90:1 British Museum, Press Mark, 1027, i. 16 (3). We say “mainly from Winstanley’s pen,” for though the arguments are his, the style of the pamphlet, with its long, involved, never-ending sentences, so unlike Winstanley’s crisp, epigrammatic, vigorous style, suggests to us that the writing was probably left to some other member of his company, or probably to a Committee appointed for the purpose.
93:1 This fairly represents the general spirit and feeling prevailing in the Model Army, who repeatedly contended, to quote the words of the Declaration of the Army of June 14th, 1647, that—“We are not a mere mercenary army hired to serve any arbitrary power of a State, but called forth and conjured by the several Declarations of Parliament to the defence of our own and the people’s just Rights and Liberties; and so we took up arms in judgment and conscience to those ends, and have so continued in them, and are resolved according to your first just desires in your Declarations, and such principles as we have received from your frequent informations, and our own common sense concerning those our fundamental rights and liberties, to assert and vindicate the just power and rights of this Kingdom in Parliament for those common ends promised against all arbitrary power, violence and oppression, and against all particular parties or interests whatsoever.”
95:1 King’s Pamphlets. British Museum, Press Mark, E. 552. In the British Museum Catalogue the Preface is attributed to John Taylor the Water Poet; but, to judge from his other writings, this is probably an error.
“For you must either establish Commonwealth’s Freedom in power, making provision for everyone’s peace, which is Righteousness, or else you must set up Monarchy again. Monarchy is twofold, either for one king to reign, or for many to rule by kingly principles. For the king’s power lies in his laws, not in his name. And if either one king rule, or many rule by kingly principles, much murmuring, grudges, troubles, and quarrels may and will arise among the oppressed people upon every gained opportunity.”—Winstanley, The Law of Freedom.
Within a few days of Lord Fairfax’s visit to the Diggers, already recorded, and about two months after the publication of The True Levellers Standard Advanced, Winstanley, on June 9th, 1649, again made his appearance at the headquarters of the Army, the bearer of a letter, which, as he tells us, he himself delivered to the Lord General, “who very mildly promised to read it and consider of it”:
“A Letter to Lord Fairfax and his Council of War:100:1
With divers questions to the Lawyers and Ministers: Proving it an undeniable equity that the Common People ought to dig, plow, plant and dwell upon the Commons without hiring them or paying Rent to any.
Delivered to the General and his Chief Officers, June 9th, 1649, by Gerrard Winstanley in the behalf of those who have begun to dig upon George Hill in Surrey.”
“Our digging and ploughing upon George Hill in Surrey is not unknown to you, since you have seen some of our persons, and heard us speak in defence thereof; and we did receive kindness and moderation from you and your Council of War, both when some of us were at Whitehall before you, and when you came in person to George Hill to view our works. We endeavour to lay open the bottom and intent of our business as much as can be, that none may be troubled with doubtful imaginations about us, but may be satisfied in the sincerity and universal righteousness of the work.”
It then continues:
“We understand that our digging upon that Common is the talk of the whole Land, some approving, some disowning; some are friends filled with love, and see that the work intends good to the Nation, the peace whereof is that which we seek after; others are enemies filled with fury, who falsely report of us that we have intent to fortify ourselves, and afterwards to fight against others and take away their goods from them, which is a thing we abhor. And many other slanders we rejoice over, because we know ourselves clear, our endeavour being no otherwise but to improve the Commons, and to call off that oppression and outward bondage which the Creation groans under, as much as in us lies, and to lift up and preserve the purity thereof.”
Winstanley then declares that their opponents were but “one or two covetous freeholders that would have all the Commons to themselves, and that would uphold the Norman tyranny,” and still further explains his position, as follows:
“We told you, upon a question you put to us, that we were not against any that would have Magistrates and Laws to govern, as the Nations of the World are governed, but that, for our own parts, we shall need neither the one nor the other in that nature of government. For as our land is common, so our cattle is to be common, and our corn and fruits of the earth common, and are not to be bought and sold among us, but to remain a standing portion of livelihood to us and our children, without that cheating entanglement of buying and selling; and we shall not arrest one another. And then what need have we of imprisoning, whipping or hanging laws to bring one another into bondage? And we know that none of those that are subject to this righteous law dares arrest or enslave his brother for or about the objects of the Earth, because the Earth is made by our Creator to be a Common Treasury of Livelihood to one equal with another, without respect of persons.... What need have we of any outward, selfish, confused laws, made to uphold the Power of Covetousness, when we have the Righteous Law written in our hearts, teaching us to walk purely in the Creation.”
Winstanley then complains of the action of some of the soldiers, but expresses the desire that they should not be punished, only cautioned not to offend again; and states the readiness of himself and companions to come to headquarters “upon a bare letter.” He reiterates his contention that their demand is only to enjoy freedom “according to the law of contract between you and us”; freedom to till the common land, not to trespass upon any enclosures. He continues:
“We desire that your Lawyers may consider these questions, which we affirm to be truths, and which give good assurance, by the law of the land, that we that are the younger brothers, or common people, have a true right to dig, plow up and dwell upon the Commons, as we have declared.”
Questions to the Lawyers.
“1. Did not William the Conqueror dispossess the English, and thus cause them to be servants to him?
“2. Was not King Charles the direct successor of William the First?
“3. Whether Lords of the Manor were not the successors of the chief officers of William the First, holding their rights to the Commons by the power of the sword?
“4. Whether Lords of the Manor have not lost their royalty to the common land by the recent victories?
“5. Whether any laws since the coming in of kings have been made in the light of the righteous law of our Creation, respecting all alike, or have not been grounded upon selfish principles in fear or flattery of their king, to uphold freedom in the gentry and clergy, and to hold the common people under bondage still, and so respecting persons?
“6. Whether all laws that are not grounded upon equity and reason, not giving an universal freedom to all, but respecting persons, ought not to be cut off with the king’s head? We affirm they ought. If all laws be grounded upon equity and reason, then the whole land of England is to be a Common Treasury to everyone born in the Land.
“7. Whether everyone without exception, by the Law of Contract, ought not to have liberty to enjoy the earth for his livelihood, and to settle his dwelling in any part of the Commons of England, without buying or renting land of any, seeing that everyone by agreement and covenant among themselves have paid taxes, given free-quarter, and adventured their lives to recover England out of bondage? We affirm they ought.103:1
“8. Whether the laws that were made in the days of the king do give freedom to any but the gentry and clergy?”
Winstanley then puts a string of similar questions to Public Preachers, “that say they preach the Righteous Law,” from which, however, we need only quote the following:
“Questions to Public Preachers.
“First we demand, Yea or No, Whether the Earth, with her fruits, was made to be bought and sold from one to another; And whether one part of mankind was made to be a Lord of the Land, and another part a servant, by the Law of Creation before the Fall?
“I affirm (and I challenge you to disprove) that the Earth was made to be a Common Treasury of Livelihood for all, without respect of persons, and was not made to be bought and sold.... And this being a truth, as it is, then none ought to be Lords and Land Lords over another, but the Earth is free to every son and daughter of mankind to live upon.”
And the letter concludes with the following eloquent and heart-stirring words:
“Thus I have declared to you and to all the world what that Power of Life is that is in me; and knowing that the Spirit of Righteousness doth appear to many in this Land, I desire all of you seriously, in love and humility, to consider of this business of Public Community, which I am carried forth in the Power of Love and clear light of Universal Righteousness to advance as much as I can; and I can do no other, the Law of Love in my heart does so constrain me; by reason whereof I am called fool and madman, and have many slanderous reports cast upon me, and meet with much fury from some covetous people; under all of which my spirit is made patient and is guarded with joy and peace. I hate none, I love all, I delight to see everyone live comfortably, I would have none live in poverty, straits and sorrows; therefore if you find any selfishness in this work, or discover anything that is destructive of the whole Creation [Mankind], that you would open your hearts as freely to me, in declaring my weakness to me, as I have been open-hearted in declaring that which I find and feel much life and strength in. But if you see Righteousness in it, and that it holds forth the strength of Universal Love to all, without respect to persons, so that our Creator is honored in the work of His hand, then own it and justify it, and let the Power of Love have his freedom and glory.”
In his interview with the Diggers, Lord Fairfax had expressed his intention to leave them to “the Gentlemen of the County and the Law of the Land.” The former soon put the latter in motion, and on July 11th, 1649, the day before Cromwell set out with much pomp and ceremony for his notorious expedition to Ireland, Winstanley, under circumstances that will presently be revealed, found himself compelled to address an eloquent appeal for protection to the House of Commons, long extracts from which we feel impelled to place before our readers. It appeared in pamphlet form with the following title-page:
“AN APPEAL TO THE HOUSE OF COMMONS:105:1
Desiring their answer whether the Common People shall have the quiet enjoyment of the Commons and Waste Land; or whether they shall be under the will of Lords of Manors still. Occasioned by an Arrest made by Thomas Lord Wenman, Ralph Verney Knight, and Richard Winwood Esq. upon the Author hereof, for a Trespass in Digging upon the Common Land at Georges Hill in Surrey.
By Gerrard Winstanley, John Barker and Thomas Star.
In the name of all the poor oppressed in the Land of England.
Unrighteous oppression kindles a flame, but love, righteousness and tenderness of heart quenches it again.”
With more than his usual directness, Winstanley at once states the subject of his appeal in the following manner:
“Sirs,—The cause of this our presentment before you is, an Appeal to you desiring you to demonstrate to us, and the whole Land, the equity or non-equity of our cause. And that you would either cast us by just reason under the feet of those we call Task Masters, or Lords of Manors, or else to deliver us out of their tyrannical hands: In whose hands by way of Arrest we are for the present, for a Trespass to them, as they say, in digging upon the Common Land. The settling whereof according to Equity and Reason will quiet the minds of the oppressed people; it will be a keeping of our National Covenant; it will be a peace to yourselves, and make England the most flourishing and strongest Land in the world, and the first of Nations that shall begin to give up their Crown and Scepter, their dominion and government, into the hands of Jesus Christ.106:1
“The cause is this, we amongst others of the common people, that have ever been friends to the Parliament, as we are assured our enemies will witness to it, have ploughed and digged upon Georges Hill in Surrey, to sow corn for the succour of man, offering no offence to any, but do carry ourselves in love and peace towards all, having no intent to meddle with any man’s enclosures or property till it be freely given to us by themselves, but only to improve the Commons and waste lands to our best advantage, for the relief of ourselves and others, being moved thereunto by the reason hereafter following, not expecting any to be much offended, in regard the cause is so just and upright.
“Yet notwithstanding, there be three men (called by the people Lords of Manors), viz., Thomas Lord Wenman, Ralph Verney Knight, and Richard Winwood Esq., have arrested us for a trespass in digging upon the Commons, and upon the arrest we made our appearance in Kingstone Court, where we understood we were arrested for meddling with other men’s rights; and, secondly, they were encouraged to arrest us upon your Act of Parliament (as they tell us) to maintain the old laws. We desired to plead our own cause, the Court denied us, and to fee a lawyer we cannot, for divers reasons, as we may show hereafter.
“Now, Sirs, our case is this, for we appeal to you, for you are the only men that we are to deal withal in this business: Whether the common people, after all their taxes, free-quarter and loss of blood to recover England from under the Norman yoke, shall have the freedom to improve the Commons and Waste Lands free to themselves, as freely their own as the Enclosures are the propriety of the elder brothers? Or whether the Lords of Manors shall have them, according to their old custom, from the King’s will and grant, and so remain Task Masters still over us, which was the people’s slavery under conquest?
“We have made our appeal to you to settle this matter in the Equity and Reason of it, and to pass the sentence of freedom to us, you being the men with whom we have to do in this business, in whose hands there is power to settle it, for no Court can end this controversy but your Court of Parliament, as the case of this Nation now stands.”
After emphasising his fundamental contention that in Equity and by the Law of Righteousness all should have the freedom of the Earth granted unto them, he summarises the causes that have conspired to place the Members of the House of Commons in power, as follows:
“You of the Gentry, as well as we of the Commonalty, all groaned under the burden of the bad government and burdening laws of the late King Charles, who was the last successor of William the Conqueror. You and we cried for a Parliament, and a Parliament was called, and wars, you know, presently began between the king that represented William the Conqueror and the body of the English people that were enslaved. We looked upon you to be our Chief Council to agitate business for us, though you were summonsed by the king’s writ, and choosen by the Freeholders, who are the successors of William the Conqueror’s soldiers. You saw the danger so great that without a war England was likely to be more enslaved, therefore you called upon us to assist you with plate, taxes, free-quarter and our persons: and you promised us, in the name of the Almighty, to make us a Free People. Thereupon you and we took the National Covenant with joint consent, to endeavour the freedom, peace, and safety of the people of England. And you and we joined person and purse together in the common cause, and Will. the Conqueror’s successor, which was Charles, was cast out; thereby we have recovered ourselves from under that Norman yoke. And now unless you and we be merely besotted with covetousness, pride and slavish fear of men, it is and will be our wisdom to cast out all those enslaving laws which was the tyrannical power the king pressed us down by.108:1 O shut not your eyes against the light; darken not knowledge by dispute about particular men’s privileges, when Universal Freedom is brought to be tried before you; dispute no further when truth appears, but be silent and practice it. Stop not your ears against the secret moanings of the oppressed, under these expressions, lest the Lord see it and be offended, and shut His eyes against your cries, and work a deliverance for His waiting people some other way than by you.”
He then summarises the prevailing ills, and indicates their manifest and immediate duty, as follows:
“The main thing that you should look upon is the Land, which calls upon her children to be free from the entanglements of the Norman Taskmasters. For one third part lies waste and barren, and her children starve for want, in regard the Lords of Manors will not suffer the poor to manure it.... The power is in your hands, the Nations Representative, O let the first thing you do be this, to set the land free. Let the Gentry have their enclosures free from all enslaving entanglements whatsoever, and let the Common People have the Commons and Waste Lands set free to them from all Norman enslaving Lords of Manors. That so both Elder and Younger Brother, as we spring successively one from another, may live free and quiet one by and with another in this Land of our Nativity.” “This thing,” he then boldly declares, “you are bound to see done, or at least to endeavour it, before another Representative force you; otherwise you cannot discharge your trust to God and man.” And the Appeal concludes with the following words: “Set the Land free from oppression, and righteousness will be the Laws, Government, and Strength of that People.”
The Long Parliament, however, were too busy carrying English civilisation into Ireland to heed his words. And yet surely there was work enough for them to do in their own country, in which, as we have already pointed out, since the reign of Henry the Seventh the condition of the masses of the people had steadily worsened, and, as a natural consequence, the number of beggars, “rogues and vagrants,” despite barbarous laws, involving their wholesale hanging, had steadily increased. During the reign of James the First, in a pamphlet entitled Grievous Groans of the Poor, published 1622, we hear the complaint that “the number of the poor do daily increase.” The only remedy the then wise men of England could devise was to make the laws against them still more severe. Consequently it was ordered that the first time such people were apprehended they should be branded with the letter R, and if subsequently again found begging or wandering they were “to suffer death without benefit of Clergy.” Yet such was their obstinacy that they still increased in numbers; and that for the simple reason that the economic or social causes of which they were but the inevitable outcome were not removed.
During all this period, however, the country was developing, its industry and commerce expanding, and its wealth increasing by leaps and bounds; but in all this the “meaner sort,” the Younger Brothers, the disinherited masses, had neither lot nor share. Though Clarendon may speak of the growing economical prosperity of the country during the time of which we are writing, yet there be no doubt of the truth of Thorold Rogers’ contention, that109:1—“I am convinced from the comparison I have been able to make between wages, rents and prices, that it was a period of excessive misery among the mass of the people and the tenants, a time in which a few might have become rich, while the many were crushed down into hopeless and almost permanent indigence.” And yet the facts are such as to compel him, when speaking of the Restoration, to point out that110:1—“the labourers, as far as the will went, were better off under the rule of the Saints than under that of the sinners.”
The English land-system, as we know it to-day, really began with the Restoration, when the very memory of Winstanley and his doctrines was swept away, when the men of the Model Army found themselves powerless, while “the great and wise men” of the nation “set up Monarchy again,” humbly prostrating themselves at the feet of a licentious, cynical debauchee, and the Landocracy, new and old, found themselves in the saddle with far greater political power than they had ever before enjoyed. They soon found means of fastening their yoke more firmly than ever on the necks of the people, and of making short work of any claims of an independent yeomanry to any right to the soil of their native country apart from their good-will and pleasure. After some effort, they passed a Statute under which the estates of such of the free-holders as had no documentary evidence by which to support their titles, were confiscated and turned into tenancies at will. By means of Enclosure Acts they still further plundered and impoverished the peasantry, by appropriating to themselves millions of acres of land over which these still had some right, some enjoyment. By means of the Law of Parochial Settlement, as Thorold Rogers repeatedly points out,110:2 they “consummated the degradation of the labourer”; and made him, as it has left him, what the same impartial authority well terms “the most portentous phenomenon in agriculture, a serf without land.” By means of their Financial Policy they rid themselves of the duties which originally accompanied the privilege of land-holding, viz. to provide the necessary public revenues for all defence purposes, and converted themselves from Land Holders into Land Owners, by shifting the burden of taxation to the food, industry, and handicraft of those they had despoiled and disinherited. And, finally, for the first time in the history of England, they passed a Corn Law artificially to increase their rents, at the cost and to the detriment, often to the starvation, of the masses of the people. From the effect of these laws the people of Great Britain have not yet been able entirely to recover themselves, though since 1824 they have made heroic steps to do so. With this portion of the history, we had almost written of the martyrdom, of the English people we are not here directly concerned. Manifestly it would have been very different had the Long Parliament listened to Winstanley’s appeal, or had his self-sacrificing efforts been crowned with the success they so well deserved.
100:1 Thomasson’s Tracts. British Museum, Press Mark, E. 560 (1). Reprinted in the Harleian Miscellany, vol. ii. p. 485.
103:1 Others, in far more influential positions than Winstanley and his comrades, gave forcible expression to much the same views. In the debates of the Army Council on the Agreement of the People, on November 1647, Edward Sexby, the Agitator or Representative of the private soldiers, an able, daring, and energetic man, replying to Ireton, on the question of the right to vote, said: “We have engaged in this kingdom and ventured our lives, and it was all for this: to recover our birthrights and privileges as Englishmen; and by the arguments urged, there are none. There are many thousands of us soldiers that have ventured our lives, we have had little propriety in the kingdom as to our estates, yet we have had a birthright. But it seems now that except a man hath a fixed estate in this kingdom, he hath no right in this kingdom. I wonder we were so deceived. If we had not a right to the kingdom, we were mere mercenary soldiers. There are men in my position, it may be little estate they have at present, and yet they have as much a birthright as those two who are their law-givers, or as any in this place.” During the same debate Colonel Rainborrow said: “I think that the poorest he that is in England hath a life to live as the greatest he.” And, also in reply to Ireton, he subsequently declared: “Sir, I see that it is impossible to have liberty but all property must be taken away.... If you will say it, it must be so. But I would fain know what the soldier hath fought for all this while? He hath fought to enslave himself, to give power to men of riches, to men of estate, and to make himself a perpetual slave.”—See Clarke Papers, vol. i. pp. 322-323, 325.
105:1 King’s Pamphlets. British Museum, Press Mark, E. 564. Also at the Guildhall Library. The Ralph Verney mentioned is the hero of The Verney Memoirs: there is, however, no mention of this incident therein.
106:1 This argument would scarcely have appealed to Ireton, who during the debate of the Army Council frankly declared that in his opinion—“It was not the business of Jesus Christ, when he came into the world, to create Kingdoms of the World, and Magistracies and Monarchies, or to give the rule of them, positive or negative.”—See Clarke Papers, vol. ii. p. 101.
108:1 Colonel Rainborrow, who with Sexby and Wildman represented on the Army Council the private soldiers of the Model Army, during the debate on the right of voting, gave expression to the view that some fundamental changes in the laws of the Land were both necessary and justifiable, in the following words: “I hear it said, ‘It’s a huge alteration it’s a bringing in of new laws.’ ... If writings be true, there hath been many scuttlings between the honest men of England and those that have tyrannised over them. And if what I have read be true, there is none of those just and equitable laws that the people of England are born to, but were once intrenchments [but were once innovations]. But if they [the existing laws] were those which the people have been always under, if the people find that they are not suitable to freeman, I know no reason that should deter me, either in what I must answer before God or the world, from endeavouring by all means to gain anything that might be of more advantage to them than the government under which they live.”—Clarke Papers, vol. i. p. 247.
109:1 Economic Interpretation of History, p. 138.
110:1 Economic Interpretation of History, p. 241.
110:2 Six Centuries of Work and Wages, pp. 432-433.
“All men have stood for Freedom; thou hast kept fasting-days and prayed in the morning exercises for Freedom; thou hast given thanks for victories because hopes of Freedom; plenty of Petitions and Promises thereupon have been made for Freedom. But now the common enemy is gone, you are all like men in a mist seeking for Freedom, but know not where nor what it is.... Assure yourselves, if you pitch not now upon the right point of Freedom in action, as your Covenant hath it in words, you will wrap up your children in greater slavery than ever you were in.”—Winstanley, A Watchword to the City of London.
The House of Commons, as we have seen, took no notice of Winstanley’s dignified appeal, hence, within a week of its publication in pamphlet form, Winstanley, on August 26th, 1649, addressed himself to the City of London, at that time the stronghold of advanced political and religious thought. The pamphlet, which is one of the most interesting he ever wrote, appeared the following month: the title-page reads as follows:
“A WATCHWORD TO THE CITY OF LONDON AND THE ARMY:112:1
Wherein you may see that England’s Freedom, which should be the result of all our Victories, is sinking deeper under the Norman Power, as appears by this Relation of the unrighteous proceedings of Kingston Court against some of the Diggers at George Hill, under colour of law; but yet thereby the cause of the Diggers is more brightened and strengthened, so that every one singly may truly say what his Freedom is and where it lies.
By Jerrard Winstanley.
This pamphlet, too, commences with a Dedicatory Letter, which opens as follows:
“To the City of London,—Freedom and Peace desired,—Thou City of London, I am one of thy sons by freedom, and I do truly love thy peace. While I had an estate in thee, I was free to offer my Mite into thy Public Treasury, Guildhall, for a preservation to thee and to the whole Land. But by thy cheating sons in the thieving art of buying and selling, and by the burdens of and for the soldiery in the beginning of the War, I was beaten out of both estate and trade, and forced to accept of the good-will of friends, crediting of me, to live a Country life. There likewise by the burthen of Taxes and much Free Quarter my weak back found the burthen heavier than I could bear. Yet in all the passages of these eight years troubles, I have been willing to lay out what my talent was, to procure England’s peace inward and outward; and yet all along I have found such as in words have professed the same cause to be enemies to me.”
It then briefly summarises Winstanley’s past actions, as well as the causes that inspired them, and the position in which he finds himself in consequence thereof, as follows:
“Not a full year since, being quiet at my work, my heart was filled with sweet thoughts, and many things were revealed to me which I never read in books, nor heard from the mouth of any flesh. When I began to speak of them some people could not bear my words. Amongst these revelations this was one, That the Earth shall be made a Common Treasury of Livelihood to whole mankind without respect of persons.
“And I had a voice within me that bade me declare it by word all abroad, which I did obey, for I declared it by word of mouth wheresoever I came. Then I was made to write a little book called the New Law of Righteousness, and therein I declared it. Yet my mind was not at rest, because nothing was acted; and thoughts ran in me that words and writings were all nothing and must die; for action is the life of all, and if thou dost not act, thou dost nothing.
“Within a little time I was made obedient to the word in that particular likewise. For I took my spade and went and broke the ground upon George Hill in Surrey, thereby declaring Freedom to the Creation, and that the Earth must be set free from entanglement of Lords and Land Lords, and that it shall become a Common Treasury to all, as it was first made and given to the sons of men.
“For which doing ... the old Norman Prerogative Lord of that Manor caused me to be arrested for a trespass against him in digging upon that barren Heath. And the unrighteous proceedings of Kingston Court I have declared to thee and to the whole Land that you may consider the case England is in.”
The Dedicatory Letter concludes as follows:
“I have declared this truth to the Army and Parliament, and now I have declared it to thee likewise, that none of you that are the fleshy strength of this Land may be left without excuse: for now you have been all spoken to. And because I have obeyed the voice of the Lord in this thing, therefore do the Freeholders and Lords of Manors seek to oppress me in the outward livelihood of the world, but I am in peace. And London, nay England, look to thy Freedom. I assure you thou art very near to be cheated of it, and if thou lose it now after all thy boasting, truly thy posterity will curse thee for thy unfaithfulness to them. Everyone talks of Freedom, but there are but few that act for Freedom, and the actors for Freedom are oppressed by the talkers and verbal professors of Freedom. If thou wouldst know what true Freedom is, read over this and other of my writings, and thou shalt see it lies in the Community in Spirit and Community in the Earthly Treasury; and this is Christ, the true manchild, spread abroad in the Creation, restoring all things unto himself. And so I leave thee, Being a free Denizon of thee, and a true lover of thy peace.
Jerrard Winstanley.
“August 26th, 1649.”
The pamphlet commences with a short and business-like account of the proceedings at Kingston Court, as follows:
“Whereas we, Henry Bickerstaffe, Thomas Star and Jerrard Winstanley, were arrested into Kingston Court by Thomas Wenman, Ralph Verney, and Richard Winwood, for a trespass in digging upon George Hill in Surrey, being the right of Mr. Drake, Lord of that Manor, as they say, we all three did appear the first Court-day of our arrest, and demanded of the Court, What was laid to our charge? and to give answer thereunto ourselves. But the answer of your Court was this, that you would not tell us what the trespass was, unless we would fee an Attorney to speak for us. We told them we were to plead our own cause, for we knew no Lawyer that we could trust with this business. We desired a copy of the Declaration, and profered to pay for it, but still you denied us unless we would fee an Attorney. But in conclusion the Recorder of your Court told us that the cause was not entered. We appeared two Court-days after this, and desired to see the Declaration, and still you denied us unless we would fee an Attorney, so greedy are these Attornies after money, more than to justify a righteous cause. We told them that we could not fee any unless we would wilfully break our National Covenant, which both Parliament and People have taken jointly together to effect a Reformation. And unless we would be professed Traitors to the Nation and Common-wealth of England, by upholding the old Norman tyrannical and destructive Laws, when they are to be cast out of equity, and reason to be the Moderator.
“Then seeing that you would not suffer us to speak, one of us brought the following writing into Court, that you might read our answer. Because we would acknowledge all righteous proceedings in Law, though some slander us and say we deny all Law, because we deny the corruption of Law, and endeavour a Reformation in our place and calling, according to that National Covenant. And we know if your Laws were built upon equity and reason, you ought both to have heard us speak, and to have read our answer. For that is no righteous Law, whereby to keep a Common-wealth in peace, when one sort shall be suffered to speak and not another, as you deal with us, to pass sentence and execution upon us, before both sides be heard to speak. This principle in the forehead of your Laws foretells destruction to this Common-wealth. For it declares that the Laws that follow such refusal are selfish and thievish and full of murder, protecting all that get money by their Laws, and crushing all others.
“The writer hereof does require Mr. Drake, and he is a Parliament man, therefore a man counted able to speak rationally, to plead this cause of digging with me.115:1 And if he show a just and rational title that Lords of Manors have to the Commons, and that they have a just power from God to call it their right, shutting out others, then I will write as much against it as ever I wrote for this cause. [A heavy forfeit, truly!] But if I show by the Law of Righteousness that the poorest man hath as good a title and just right to the Land as the richest man, and that undeniably the Earth ought to be a Common Treasury of Livelihood for all without respecting persons; then I shall require no more of Mr. Drake but that he would justify our cause of digging, and declare abroad that the Commons ought to be free to all sorts, and that it is a great trespass before the Lord God Almighty for one to hinder another of his liberty to dig the earth, that he might feed and clothe himself with the fruits of his labor thereupon freely, without owning any Land Lord or paying any Rent to any person of his own kind.”
After this perfectly safe challenge, he continues:
“I sent this following answer to the Arrest in writing into Kingston Court:
“In four passages your Court hath gone contrary to the righteousness of your own Statute Laws. For, First, it is mentioned in 36 Edward III. 15 that no Process, Warrant or Arrest should be served till after the cause was recorded and entered. But your Bailiff either could not or would not tell us the cause when he arrested us, and Mr. Rogers, your Recorder, told us the first Court-day we appeared that our cause was not entered.
“Secondly, We appeared two other Court-days, and desired a copy of the Declaration, and profered to pay for it, and you denied us. This is contrary to equity and reason, which is the foundation your Laws are or should be built upon, if you would have England to be a Common-wealth, and stand in peace.
“Thirdly, We desired to plead our own cause, and you denied us, but told us we must fee an Attorney to speak for us, or else you would mark us in default for not appearance. This is contrary to your own Laws likewise, for in 28 Edward I. chapter ii. there is freedom given to a man to speak for himself, or else he may choose his father, friend or neighbour to speak for him, without the help of any other Lawyer.
“Fourthly, You have granted a judgement against us, and are proceeding to an execution, and this is contrary likewise to your own laws, which say that no plaint ought to be received or judgement passed, till the cause be heard, and witnesses present, to testify the plaint to be true, as Sir Edward Coke, 2nd part of Institutes upon the 29 chap. of Magna Charta, fol. 51-53. The Mirror of Justice.”
Then, as if ashamed of appealing to mere conventional man-made Laws, he at once acknowledges what he and his comrades have done, and justifies their action in the following dignified words:
“But that all men may see that we are neither ashamed nor afraid to justify that cause we are arrested for, neither to refuse to answer to it in a righteous way, therefore we have here delivered this up in writing, and we leave it in your hands, disavowing the proceedings of your Court, because you uphold prerogative oppression, though the kingly office be taken away, and the Parliament hath declared England a Common-wealth, so that prerogative cannot be in force, unless you be besotted by your covetousness and envy.
“We deny that we have trespassed against those three men, or Mr. Drake either, or that we should trespass against any, if we should dig up and plough for a livelihood upon any of the waste land in England. For thereby we break no particular Law made by any Act of Parliament, but only an ancient custom bred in the strength of kingly prerogative, which is that old Law or Custom by which Lords of Manors lay claim to the Commons, which is of no force now to bind the people of England, since the kingly power and office was cast out. And the Common People who have cast out the oppressor, by their purse and person, have not authorised any as yet to give away from them their purchased freedom; and if any assume a power to give away or withhold this purchased freedom, they are Traitors to this Common-wealth of England; and if they imprison, oppress, or put to death any for standing to maintain this purchased freedom, they are murderers and thieves, and no just rulers.
“Therefore in the light of Reason and Equity, and in the light of the National Covenant which Parliament and People have taken with joint consent, all such prerogative customs, which by experience we have found to burden the Nation, ought to be cast out with the kingly office, and the Land of England now ought to be a Free Land and a Common Treasury to all her children, otherwise it cannot properly be called a Common-wealth.”
He then continues:
“Therefore we justify our act of digging upon that Hill to make the Earth a Common Treasury. First, because the Earth was made by Almighty God to be a Common Treasury of Livelihood to the whole of mankind in all its branches, without respect of persons.... Secondly, because all sorts of people have lent assistance of purse and person to cast out the kingly order as being a burden that England groaned under. Therefore those from whom money and blood were received, ought to obtain freedom in the Land to themselves and posterity, by the Law of Contract between Parliament and People. But all sorts, poor as well as rich, Tenant as well as Land Lord, have paid taxes, free-quarter, excise, or adventured their lives to cast out the kingly office. Therefore all sorts of people ought to have freedom in this the Land of their Nativity, without respecting persons, now that kingly power is cast out by their joint assistance.... Therefore, in that we do dig upon that Hill, we do not thereby take away other men’s rights, nor demand of this Court, nor from the Parliament, what is theirs and not ours. But we demand our own to be set free to us, and to them, out of the tyrannical oppression of ancient customs of kingly prerogative; and let us have no more gods to rule over us, but the King of Righteousness only.
“Therefore, as the Freeholders claim a quietness and freedom in their enclosures, as it is fit they should have, so we that are younger brothers, or the poor oppressed, we claim our freedom in the Commons; that so elder and younger brother may live quietly and in peace, together freed from the straits of poverty and oppression in this Land of our Nativity.”
His written address to the Court at Kingston concludes as follows: