful, religious man, beloved by his comrades, who craved for the immediate establishment of liberty and democratic order. As such he had stood up for _The Agreement of the People_ on Corkbush Field,” when another trooper of a similar character, named Arnold, had been shot to death, ”and he now entertained against his commanding officers a prejudice arising from other sources than the mere dispute about pay, which influenced natures less n.o.ble than his own.... On the 27th, Lockyer, firmly believing himself to be a martyr to the cause of right and justice, was led up Ludgate Hill to the open s.p.a.ce in front of St.
Paul's, and there, after expostulating with the firing party for their obedience to their officers in a deed of murder, he was shot to death.”
Lockyer's funeral took place on the 29th, and was the occasion of a remarkable demonstration, of which we take the following account from the pages of Whitelocke's _Memorial of English Affairs_ (p. 399):
”Mr. Lockier a Trooper who was shot to death by Sentence of the Court Martial was buried in this manner. About one thousand went before the Corps, and five or six in a file, the Corps was then brought with six Trumpets sounding a Soldier's Knell, then the Trooper's Horse came clothed all over in mourning and led by a Footman. The Corps was adorned with bundles of Rosemary, one half stained with blood, and the Sword of the deceased with them. Some thousands followed in Ranks and Files, all had Sea-green and black Ribbon tied on their Hats and to their b.r.e.a.s.t.s, and the Women brought up the Rear. At the new Church Yard in Westminster some thousands more of the better sort met them, who thought not fit to march through the City. Many looked on this Funeral as an Affront to the Parliament and Army; others called them Levellers, but they took no notice of any of them.”
In view of such a manifestation of the state of public opinion, we cannot be surprised that Winstanley's eloquent and impressive appeals awoke a responsive echo in the minds of many who would have shrunk from following his example, or even from publicly avowing his creed.
Moreover, the miserable condition of the ma.s.ses of the agricultural population, of which we shall give some startling evidence later on, must have prepared a soil favourable to his self-imposed mission, to awaken them to a knowledge both of their rights and of their duties.
Especially welcome must have been doctrines in accordance with their simple religious beliefs, as well as with their ancient and well-founded traditions of certain inalienable rights to the use of the land: rights that, as they well knew, had been filched from them under cover of laws they had no voice in making, which they did not understand, and which were enforced upon them by the power of the sword and gallows. We must remember, however, that though the landholders had succeeded in impoveris.h.i.+ng, they had not yet succeeded in degrading the people; some remnant of the old English spirit was still left, and the Civil War had re-awakened the old English craving for freedom, liberty, and equity.
The landholders, in their attempt to emanc.i.p.ate themselves from the control of the Crown, had kindled a fire amongst the people before which they quailed; small wonder, then, that about this time they began to wish, to intrigue and to struggle for the re-establishment of the Monarchy. From the time of Henry the Eighth the condition of the English labourers had steadily worsened; it was left to the landholders after the Restoration to complete their enslavement and degradation. When considering Winstanley's or any other similar doctrines, the student would do well to bear in mind Professor Thorold Rogers'
conclusions,[89:1]--conclusions arrived at after a lifelong study of the question,--that--”I contend that from 1563 to 1824, a conspiracy, concocted by the law and carried out by parties interested in its success, was entered into, to cheat the English workmen of his wages, to tie him to the soil, to deprive him of hope, and to degrade him into irremediable poverty.” Or, as he elsewhere expresses it[89:2]--”For more than two centuries and a half the English law, and those who administered the law, were engaged in grinding down the English workman to the lowest pittance, in stamping out every expression or act which indicated any organised discontent, and in multiplying penalties upon him when he thought of his natural rights.”
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