A LETTER TO LORD FAIRFAX AND HIS COUNCIL OF WAR; AND AN APPEAL TO THE
HOUSE OF COMMONS
"For you must either establish Commonwealth's Freedom in power,
making provision for everyone's peace, which is Righteousness, or
else you must set up Monarchy again. Monarchy is twofold, either
for one king to reign, or for many to rule by kingly principles.
For the king's power lies in his laws, not in his name. And if
either one king rule, or many rule by kingly principles, much
murmuring, grudges, troubles, and quarrels may and will arise among
the oppressed people upon every gained opportunity."--WINSTANLEY,
_The Law of Freedom_.
Within a few days of Lord Fairfax's visit to the Diggers, already
recorded, and about two months after the publication of _The True
Levellers Standard Advanced_, Winstanley, on June 9th, 1649, again made
his appearance at the headquarters of the Army, the bearer of a letter,
which, as he tells us, he himself delivered to the Lord General, "who
very mildly promised to read it and consider of it":
"A LETTER TO LORD FAIRFAX AND HIS COUNCIL OF WAR:[100:1]
With divers questions to the Lawyers and Ministers: Proving it an
undeniable equity that the Common People ought to dig, plow,
plant and dwell upon the Commons without hiring them or paying
Rent to any.
Delivered to the General and his Chief Officers, June 9th, 1649, by
Gerrard Winstanley in the behalf of those who have begun to dig
upon George Hill in Surrey."
The letter opens as follows:
"Our digging and ploughing upon George Hill in Surrey is not
unknown to you, since you have seen some of our persons, and heard
us speak in defence thereof; and we did receive kindness and
moderation from you and your Council of War, both when some of us
were at Whitehall before you, and when you came in person to George
Hill to view our works. We endeavour to lay open the bottom and
intent of our business as much as can be, that none may be troubled
with doubtful imaginations about us, but may be satisfied in the
sincerity and universal righteousness of the work."
It then continues:
"We understand that our digging upon that Common is the talk of the
whole Land, some approving, some disowning; some are friends filled
with love, and see that the work intends good to the Nation, the
peace whereof is that which we seek after; others are enemies
filled with fury, who falsely report of us that we have intent to
fortify ourselves, and afterwards to fight against others and take
away their goods from them, which is a thing we abhor. And many
other slanders we rejoice over, because we know ourselves clear,
our endeavour being no otherwise but to improve the Commons, and to
call off that oppression and outward bondage which the Creation
groans under, as much as in us lies, and to lift up and preserve
the purity thereof."
Winstanley then declares that their opponents were but "one or two
covetous freeholders that would have all the Commons to themselves, and
that would uphold the Norman tyranny," and still further explains his
position, as follows:
"We told you, upon a question you put to us, that we were not
against any that would have Magistrates and Laws to govern, as the
Nations of the World are governed, but that, for our own parts, we
shall need neither the one nor the other in that nature of
government. For as our land is common, so our cattle is to be
common, and our corn and fruits of the earth common, and are not to
be bought and sold among us, but to remain a standing portion of
livelihood to us and our children, without that cheating
entanglement of buying and selling; and we shall not arrest one
another. And then what need have we of imprisoning, whipping or
hanging laws to bring one another into bondage? And we know that
none of those that are subject to this righteous law dares arrest
or enslave his brother for or about the objects of the Earth,
because the Earth is made by our Creator to be a Common Treasury of
Livelihood to one equal with another, without respect of
persons.... What need have we of any outward, selfish, confused
laws, made to uphold the Power of Covetousness, when we have the
Righteous Law written in our hearts, teaching us to walk purely in
the Creation."
Winstanley then complains of the action of some of the soldiers, but
expresses the desire that they should not be punished, only cautioned
not to offend again; and states the readiness of himself and companions
to come to headquarters "upon a bare letter." He reiterates his
contention that their demand is only to enjoy freedom "according to the
law of contract between you and us"; freedom to till the common land,
not to trespass upon any enclosures. He continues:
"We desire that your Lawyers may consider these questions, which we
affirm to be truths, and which give good assurance, by the law of
the land, that we that are the younger brothers, or common people,
have a true right to dig, plow up and dwell upon the Commons, as we
have declared."
QUESTIONS TO THE LAWYERS.
"1. Did not William the Conqueror dispossess the English, and thus
cause them to be servants to him?
"2. Was not King Charles the direct successor of William the First?
"3. Whether Lords of the Manor were not the successors of the chief
officers of William the First, holding their rights to the Commons
by the power of the sword?
"4. Whether Lords of the Manor have not lost their royalty to the
common land by the recent victories?
"5. Whether any laws since the coming in of kings have been made in
the light of the righteous law of our Creation, _respecting all
alike_, or have not been grounded upon selfish principles in fear
or flattery of their king, to uphold freedom in the gentry and
clergy, and to hold the common people under bondage still, and so
respecting persons?
"6. Whether all laws that are not grounded upon equity and reason,
not giving an universal freedom to all, but respecting persons,
ought not to be cut off with the king's head? We affirm they ought.
If all laws be grounded upon equity and reason, then the whole land
of England is to be a Common Treasury to everyone born in the Land.
"7. Whether everyone without exception, by the Law of Contract,
ought not to have liberty to enjoy the earth for his livelihood,
and to settle his dwelling in any part of the Commons of England,
without buying or renting land of any, seeing that everyone by
agreement and covenant among themselves have paid taxes, given
free-quarter, and adventured their lives to recover England out of
bondage? We affirm they ought.[103:1]
"8. Whether the laws that were made in the days of the king do give
freedom to any but the gentry and clergy?"
Winstanley then puts a string of similar questions to Public Preachers,
"that say they preach the Righteous Law," from which, however, we need
only quote the following:
"QUESTIONS TO PUBLIC PREACHERS.
"First we demand, Yea or No, Whether the Earth, with her fruits,
was made to be bought and sold from one to another; And whether one
part of mankind was made to be a Lord of the Land, and another part
a servant, by the Law of Creation before the Fall?
"I affirm (and I challenge you to disprove) that the Earth was made
to be a Common Treasury of Livelihood for all, without respect of
persons, and was not made to be bought and sold.... And this being
a truth, as it is, then none ought to be Lords and Land Lords over
another, but the Earth is free to every son and daughter of mankind
to live upon."
And the letter concludes with the following eloquent and heart-stirring
words:
"Thus I have declared to you and to all the world what that Power
of Life is that is in me; and knowing that the Spirit of
Righteousness doth appear to many in this Land, I desire all of you
seriously, in love and humility, to consider of this business of
Public Community, which I am carried forth in the Power of Love and
clear light of Universal Righteousness to advance as much as I can;
and I can do no other, the Law of Love in my heart does so
constrain me; by reason whereof I am called fool and madman, and
have many slanderous reports cast upon me, and meet with much fury
from some covetous people; under all of which my spirit is made
patient and is guarded with joy and peace. I hate none, I love all,
I delight to see everyone live comfortably, I would have none live
in poverty, straits and sorrows; therefore if you find any
selfishness in this work, or discover anything that is destructive
of the whole Creation [Mankind], that you would open your hearts as
freely to me, in declaring my weakness to me, as I have been
open-hearted in declaring that which I find and feel much life and
strength in. But if you see Righteousness in it, and that it holds
forth the strength of Universal Love to all, without respect to
persons, so that our Creator is honored in the work of His hand,
then own it and justify it, and let the Power of Love have his
freedom and glory."
In his interview with the Diggers, Lord Fairfax had expressed his
intention to leave them to "the Gentlemen of the County and the Law of
the Land." The former soon put the latter in motion, and on July 11th,
1649, the day before Cromwell set out with much pomp and ceremony for
his notorious expedition to Ireland, Winstanley, under circumstances
that will presently be revealed, found himself compelled to address an
eloquent appeal for protection to the House of Commons, long extracts
from which we feel impelled to place before our readers. It appeared in
pamphlet form with the following title-page:
"AN APPEAL TO THE HOUSE OF COMMONS:[105:1]
Desiring their answer whether the Common People shall have the
quiet enjoyment of the Commons and Waste Land; or whether they
shall be under the will of Lords of Manors still. Occasioned by
an Arrest made by Thomas Lord Wenman, Ralph Verney Knight, and
Richard Winwood Esq. upon the Author hereof, for a Trespass in
Digging upon the Common Land at Georges Hill in Surrey.
BY GERRARD WINSTANLEY, JOHN BARKER AND THOMAS STAR.
In the name of all the poor oppressed in the Land of England.
Unrighteous oppression kindles a flame, but love, righteousness and
tenderness of heart quenches it again."
With more than his usual directness, Winstanley at once states the
subject of his appeal in the following manner:
"SIRS,--The cause of this our presentment before you is, an Appeal
to you desiring you to demonstrate to us, and the whole Land, the
equity or non-equity of our cause. And that you would either cast
us by just reason under the feet of those we call Task Masters, or
Lords of Manors, or else to deliver us out of their tyrannical
hands: In whose hands by way of Arrest we are for the present, for
a Trespass to them, as they say, in digging upon the Common Land.
The settling whereof according to Equity and Reason will quiet the
minds of the oppressed people; it will be a keeping of our
National Covenant; it will be a peace to yourselves, and make
England the most flourishing and strongest Land in the world, and
the first of Nations that shall begin to give up their Crown and
Scepter, their dominion and government, into the hands of Jesus
Christ.[106:1]
"The cause is this, we amongst others of the common people, that
have ever been friends to the Parliament, as we are assured our
enemies will witness to it, have ploughed and digged upon Georges
Hill in Surrey, to sow corn for the succour of man, offering no
offence to any, but do carry ourselves in love and peace towards
all, having no intent to meddle with any man's enclosures or
property till it be freely given to us by themselves, but only to
improve the Commons and waste lands to our best advantage, for the
relief of ourselves and others, being moved thereunto by the reason
hereafter following, not expecting any to be much offended, in
regard the cause is so just and upright.
"Yet notwithstanding, there be three men (called by the people
Lords of Manors), viz., Thomas Lord Wenman, Ralph Verney Knight,
and Richard Winwood Esq., have arrested us for a trespass in
digging upon the Commons, and upon the arrest we made our
appearance in Kingstone Court, where we understood we were arrested
for meddling with other men's rights; and, secondly, they were
encouraged to arrest us upon your Act of Parliament (as they tell
us) to maintain the old laws. We desired to plead our own cause,
the Court denied us, and to fee a lawyer we cannot, for divers
reasons, as we may show hereafter.
"Now, Sirs, our case is this, for we appeal to you, for you are the
only men that we are to deal withal in this business: Whether the
common people, after all their taxes, free-quarter and loss of
blood to recover England from under the Norman yoke, shall have the
freedom to improve the Commons and Waste Lands free to themselves,
as freely their own as the Enclosures are the propriety of the
elder brothers? Or whether the Lords of Manors shall have them,
according to their old custom, from the King's will and grant, and
so remain Task Masters still over us, which was the people's
slavery under conquest?
"We have made our appeal to you to settle this matter in the Equity
and Reason of it, and to pass the sentence of freedom to us, you
being the men with whom we have to do in this business, in whose
hands there is power to settle it, for no Court can end this
controversy but your Court of Parliament, as the case of this
Nation now stands."
After emphasising his fundamental contention that in Equity and by the
Law of Righteousness all should have the freedom of the Earth granted
unto them, he summarises the causes that have conspired to place the
Members of the House of Commons in power, as follows:
"You of the Gentry, as well as we of the Commonalty, all groaned
under the burden of the bad government and burdening laws of the
late King Charles, who was the last successor of William the
Conqueror. You and we cried for a Parliament, and a Parliament was
called, and wars, you know, presently began between the king that
represented William the Conqueror and the body of the English
people that were enslaved. We looked upon you to be our Chief
Council to agitate business for us, though you were summonsed by
the king's writ, and choosen by the Freeholders, who are the
successors of William the Conqueror's soldiers. You saw the danger
so great that without a war England was likely to be more enslaved,
therefore you called upon us to assist you with plate, taxes,
free-quarter and our persons: and you promised us, in the name of
the Almighty, to make us a Free People. Thereupon you and we took
the National Covenant with joint consent, to endeavour the freedom,
peace, and safety of the people of England. And you and we joined
person and purse together in the common cause, and Will. the
Conqueror's successor, which was Charles, was cast out; thereby we
have recovered ourselves from under that Norman yoke. And now
unless you and we be merely besotted with covetousness, pride and
slavish fear of men, it is and will be our wisdom to cast out all
those enslaving laws which was the tyrannical power the king
pressed us down by.[108:1] O shut not your eyes against the light;
darken not knowledge by dispute about particular men's privileges,
when Universal Freedom is brought to be tried before you; dispute
no further when truth appears, but be silent and practice it. Stop
not your ears against the secret moanings of the oppressed, under
these expressions, lest the Lord see it and be offended, and shut
His eyes against your cries, and work a deliverance for His waiting
people some other way than by you."
He then summarises the prevailing ills, and indicates their manifest and
immediate duty, as follows:
"The main thing that you should look upon is the Land, which calls
upon her children to be free from the entanglements of the Norman
Taskmasters. For one third part lies waste and barren, and her
children starve for want, in regard the Lords of Manors will not
suffer the poor to manure it.... The power is in your hands, the
Nations Representative, O let the first thing you do be this, to
set the land free. Let the Gentry have their enclosures free from
all enslaving entanglements whatsoever, and let the Common People
have the Commons and Waste Lands set free to them from all Norman
enslaving Lords of Manors. That so both Elder and Younger Brother,
as we spring successively one from another, may live free and quiet
one by and with another in this Land of our Nativity." "This
thing," he then boldly declares, "you are bound to see done, or at
least to endeavour it, before another Representative force you;
otherwise you cannot discharge your trust to God and man." And the
Appeal concludes with the following words: "Set the Land free from
oppression, and righteousness will be the Laws, Government, and
Strength of that People."
The Long Parliament, however, were too busy carrying English
civilisation into Ireland to heed his words. And yet surely there was
work enough for them to do in their own country, in which, as we have
already pointed out, since the reign of Henry the Seventh the condition
of the masses of the people had steadily worsened, and, as a natural
consequence, the number of beggars, "rogues and vagrants," despite
barbarous laws, involving their wholesale hanging, had steadily
increased. During the reign of James the First, in a pamphlet entitled
_Grievous Groans of the Poor_, published 1622, we hear the complaint
that "the number of the poor do daily increase." The only remedy the
then wise men of England could devise was to make the laws against them
still more severe. Consequently it was ordered that the first time such
people were apprehended they should be branded with the letter R, and if
subsequently again found begging or wandering they were "to suffer death
without benefit of Clergy." Yet such was their obstinacy that they still
increased in numbers; and that for the simple reason that the economic
or social causes of which they were but the inevitable outcome were not
removed.
During all this period, however, the country was developing, its
industry and commerce expanding, and its wealth increasing by leaps and
bounds; but in all this the "meaner sort," the Younger Brothers, the
disinherited masses, had neither lot nor share. Though Clarendon may
speak of the growing economical prosperity of the country during the
time of which we are writing, yet there be no doubt of the truth of
Thorold Rogers' contention, that[109:1]--"I am convinced from the
comparison I have been able to make between wages, rents and prices,
that it was a period of excessive misery among the mass of the people
and the tenants, a time in which a few might have become rich, while the
many were crushed down into hopeless and almost permanent indigence."
And yet the facts are such as to compel him, when speaking of the
Restoration, to point out that[110:1]--"the labourers, as far as the
will went, were better off under the rule of the Saints than under that
of the sinners."
The English land-system, as we know it to-day, really began with the
Restoration, when the very memory of Winstanley and his doctrines was
swept away, when the men of the Model Army found themselves powerless,
while "the great and wise men" of the nation "set up Monarchy again,"
humbly prostrating themselves at the feet of a licentious, cynical
debauchee, and the Landocracy, new and old, found themselves in the
saddle with far greater political power than they had ever before
enjoyed. They soon found means of fastening their yoke more firmly than
ever on the necks of the people, and of making short work of any claims
of an independent yeomanry to any right to the soil of their native
country apart from their good-will and pleasure. After some effort, they
passed a Statute under which the estates of such of the free-holders as
had no documentary evidence by which to support their titles, were
confiscated and turned into tenancies at will. By means of Enclosure
Acts they still further plundered and impoverished the peasantry, by
appropriating to themselves millions of acres of land over which these
still had some right, some enjoyment. By means of the Law of Parochial
Settlement, as Thorold Rogers repeatedly points out,[110:2] they
"consummated the degradation of the labourer"; and made him, as it has
left him, what the same impartial authority well terms "the most
portentous phenomenon in agriculture, a serf without land." By means of
their Financial Policy they rid themselves of the duties which
originally accompanied the privilege of land-holding, viz. to provide
the necessary public revenues for all defence purposes, and converted
themselves from Land Holders into Land Owners, by shifting the burden
of taxation to the food, industry, and handicraft of those they had
despoiled and disinherited. And, finally, for the first time in the
history of England, they passed a Corn Law artificially to increase
their rents, at the cost and to the detriment, often to the starvation,
of the masses of the people. From the effect of these laws the people of
Great Britain have not yet been able entirely to recover themselves,
though since 1824 they have made heroic steps to do so. With this
portion of the history, we had almost written of the martyrdom, of the
English people we are not here directly concerned. Manifestly it would
have been very different had the Long Parliament listened to
Winstanley's appeal, or had his self-sacrificing efforts been crowned
with the success they so well deserved.
FOOTNOTES:
[100:1] Thomasson's Tracts. British Museum, Press Mark, E. 560 (1).
Reprinted in the _Harleian Miscellany_, vol. ii. p. 485.
[103:1] Others, in far more influential positions than Winstanley and
his comrades, gave forcible expression to much the same views. In the
debates of the Army Council on the Agreement of the People, on November
1647, Edward Sexby, the Agitator or Representative of the private
soldiers, an able, daring, and energetic man, replying to Ireton, on the
question of the right to vote, said: "We have engaged in this kingdom
and ventured our lives, and it was all for this: to recover our
birthrights and privileges as Englishmen; and by the arguments urged,
there are none. There are many thousands of us soldiers that have
ventured our lives, we have had little propriety in the kingdom as to
our estates, yet we have had a birthright. But it seems now that except
a man hath a fixed estate in this kingdom, he hath no right in this
kingdom. I wonder we were so deceived. If we had not a right to the
kingdom, we were mere mercenary soldiers. There are men in my position,
it may be little estate they have at present, and yet they have as much
a birthright as those two who are their law-givers, or as any in this
place." During the same debate Colonel Rainborrow said: "I think that
the poorest he that is in England hath a life to live as the greatest
he." And, also in reply to Ireton, he subsequently declared: "Sir, I see
that it is impossible to have liberty but all property must be taken
away.... If you will say it, it must be so. But I would fain know what
the soldier hath fought for all this while? He hath fought to enslave
himself, to give power to men of riches, to men of estate, and to make
himself a perpetual slave."--See _Clarke Papers_, vol. i. pp. 322-323,
325.
[105:1] King's Pamphlets. British Museum, Press Mark, E. 564. Also at
the Guildhall Library. The Ralph Verney mentioned is the hero of _The
Verney Memoirs_: there is, however, no mention of this incident therein.
[106:1] This argument would scarcely have appealed to Ireton, who during
the debate of the Army Council frankly declared that in his opinion--"It
was not the business of Jesus Christ, when he came into the world, to
create Kingdoms of the World, and Magistracies and Monarchies, or to
give the rule of them, positive or negative."--See _Clarke Papers_, vol.
ii. p. 101.
[108:1] Colonel Rainborrow, who with Sexby and Wildman represented on
the Army Council the private soldiers of the Model Army, during the
debate on the right of voting, gave expression to the view that some
fundamental changes in the laws of the Land were both necessary and
justifiable, in the following words: "I hear it said, 'It's a huge
alteration it's a bringing in of new laws.' ... If writings be true,
there hath been many scuttlings between the honest men of England and
those that have tyrannised over them. And if what I have read be true,
there is none of those just and equitable laws that the people of
England are born to, but were once intrenchments [but were once
innovations]. But if they [the existing laws] were those which the
people have been always under, if the people find that they are not
suitable to freeman, I know no reason that should deter me, either in
what I must answer before God or the world, from endeavouring by all
means to gain anything that might be of more advantage to them than the
government under which they live."--_Clarke Papers_, vol. i. p. 247.
[109:1] _Economic Interpretation of History_, p. 138.
[110:1] _Economic Interpretation of History_, p. 241.
[110:2] _Six Centuries of Work and Wages_, pp. 432-433.