“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 God 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 masses 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 God’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 title soever, God 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 Nobility 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 restitution 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 entitled:
“MORE LIGHT SHINING IN BUCKINGHAMSHIRE:[83:1]