The Levellers were a political movement active during the English Civil War who were committed to popular sovereignty, extended suffrage, equality before the law and religious tolerance. The hallmark of Leveller thought was its populism, as shown by its emphasis on equal natural rights, and their practice of reaching the public through pamphlets, petitions and vocal appeals to the crowd.
The Levellers came to prominence at the end of the First English Civil War (1642–1646) and were most influential before the start of the Second Civil War (1648–49). Leveller views and support were found in the populace of the City of London and in some regiments in the New Model Army. Their ideas were presented in their manifesto "Agreement of the People". In contrast to the Diggers, the Levellers opposed common ownership, except in cases of mutual agreement of the property owners.
They were organised at the national level, with offices in a number of London inns and taverns such as The Rosemary Branch in Islington, which got its name from the sprigs of rosemary that Levellers wore in their hats as a sign of identification. They also identified themselves by sea-green ribbons worn on their clothing.
From July 1648 to September 1649, they published a newspaper, The Moderate, and were pioneers in the use of petitions and pamphleteering to political ends. London's printing and bookselling trade was pivotal to the movement.
After Pride's Purge and the execution of Charles I, power lay in the hands of the Grandees in the Army (and to a lesser extent with the Rump Parliament). The Levellers, along with all other opposition groups, were marginalised by those in power and their influence waned. By 1650, they were no longer a serious threat to the established order.
Origin of name The term "leveller" had been used in 17th-century England as a term of abuse for rural rebels. In the Midland Revolt of 1607, the name was used to refer to those who levelled hedges and walls in enclosure riots.Perez Zagorin (1982). Rebels and Rulers, 1500–1660. Volume II Provincial rebellion. Revolutionary civil wars, Cambridge University Press, . p. 164Whitney Richard David Jones (2000). The Tree of Commonwealth, 1450–1793, Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Press, . pp. 133 ,164
As a political movement, the term first referred to a faction of New Model Army Agitators and their London supporters who were allegedly plotting to assassinate Charles I of England. But the term was gradually attached to John Lilburne, Richard Overton, and William Walwyn and their "faction". Books published in 1647–1648 often reflect this terminological uncertainty. The public "identification" was largely due to the aspersions by Marchamont Needham, the author of the newspaper Mercurius Pragmaticus. Lilburne, John Wildman and Richard Baxter later thought that Oliver Cromwell and Henry Ireton had applied the term to Lilburne's group during the Putney Debates of late 1647.Mendle (2001), Chapter by Blair Worden, "The Levellers in History and Memory c. 1660–1960" p. 282 Lilburne considered the term pejorative and called his supporters "Levellers so-called" and preferred "Agitators". The term suggested that the "Levellers" aimed to bring all down to the lowest common level. The leaders vehemently denied the charge of "levelling", but adopted the name because it was how they were known to the majority of people. After their arrest and imprisonment in 1649, four of the "Leveller" leaders – Walwyn, Overton, Lilburne and Thomas Prince – signed a manifesto in which they called themselves Levellers.
The first ideological identification was due to Thomas Edwards, who, in his work Gangraena (1646), summed up Levellers' views and attacked their radical political egalitarianism that showed no respect for the constitution. The prime targets in part III of his work were the men who were to be recognized as the leaders of the Leveller party.
The Oxford English Dictionary dates the first written use of the term for a political movement to 1644,"leveller, n.". OED Online. June 2017. Oxford University Press. http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/107665?redirectedFrom=levellers+ (accessed October 19, 2017). s.v. "Leveller": "1644 NEEDHAM Case Commw. 77 Our Levellers now exclaim against the Parliament". in Marchamont Needham's pamphlet The Case for the Commonwealth of England Stated which however dates from 1650.Nedham, Marchamont, Knache, Philip A (1969). The Case of the Commonwealth of England, Stated, Associated University Press, . p. ix The OED notes the term was also used in a letter of 1 November 1647.
The 19th-century historian S. R. Gardiner suggested that it existed as a nickname before this date.Gardiner, Great Civil War, iii. 380. Blair Worden, the most recent historian to publish on the subject, concluded that the 1 November letter was the first recorded use of the term.Mendle (2001), Chapter by Blair Worden, "The Levellers in History and Memory c. 1660–1960" pp. 280–282 The letter referred to extremists among the Army agitators: "They have given themselves a new name, viz. Levellers, for they intend to sett all things straight, and rayse a parity and community in the kingdom". Worden shows that the term first appeared in print in a book by Charles I called His Majesties Most Gracious Declaration. This tract was a printing of a letter that had been read in the House of Lords on 11 November 1647. Although George Thomason did not date this tract, the last date internal to the document was Saturday 13 November 1647, suggesting a publication date of 15 November 1647.British Library Thomason Collection E413(15)
Political ambitions The Levellers' agenda developed in tandem with growing dissent within the New Model Army in the wake of the First Civil War. Early drafts of the Agreement of the People emanated from army circles and appeared before the Putney Debates of October and November 1647, and a final version, appended and issued in the names of prominent Levellers Lt. Col. Lilburne, Walwyn, Overton and Prince appeared in May 1649. It called for an extension of suffrage to include almost all the adult male population (but excluding wage-earners, for reasons mentioned below), electoral reform, biennial elections, religious freedom, and an end to imprisonment for debt. They were committed broadly to the abolition of corruption within the parliamentary and judicial process, toleration of religious differences, the translation of law into the common tongue and, arguably, something that could be considered democracy in its modern form – arguably the first time contemporary democratic ideas had been formally framed and adopted by a political movement. Along with household servants, the Levellers excluded those dependent upon charitable handouts from suffrage, fearing that poor, dependent men would simply vote as their masters wished. It would also have excluded women; most adult women were married and, as wives, were legally and financially dependent on their husbands.
Some Levellers like Lilburne argued that the English Common law, particularly the Magna Carta, was the foundation of English rights and liberties, but others, like William Walwyn, compared the Magna Carta to a "mess of potage". Lilburne also harked back in his writing to the notion of a Norman yoke that has been imposed on the English people and to some extent argued that the English were simply seeking to reclaim those rights they had enjoyed before the Conquest.
Levellers tended to hold fast to a notion of "natural rights" that had been violated by the King's side in the Civil Wars (1642–1651). At the Putney Debates in 1647, Colonel Thomas Rainsborough defended natural rights as coming from the law of God expressed in the Bible. Richard Overton considered that liberty was an innate property of every person. Michael Mendle has demonstrated the development of Leveller ideas from elements of early parliamentarian thought as expressed by men such as Henry Parker.
According to George Sabine, Levellers held to "the doctrine of consent by participation in the choice of representatives".George Sabine (1937) A History of Political Theory, p. 489, Holt, Rinehart and Winston
Timeline In July 1645, John Lilburne was imprisoned for denouncing Members of Parliament who lived in comfort while the common soldiers fought and died for the Parliamentary cause. His offence was slandering William Lenthall, the Speaker of the House of Commons, whom he accused of corresponding with Royalists. He was freed in October 1645 after a petition requesting his release, signed by over 2,000 leading London citizens, was presented to the House of Commons.
In July 1646, Lilburne was imprisoned again, this time in the Tower of London, for denouncing his former army commander, the Earl of Manchester, as a Royalist sympathiser because he had protected an officer who had been charged with treason. It was the campaigns to free Lilburne from prison that spawned the movement known as the Levellers. Richard Overton was arrested in August 1646 for publishing a pamphlet attacking the House of Lords. During his imprisonment, he wrote an influential Leveller manifesto, "An Arrow Against All Tyrants and Tyranny".
The soldiers in the New Model Army elected "Agitators" from each regiment to represent them. These Agitators were recognised by the Army's commanders and had a seat on the General Council. However, by September 1647, at least five regiments of cavalry had elected new unofficial agitators and produced a pamphlet called "The Case of the Army truly stated". This was presented to the commander-in-chief, Sir Thomas Fairfax, on 18 October 1647. In this, they demanded a dissolution of Parliament within a year and substantial changes to the constitution of future Parliaments that were to be regulated by an unalterable "law paramount".