Levellers

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Levellers. A popular democratic movement which emerged fully in 1647, though its leading pamphleteers, John Lilburne, Richard Overton, and William Walwyn, had campaigned earlier for specific rights and reforms. The Levellers' basic principle was that all men and women are born equal, and are rightfully subject to no authority except by agreement and consent. Their so-called ‘Large Petition’ of March 1647 confronted Parliament with a wide range of grievances, but was burned by the common hangman in May. By then the New Model Army was defying Parliament's threat to disband it, so the Levellers set about indoctrinating its newly elected agitators. They made some converts, notably Edward Sexby, but most soldiers remained loyal to their commanders. They therefore persuaded six cavalry regiments to adopt new agents or agitators, and through them brought a revolutionary ‘Agreement of the People’ before the army's general council in the famous Putney debates. Implying the abolition of monarchy and the House of Lords, the agreement proposed that biennial, popularly elected parliaments should wield supreme authority, subject only to certain ‘native rights’ such as liberty of conscience and equality before the law, which the sovereign people reserved to themselves. Unwisely, they accompanied their agitation among the soldiery with incitements to mutiny. They suspended their opposition during the second civil war, but when the Commonwealth was established their leaders (Walwyn excepted) denounced it virulently in Englands New Chains Discovered and other tracts. They also raised a new and more serious mutiny in the army. After its suppression they lost coherence as an organized movement, and some of them later intrigued with the royalists against Cromwell's Protectorate.

The Levellers' claim to be true democrats has been challenged, because they later qualified their demands for manhood suffrage by excluding those who subsisted by alms or worked as servants in a master's household; but this modification was tactical rather than principled. It was their principle, however, to preserve property, and not ‘level men's estates’; here they differed from the self-styled True Levellers, or Diggers.

Austin Woolrych

Levelers or Levellers, English Puritan sect active at the time of the English civil war . The name was apparently applied to them in 1647, in derision of their beliefs in equality. The leader of the movement and its most indefatigable propagandist was John Lilburne . The Levelers demanded fundamental constitutional reform—a written constitution, a single supreme representative body elected by universal manhood suffrage, proportional representation, and the abolition of monarchy and noble privilege. Their ideals, far in advance of their time, were those of complete religious and political equality. They were adept at the use of mass petitions and extensive pamphleteering to arouse the public. When the Long Parliament did not respond to their ideas, they tried to build support in the ranks of the army, with some success. They identified themselves with the army's demands for arrears of pay, and Lilburne's pamphlet The Case of the Army Truly Stated was presented (1647) to Thomas Fairfax (later 3d Baron Fairfax of Cameron ). An expanded version, Foundations of Freedom; or, An Agreement of the People, describing the whole Leveler program, was discussed at the Putney debates (Oct., 1647) between the elected army council and their commanding officers. The Leveler proposals were totally rejected by Gen. Henry Ireton as subversive of property interests. A later pamphlet, England's New Chains, published after the execution of Charles I, and several Leveler mutinies (1649) resulted in severe suppression of the Levelers by Oliver Cromwell, who had constantly opposed them.

Bibliography: See T. C. Pease, The Leveller Movement (1916, repr. 1965); W. Haller and G. Davies, ed., The Leveller Tracts, 1647–1653 (1944, repr. 1964); J. Frank, The Levellers (1955, repr. 1969); N. H. Brailsford, The Levellers and the English Revolution (1961); C. H. Shaw, The Levellers (1968).

Levellers A popular democratic movement which emerged fully in 1647, though its leading pamphleteers, John Lilburne, Richard Overton, and William Walwyn, had campaigned earlier for specific rights and reforms. The Levellers' basic principle was that all men and women are born equal, and are rightfully subject to no authority except by agreement and consent. By 1647 the New Model Army was defying Parliament's threat to disband it, so the Levellers set about indoctrinating its newly elected agitators. They persuaded six cavalry regiments to bring a revolutionary ‘Agreement of the People’ before the army's general council in the famous Putney debates. Implying the abolition of monarchy and the House of Lords, the agreement proposed that biennial, popularly elected parliaments should wield supreme authority. They suspended their opposition during the second civil war, but when the Commonwealth was established their leaders ( Walwyn excepted) denounced it virulently in Englands New Chains Discovered. They also raised a new and more serious mutiny in the army but after its suppression they lost coherence as an organized movement.

Levellers (1645–49) Members of a radical movement in England in the Commonwealth period (c.1645–57). They wanted sweeping parliamentary reform, religious toleration, and a fairer, more egalitarian society. Their leaders, including John Lilburne, presented a constitution to Oliver Cromwell in 1647. When their demands were not met, several mutinies broke out in the army, resulting in their suppression. See also Diggers

Levellers. A 17th-cent. English political and religious party. They were opposed to kingship and advocated freedom in religion and a wide extension of the suffrage. The name first occurs in 1647. Their main support was in the Army. After the execution of Charles I (1649), the Levellers faded out.