The Digger Movement in the Days of the Commonwealth Part 17

"(3) It will prove England to be the first of Nations which falls off from the covetous beastly government first; and that sets the Crown of Freedom on Christ's head, to rule over the Nations of the World, and to declare him to be the joy and blessing of all Nations. This should move all Governors to strive who shall be the first that shall cast down their Crowns, Sceptres and Government at Christ's feet: and they that will not give Christ his own glory shall be shamed.

"(4) This Commonwealth's Freedom will unite the hearts of Englishmen together in love; so that if a foreign enemy endeavour to come in, we shall all with joint consent rise up together to defend our inheritance, and shall be true one to another. Whereas now the poor see if they fight and should conquer the enemy, yet either they or their children are like to be slaves still, for the Gentry will have all. And this is the cause why many run away and fail our Armies in the time of need. And so through the Gentry's hardness of heart against the Poor, the Land may be left to a foreign enemy for want of the Poor's love sticking to them. For say they, we can as well live under a foreign enemy, working for day wages, as under our own bretheren, with whom we ought to have equal freedom by the Law of Righteousness.

"(5) This freedom in planting the common land will prevent robbing, stealing and murdering, and prisons will not so mightily be filled with prisoners; and thereby we shall prevent that heart-breaking spectacle of seeing so many hanged every Session as there are. And surely this imprisoning and hanging of men is the Norman Power still, and cannot stand with the freedom of the Commonwealth, nor warranted by the Engagement. For by the Laws and Engagement of the Commonwealth, none ought to be hanged nor put to death, for other punishment may be found out. And those that do hang or put to death their fellow Englishmen, under colour of Laws, do break the Laws and Engagements by so doing, and cast themselves from under the protection of the Commonwealth, and are Traitors to England's Freedom, and upholders of the kingly, murdering power.

"(6) This Freedom in the Common Earth is the Poor's Right by the Law of Creation and Equity of the Scriptures. For the Earth was not made for a few, but for whole mankind; for G.o.d is no respecter of persons."

Winstanley then concludes as follows:

"Now these few considerations we offer to all England, and we appeal to the judgement of all rational and righteous men whether this we speak be not that substantial truth brought forth into action, which Ministers have preached up, and all Religious Men have made profession of. For certainly G.o.d, who is the King of Righteousness, is not a G.o.d of words only, but of deeds; for it is the badge of hypocrisy for man to say and not to do. Therefore we leave this with you all, having peace in our hearts by declaring faithfully to you this Light that is in us, and which we do not only speak and write, but which we do easily act and practice.

"Likewise we write it as a letter of congratulation and encouragement to our dear Fellow Englishmen that have begun to dig upon the Commons, thereby taking possession of their Freedom, in Wellinborow in Northamptons.h.i.+re, and at c.o.x Hall in Kent, waiting to see the chains of slavish fear to break and fall off from the hearts of others in other countries till at last the whole Land is filled with the knowledge and righteousness of the Restoring Power, which is Christ Himself, Abraham's seed, who will spread Himself till He become the joy of all Nations.

"Jerrard Winstanley, Richard Maidley, Thomas James, John d.i.c.kins, John Palmer, John South, _Elder_, Nathaniel Halcomb, Thomas Edcer, Henry Barton, John Smith, Jacob Heard, Thomas Barnet, Anthony Wren, John Hayman, William Hitchc.o.c.k, Henry Hanc.o.c.ke, John Batty, Thomas Starre, Thomas Adams, John Coulton, Thomas South, Robert Sawyer, Daniel Ireland, Robert Draper, Robert Coster, and divers others that were not present when this went to the Presse.

"_March 26th, 1650._"

We are afraid that the enterprise at Wellinborrow did not have a very long life; for in the _Calendar of State Papers_, Domestic, Green, p.

106, under date April 15th, 1650, we note the following letter, which seems to us to show that the Rulers of England were fully alive to "the mischief these designs tend to," and to prove that it was the theories of the Diggers, not their actions, that filled the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of the privileged cla.s.ses with the determination to nip their enterprise in the bud, before it had time to influence the life and thought of the Nation:

"COUNCIL OF STATE to Mr. PENTLOW, Justice of Peace for County Northampton.

"We approve your proceedings with the Levellers in those parts, and doubt not you are sensible of the mischief those designs tend to, and of the necessity to proceed effectually against them. If the laws in force against those who intrude upon other men's properties, and that forbid and direct the punis.h.i.+ng of all riotous a.s.semblies and seditious and tumultuous meetings, be put in execution, there will not want means to preserve the public peace against the attempts of this sort of people. Let those men be effectually proceeded against at the next Sessions, _and if any that ought to be instrumental to bring them to punishment fail in their duty, signify the same to us_, that we may require of them an account of their neglect; but till we find the ordinary means unable to preserve the peace, we would not have recourse to any other."

The sentence we have italicised seems to show that even amongst the Justices of the Peace and Officers of the Land the doctrines of the Diggers had found sympathisers, who were unwilling that they should be proceeded against. Nor can we be surprised at this when we bear in mind the terrible state of the rural population of the "meaner sort" at the time. Some idea of same may be gathered in the Declaration from Wellinborrow, which is more than fully confirmed in the pages of Whitelocke, from which we take the following brief entries:

(P. 398.) Under date April 30th, 1649:

"Letters from Lancas.h.i.+re of their want of bread, so that many families were starved."

(P. 399.) Under date May 1649:

"Letters from Newcastle that many in c.u.mberland and Westmoreland died in the Highways for want of bread, and divers left their habitations, travelling with their wives and children to other parts to get Relief, but could have none. That the Committees and Justices of the Peace of c.u.mberland signed a certificate, that there were Thirty Thousand Families that had neither seed nor bread corn, nor money to buy either, and they desired a collection for them, which was made, but much too little to relieve so great a mult.i.tude."

(P. 404.) Under date May 1649:

"Letters from Lancas.h.i.+re of great scarcity of corn, and that the famine was sore among them, after which the plague overspread itself in many parts of the country, taking away whole families together, and few escaped where any house was visited, and that the Levellers got into arms, but were suppressed speedily by the Governor."

(P. 421.) Under date August 1649:

"Letters of great complaints of the taxes in Lancas.h.i.+re: and that the meaner sort threaten to leave their habitations, and their wives and children to be maintained by the Gentry; that they can no longer bear the oppression, to have the bread taken out of the mouths of their wives and children by taxes; and that if an army of the Turks came to relieve them, they will join them."

Under such circ.u.mstances we cannot be surprised that Winstanley's revolutionary, though to our mind eternally true, doctrines, upholding the equal claim of all to the use of the land, proclaimed as they were with all the eloquence, zeal and fire of his n.o.ble spirit, should have awakened an echo in the hearts of the more thoughtful, as well as of the more necessitous, of his fellow-citizens. But all in vain. In his time, as in our time, the Inward Light could not overcome the Outward Darkness, nor Universal Love, which is Justice and Righteousness, overcome Self Love, which is Covetousness. Then, as now, the Spirit of Equity, of Reason and of Love was impotent when opposed by the power of the Sword, of Force. And yet, and yet--more especially in view of the thought to-day stirring advanced political circles in every const.i.tutionally governed country in the world--who dare maintain that Winstanley lived in vain!

About a fortnight after the publication of his _Appeal to all Englishmen_, Winstanley issued yet another pamphlet, of which, as it contains nothing save what he had already better expressed in his other writings, we need only quote the suggestive t.i.tle-page, with which this chapter may fittingly close: it reads as follows:

"AN HUMBLE REQUEST TO THE MINISTERS OF BOTH UNIVERSITIES, AND TO ALL LAWYERS OF EVERY INNS-A-COURT:[161:1] to consider of the Scriptures and Points of Law herein mentioned, and to give a rational and Christian answer, whereby the difference may be composed in peace, between the Poor Men in England who have begun to dig, plow and build upon the Common Land, claiming it their own by right of Creation,

AND

The Lords of Manors that trouble them, who have no other claimings to Commons than from the King's will, or from the Power of the Conquest,

AND

If neither Minister nor Lawyer will undertake a Reconciliation in this case. Then we appeal to the Stone, Timber and Dust of the Earth you tread upon, to hold forth the light of this business, questioning not but that Power that dwells everywhere will cause Light to spring out of Darkness, and Freedom out of Bondage."

FOOTNOTES:

[146:1] King's Pamphlets. British Museum, Press Mark, E. 1365.

[148:1] King's Pamphlets. British Museum, Press Mark, E. 534. We have to thank the late Rev. Thomas Hanc.o.c.k, of Harrow on the Hill, for this reference. Mr. Hanc.o.c.k's profound knowledge of the Commonwealth times was well known to every student of the period, at whose disposal he gladly placed the wonderful store of information he had collected. We would here acknowledge our indebtedness to him for this and other information.

[150:1] British Museum, under Wellingborrow, Press Mark, S. Sh. fol. 669 f., 15 (21).

[153:1] British Museum, Press Mark, S. Sh. fol. 669 f., 15 (23).

[161:1] There is no copy of this pamphlet at the British Museum, nor in the Bodleian; but a copy is to be found in the Dyce and Forster Library, South Kensington Museum, London, W.

CHAPTER XIV

GERRARD WINSTANLEY'S UTOPIA: THE LAW OF FREEDOM

"And when reason's voice, Loud as the voice of nature, shall have waked The nations; and mankind perceives that vice Is discord, war and misery; that virtue Is peace, and happiness and harmony; When man's maturer nature shall disdain The playthings of its childhood;--kingly glare Will lose its power to dazzle; its authority Will silently pa.s.s by; the gorgeous{7} throne Shall stand unnoticed in the regal hall, Fast falling to decay; whilst falsehood's trade Shall be as hateful and unprofitable As that of truth is now."--Sh.e.l.lEY.

The above words of Sh.e.l.ley might have been written purposely to serve as a preface to Winstanley's final work, the main contents of which we now propose to lay before our readers. It happened to be the first of Winstanley's works that fell into our hands, when, many years since, in consequence of Carlyle's somewhat patronising reference to them, we first determined to ascertain what the views and aims of the Diggers really were. Its perusal{8} convinced us, and our subsequent investigations have only served to strengthen the belief, that Winstanley was, in truth, one of the most courageous, far-seeing and philosophic preachers of social righteousness that England has given to the world. And yet how unequally Fame bestows her rewards. More's _Utopia_ has secured its author a world-wide renown; it is spoken of, even if not read, in every civilised country in the world. Gerrard Winstanley's Utopia is unknown even to his own countrymen. Yet let any impartial student compare the ideal society conceived by Sir Thomas More--a society based upon slavery, and extended by wars carried on by hireling, mercenary soldiers--with the simple, peaceful, rational and practical social ideal pictured by Gerrard Winstanley, and it is to the latter that he will be forced to a.s.sign the laurel crown.

From internal evidence we gather that the book was written some time before it was published. Winstanley had come to realise that the real power of the Country was in the hands of the Army, of its trusted officers and leaders. Hence it is, probably, that the opening epistle is addressed to Oliver Cromwell, who at the time was Commander in Chief of the Army, and the man to whom all England was looking with wonder and admiration, not unmixed with anxious forebodings. The years that had elapsed between the conception and the publication of Winstanley's book had been momentous ones in this great man's career. Owing to Lord Fairfax's reluctance to invade Scotland, the command of the Commonwealth's Army had devolved on him: and right good use had the hero of Naseby made of his opportunities. In September 1651 he won the decisive battle of Dunbar; and in the same month of the following year he won the even more decisive battle of Worcester, which, to use Gardiner's words, manifested to the world that England refused "to be ruled by a king who came in as an invader."[163:1] In the following November, when Winstanley was sitting down to write his Dedicatory Epistle, Cromwell was already back in his seat in Parliament, endeavouring "to use the patriotic fervour called out by the invasion to settle the Commonwealth on a broader basis," and agitating for "a time to be fixed for the dissolution of the existing Parliament and for the calling of a new one."[163:2] And in February 1652, when the book was published, political and religious excitement in England was probably at the greatest height to which it ever attained even in the stirring days of the Commonwealth, and Cromwell may be regarded as standing at the dividing line of his wonderful career.

The t.i.tle-page of the book reads as follows:

"THE LAW OF FREEDOM IN A PLATFORM:[164:1]

OR

TRUE MAGISTRACY RESTORED.

Humbly presented to Oliver Cromwel, General of the Commonwealth's Army in England, Scotland and Ireland. And to all English-men my Bretheren, whether in Church Fellows.h.i.+p or not in Church Fellows.h.i.+p,[164:2] both sorts walking as they conceive according to the order of the Gospel: and from them to all the Nations of the World.

Wherein is declared, What is Kingly Government, and What is Commonwealth's Government.

BY GERRARD WINSTANLEY.

In thee, O England, is the Law arising up to s.h.i.+ne, If thou receive and practice it, the Crown it will be thine.