The Levellers
The onset of Leveller ideology began with the end of the First Civil War and the defeat of King Charles I’s military forces. This defeat left a power struggle amongst three different groups. The first group was the Puritan forces, which wanted an all inclusive Presbyterian Church and parliament for their nation. The second group was the portion of citizens who wanted a decentralized national church, similar in nature to the Church of England. The third group wanted a plural church system, in which there was no political establishment and equality for all Protestant faiths. The Levellers were part of this third group, especially in the equality of faiths.
More importantly, the preconditions for the Leveller movement show a direct link to their ideology. Besides the parliamentarian victory over the King, a constitutional and religious logjam required the immediate attention of whoever was to gain substantive power. Constant disagreement between the three aforementioned groups created a tight rope act between appeasing the more secular elements in government and the more religious elements. A final precondition was the nature of the military following the victory. Around the time of Civil War, the army had an upper class core of higher officers; following the remodeling of the military and government, the lower classes started to become more involved in leading regiments. All of these factors played into the creation of the Levellers.
Three men who had distinct personalities led the Levellers, each with different takes on where the movement should head. The man attributed most with being in a leadership position was John Lilburne. Lilburne was a radical pamphleteer and writer. His main belief was that there was a need for complete separation from church authority because true believers needed to follow their own consciences. Richard Overton was another leader of the Levellers and had the lowest profile of the leadership triad. Overton was a clandestine printer in London and wrote against the orthodoxy of the Puritans. The themes of his works were more secular in nature than Lilburne but with the same motive toward freedom of the individual.
The third leader was William Walwyn, a respectable radical leader who used his subtlety and cunning to get his way. He traveled to lectures and sermons along the countryside and critically analyzed the way in which people spoke. Walwyn also used the Socratic approach to discussion, attempting to break everything down to the simplest form possible. Walwyn by far was the most hated leader of the Levellers because of his personality and the respect he received from many in the government.
These three leaders constructed a program of political and religious reform that was unprecedented to that point in history. The high point in Leveller literature was The First Agreement of the People, a letter to the House of Commons giving the general outline of Leveller ideas. In this document, they declared four points of reform that would initiate compulsory change in the English government. First discussed was the fairness of representation, with the movement writers demanding a standard population per district for fair and consistent representation. The second demand was the dissolution of the Parliament in 1648, the year following the agreement. Next was the demand that representatives of all levels be elected instead of having birthright place office holders. From these elections would come accountability of the representatives to their constituents.
These first proclamations sound very much like the founding principles of the Constitution of the United States. The Levellers embraced the ideas of individual rights under the law as a founding principle, much like the American colonists who rose up against their parent country. These “native” rights included freedom from conscription, freedom of speech, equality under the law for all people, and laws that were enacted for the purposes and needs of the public. Looking at these rights, we see general and encompassing guidelines that became standard sticking points in political revolution starting with the Levellers.
The Levellers were, for many reasons, important figures in political history. Unlike other religious and civil movements, this radical movement sought individual liberty as the end of its struggles. Other movements used broad language of freedom to win support, while the Levellers were very specific in later documents about what they wanted in government. They met the four requirements of good government created by Isaac Pennington, Jr., which include good laws, good methods, good leadership, and dynamic procedures for change. Overall, the Levellers had a modern approach to politics that was based on individual rights and liberties.
The ultimate demise of the Levellers came in 1649 after a second failed mutiny attempt by the Leveller forces against Oliver Cromwell and the parliamentarian forces. Two major reasons insured the downfall of the Levellers from the beginning. The first reason was that the economic plans of the Levellers were not realistic. The main economic tenet of the radicals was a call for monopolies to be broken up. This would ideally allow for greater competition and more efforts would be put into the economy. This idea, however, was not appealing to the immediacy of needs for those in poverty. The Levellers could not play the economics game because they did not have the foresight to establish a viable economic plan.
The second reason seem to be the overarching reason for failure on the part of the Leveller movement. The sense of realities in politics and the tactics to succeed in politics escaped from Lilburne and his associates. The reality that the movement’s leaders endorsed was a reality based in justice ideology, basically the right of individuals to a fair government and society. The reality of British politics was power and posturing; while the Levellers were playing the moral high ground, the conservative groups played close to the vest and made very deliberate and broad claims on their ideas. The Leveller leadership was naive to the amount of measures that they would have to perform. This was the major failure of the movement.
Despite the failure of the Leveller movement to instill their government in England, their writings and exploits set an example for democratic and libertarian ideologies. The Levellers were not just another radical group attempting to gain power; they were concerned citizens that wanted equal rights and a fair government. Modern American society can look to the Levellers as the touchstone for civil liberties that we take for granted today. The First Amendment, the separation of church and state, and representative forms of government have much thanks to give to the radical Levellers. The struggles of Lilburne, Overton, Walwyn, and others proved to be successful in cementing a legacy for their ideas.
Aylmer, G.E. editor The Leveller in the English Revolution. New York: Cornell University Press, 1975. Davis, J.C. “Religion and the Struggle for Freedom in the English Revolution” The Historical Journal 35 (September 1992) 507-30. Gleissner, Richard A. “The Levellers and Natural Law: The Putney Debates of 1647” Journal of British Studies 20 (Autumn 1980) 74-89
