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

That such views were not restricted to “the Levellers” may be inferred from the very similar demands made in “A Petition 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 Tithes may be taken away, and Two Shillings 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 petition 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 cashiered. 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 noble 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 space 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 Breasts, 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 masses 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 impoverishing, 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 emancipate 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.”

[79:1] King’s Pamphlets. British Museum, Press Mark E 475 (11).

[83:1] King’s Pamphlets. British Museum, Press Mark, E. 548 (33).

[84:1] King’s Pamphlets. British Museum, Press Mark, E. 555.

[85:1] About this time, or a little later, there appeared in London an interesting manifesto from some of the disbanded soldiers, the copy of which in the British Museum (Press Mark, 4152. b.b. 109) bears no date, but is addressed as follows: “To the Generals and Captains, Officers and Soldiers of this present Army. The Just and Equal Appeal, and the state of the Innocent Cause of us, who have been turned out of your Army for the exercise of our pure Consciences, who are now persecuted amongst our Brethren under the name of Quakers.” Wherein they declare that “The first cause and ground of our engagement in the late wars against the Bishops and Prelates, and against Kings and Lords, and the whole body of oppressors: our first engagement, we say, against these was justly and truly upon that account of purchasing and obtaining Liberties in Civil Rights, and also in matters of Conscience in the exercise of the worship of God.... And we can safely say that the Liberty of Conscience and the True Freedom of the Nations from all their oppressions was the mark at which we aimed, and the harbour for which we hoped and the rest proposed in our minds as the absolute end of our long and weary travel.”

[87:1] History of the Protectorate, vol. i. pp. 50, 51.