The Digger Movement in the Days of the Commonwealth / As Revealed in the Writings of Gerrard Winstanley, the Digger, Mystic and Rationalist, Communist and Social Reformer

by Lewis Henry Berens

“These words, assist and protect, implies the rising of the People by force of arms to defend their Laws and Officers, who rule well, against any invasion, insurrection or rebellion of selfish Officers or rude people: yea, to beat down the turbulency of any foolish spirit that shall arise to break our common peace. So that the same Law of Necessity of Common Peace, which moved the People to choose Officers, and to compose a Law to be a Rule of Government: the same Law of Necessity of Protection doth raise an Army. So that an Army, as well as other Officers in a Commonwealth, spring from one and the same root, viz., from the necessity of Common Preservation.”

An Army is Two-fold: viz., a Ruling Army, or a Fighting Army.

“A Ruling Army is called Magistracy in times of Peace, keeping that Land and Government in Peace by Execution of the Laws, which the Fighting Army did purchase in the field by their blood out of the hands of Oppression. All Officers, from the Father in a Family to the Parliament in a Land, are but the heads and leaders of an Army; and all people arising to protect and assist their Officers, in defence of a right-ordered Government, are but the body of an Army. And this Magistracy is called the Rejoicing of all Nations, when the foundations thereof are Laws of Common Equity, whereby every single man may enjoy the fruits of his labor, in the free use of the Earth, without being restrained or oppressed by the hands of others.

“Secondly, A Fighting Army, called Soldiers in the Field, when the necessity of preservation, by reason of a foreign invasion, or inbred Oppression, doth move the people to arise in an Army to cut and tear to pieces either degenerate Officers, or rude people, who seek their own interests, and not Common Freedom, and through treachery do endeavour to destroy the Laws of Common Freedom, and to enslave both the Land and the People of the Commonwealth to their particular wills and lusts.... The use or work of a Fighting Army in a Commonwealth is to beat down all who arise to endeavour to destroy the Liberties of the Commonwealth. For as in the days of the Monarchy an Army was used to subdue all who rebelled against Kingly Propriety, so in the days of a Free Commonwealth, an Army is to be made use of to resist or destroy all who endeavour to keep up or bring in Kingly Bondage again.... Therefore, you Army of England’s Commonwealth, look to it. The Enemy could not beat you in the field, but they may be too hard for you by Policy in Counsel, if you do not stick close to see Common Freedom established. For if so be that Kingly Authority is set up in your Laws again, King Charles has conquered you and your posterity by policy, though you seemingly have cut off his head. For the Strength of a King lies not in the visible Appearance of his Body, but in his Will, Laws, and Authority, which is called Monarchial Government. But if you remove Kingly Government, and set up true and free Commonwealth’s Government, then you gain your Crown and keep it, and leave peace to your posterity: otherwise not. And thus doing makes a War either lawful or unlawful.”

Then follows this bold, manly challenge of the conduct of the Grandees of the Army:

“An Army may be Murtherers and Unlawful.

“If an Army be raised to cast out Kingly Oppression, and if the Heads of that Army promise a Commonwealth’s Freedom to the oppressed people, in case they will assist in person and purse, and if the people do assist and prevail over the Tyrant, those Officers are bound by the Law of Justice (who is God) to make good their engagements. And if they do not set the Land free from the branches of the Kingly Oppression, but reserve some part of the Kingly Power to advance their own particular interest, whereby some of their friends are left under as great slavery to them as they were under the Kings, those Officers are not faithful Commonwealth’s Soldiers, they are worse Thieves and Tyrants than the Kings they cast out, and that Honor they seemed to get by their Victories over the Commonwealth’s Oppressor, they lose again by breaking Promise and Engagement to their oppressed friends who did assist them.

“For what difference is there between a professed Tyrant, who declares himself a Tyrant in words, laws and deeds, as all Conquerors do, and him who promises to free me from the power of the Tyrant if I’ll assist him; and when I have spent my estate and blood, and the health of my body, and expect my bargain by his engagements to me, he sits himself down in the Tyrant’s Chair, and takes the possession of the Land to himself, and calls it his and none of mine, and tells me he cannot in conscience let me enjoy the Freedom of the Earth with him, because it is another man’s right.”

His Account of his own Circumstances.

“And now my health and estate is decayed and I grow in age, I must either beg or work for day-wages, which I was never brought up to, for another; when the Earth is as freely my Inheritance and Birth-Right as his whom I must work for. And if I cannot live by my weak labors, but take where I need, as Christ sent and took the Asses Colt in his need, there is no dispute, but by the Kings and Laws, he will hang me for a thief.”