See KORKYRA.
LEUKOPETRA, Battle of (B. C. 146).
See GREECE: B. C. 280-146.
LEUTHEN, Battle of.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1757 (JULY-DECEMBER).
LEVELLERS, The.
"Especially popular among the soldiers [of the Parliamentary
Army, England, A. D. 1647-48], and keeping up their excitement
more particularly against the House of Lords, were the
pamphlets that came from John Lilburne, and an associate of
his named Richard Overton. … These were the pamphlets …
which … were popular with the common soldiers of the
Parliamentary Army, and nursed that especial form of the
democratic passion among them which longed to sweep away the
House of Lords and see England governed by a single
Representative House. Baxter, who reports this growth of
democratic opinion in the Army from his own observation,
distinctly recognises in it the beginnings of that rough
ultra-Republican party which afterwards became formidable
under the name of The Levellers."
_D. Masson,
Life of John Milton,
volume 3, book 4, chapter 1._
"They [the Levellers] had a vision of a pure and patriotic
Parliament, accurately representing the people, yet carrying
out a political programme incomprehensible to nine-tenths of
the nation. This Parliament was to represent all legitimate
varieties of thought, and was yet to act together as one man.
The necessity for a Council of State they therefore entirely
denied; and they denounced it as a new tyranny. The excise
they condemned as an obstruction to trade. They would have no
man compelled to fight, unless he felt free in his own
conscience to do so. They appealed to the law of nature, and
found their interpretation of it carrying them further and
further away from English traditions and habits, whether of
Church or State." A mutiny of the Levellers in the army, which
broke out in April and May, 1640, was put down with stern
vigor by Cromwell and Fairfax, several of the leaders being
executed.
_J. A. Picton,
Oliver Cromwell,
chapter 17._
LEWES, Battle of.
See ENGLAND: A. D. 1216-1274.