Iain McLean
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- February 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199546954
- eISBN:
- 9780191720031
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199546954.003.0012
- Subject:
- Political Science, Comparative Politics, UK Politics
‘The House of Peers throughout the war/Did nothing in particular/And did it very well.’ The Levellers and the case for an elected parliament. The Lords since 1909. Remaining conditional vetoes. The ...
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‘The House of Peers throughout the war/Did nothing in particular/And did it very well.’ The Levellers and the case for an elected parliament. The Lords since 1909. Remaining conditional vetoes. The Lords and the landed interest. Evolution of the Salisbury–Addison convention. Its fall since 1999. Mackay Commission. Wakeham Commission. Weakness of arguments for an unelected house. Contradictory votes in the Commons. The effectiveness (but doubtful legitimacy) of the post‐1999 Lords. Powers and composition of a (predominantly) elected chamber.Less
‘The House of Peers throughout the war/Did nothing in particular/And did it very well.’ The Levellers and the case for an elected parliament. The Lords since 1909. Remaining conditional vetoes. The Lords and the landed interest. Evolution of the Salisbury–Addison convention. Its fall since 1999. Mackay Commission. Wakeham Commission. Weakness of arguments for an unelected house. Contradictory votes in the Commons. The effectiveness (but doubtful legitimacy) of the post‐1999 Lords. Powers and composition of a (predominantly) elected chamber.
Iain Mclean
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- February 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199546954
- eISBN:
- 9780191720031
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199546954.003.0015
- Subject:
- Political Science, Comparative Politics, UK Politics
Summary of previous discussion. Can Diceyanism be revived without Dicey? The case for Parliamentary sovereignty—but that must entail an elected Parliament. The case for counter‐majoritarianism. ...
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Summary of previous discussion. Can Diceyanism be revived without Dicey? The case for Parliamentary sovereignty—but that must entail an elected Parliament. The case for counter‐majoritarianism. Strong entrenchment of EU law. Justified on pragmatic, not democratic, grounds. EU polices supranational public goods and bads, and therefore needs some supranational powers. Weak entrenchment of human rights law: the model for entrenchment of other constitutional laws. What is a constitutional statute?—the list in Thoburn. Discrete and insular minorities. Origin of the phrase in the United States; its applicability in United Kingdom. Comity between courts and parliament. How we the people of the United Republic might ordain to ourselves a constitution.Less
Summary of previous discussion. Can Diceyanism be revived without Dicey? The case for Parliamentary sovereignty—but that must entail an elected Parliament. The case for counter‐majoritarianism. Strong entrenchment of EU law. Justified on pragmatic, not democratic, grounds. EU polices supranational public goods and bads, and therefore needs some supranational powers. Weak entrenchment of human rights law: the model for entrenchment of other constitutional laws. What is a constitutional statute?—the list in Thoburn. Discrete and insular minorities. Origin of the phrase in the United States; its applicability in United Kingdom. Comity between courts and parliament. How we the people of the United Republic might ordain to ourselves a constitution.
ALAN HARDING
- Published in print:
- 2002
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780198219583
- eISBN:
- 9780191717574
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198219583.003.0010
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Medieval History
John Selden in 1616 presented the State as a civil society conceptually prior to the laws that governed it; for Thomas Hobbes in his great work of 1651 on that Great Leviathan called a Commonwealth ...
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John Selden in 1616 presented the State as a civil society conceptually prior to the laws that governed it; for Thomas Hobbes in his great work of 1651 on that Great Leviathan called a Commonwealth or State, written like Bodin's under the shadow of civil war, it was the unrestricted power necessary to preserve society in existence. At the same time, a Leveller tract declared it ‘a most sure Rule in State policy, that all the Laws that are made in favour of liberty, spring first from the disagreement of the people with their Governors.’ The essence of the Modern State may be described as an unresolvable tension between government and people, which can be traced from the making and challenging of laws as they developed in the Middle Ages.Less
John Selden in 1616 presented the State as a civil society conceptually prior to the laws that governed it; for Thomas Hobbes in his great work of 1651 on that Great Leviathan called a Commonwealth or State, written like Bodin's under the shadow of civil war, it was the unrestricted power necessary to preserve society in existence. At the same time, a Leveller tract declared it ‘a most sure Rule in State policy, that all the Laws that are made in favour of liberty, spring first from the disagreement of the people with their Governors.’ The essence of the Modern State may be described as an unresolvable tension between government and people, which can be traced from the making and challenging of laws as they developed in the Middle Ages.
Henry Phelps Brown
- Published in print:
- 1988
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780198286486
- eISBN:
- 9780191596773
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0198286481.003.0004
- Subject:
- Economics and Finance, Public and Welfare
The major part of this chapter is devoted to the two great revolutions of the eighteenth century––the American and French, both of which claimed the equality of man at their outset, but it starts by ...
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The major part of this chapter is devoted to the two great revolutions of the eighteenth century––the American and French, both of which claimed the equality of man at their outset, but it starts by looking at the ideas of John Locke in Britain at the end of the seventeenth century. Locke had been working out a philosophy of government that was to exercise international influence throughout the following century and to lay the philosophical foundations for the American Revolution, and he affirmed near the start of his enquiry (and as a by‐product of his argument) the original equality of man in the state of nature. The second section of the chapter examines the American Declaration of Independence in relation to belief in equality, and the third examines the French Declaration of the Rights of Men and Citizens. Most of the rest of the chapter considers the situation in Britain in the eighteenth century––looking first at social inequality, and then at the English tradition of revolt and levelling (the Levellers). The final section briefly considers the limits of eighteenth‐century liberalism.Less
The major part of this chapter is devoted to the two great revolutions of the eighteenth century––the American and French, both of which claimed the equality of man at their outset, but it starts by looking at the ideas of John Locke in Britain at the end of the seventeenth century. Locke had been working out a philosophy of government that was to exercise international influence throughout the following century and to lay the philosophical foundations for the American Revolution, and he affirmed near the start of his enquiry (and as a by‐product of his argument) the original equality of man in the state of nature. The second section of the chapter examines the American Declaration of Independence in relation to belief in equality, and the third examines the French Declaration of the Rights of Men and Citizens. Most of the rest of the chapter considers the situation in Britain in the eighteenth century––looking first at social inequality, and then at the English tradition of revolt and levelling (the Levellers). The final section briefly considers the limits of eighteenth‐century liberalism.
Ann Hughes
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199251926
- eISBN:
- 9780191719042
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199251926.003.0005
- Subject:
- Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature
This chapter stresses the importance of Edwards’s Gangraena in the mobilization of zealous Presbyterian campaigns against Parliament’s proposals for church government in 1646-7. It looks especially ...
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This chapter stresses the importance of Edwards’s Gangraena in the mobilization of zealous Presbyterian campaigns against Parliament’s proposals for church government in 1646-7. It looks especially at Edwards’s links to London petitioning campaigns, to attempts in the city to defend the Solemn League and Covenant, and to the struggles over the Presbyterian City Remonstrance of May 1646. His most important connections with the Westminster Assembly, the Common Council, and the Scots are discussed. The importance of John Goodwin’s congregation to the struggle for religious liberty is stressed, along with the role of the New Model Army and the city radicals highlighted in Part Three of Gangraena. Edwards here attacked the men who were soon to become identified as leaders of the Levellers. The Army’s occupation of London in August 1647 prompted Edwards’s flight to Amsterdam. Finally, the Presbyterian contribution to the parliamentarian public sphere is evaluated.Less
This chapter stresses the importance of Edwards’s Gangraena in the mobilization of zealous Presbyterian campaigns against Parliament’s proposals for church government in 1646-7. It looks especially at Edwards’s links to London petitioning campaigns, to attempts in the city to defend the Solemn League and Covenant, and to the struggles over the Presbyterian City Remonstrance of May 1646. His most important connections with the Westminster Assembly, the Common Council, and the Scots are discussed. The importance of John Goodwin’s congregation to the struggle for religious liberty is stressed, along with the role of the New Model Army and the city radicals highlighted in Part Three of Gangraena. Edwards here attacked the men who were soon to become identified as leaders of the Levellers. The Army’s occupation of London in August 1647 prompted Edwards’s flight to Amsterdam. Finally, the Presbyterian contribution to the parliamentarian public sphere is evaluated.
Thomas N. Corns
- Published in print:
- 1992
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198128830
- eISBN:
- 9780191671715
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198128830.003.0005
- Subject:
- Literature, 17th-century and Restoration Literature
By the late 1640s different groupings emerged, Levellers, Diggers, Ranters, all fading or mutating in the early 1650s, to be supplanted in the English political consciousness by Quakers and Fifth ...
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By the late 1640s different groupings emerged, Levellers, Diggers, Ranters, all fading or mutating in the early 1650s, to be supplanted in the English political consciousness by Quakers and Fifth Monarchists. The movements were of profoundly unequal significance in their own age. Levellerism produces demonstrations several thousand strong, provoked serious munities in the New Model Army, and occasioned genuine anxiety among members of the Ram Parliament. The Diggers' experimental communism was a much more localized phenomenon, though possibly more extensive than it once seemed, and its termination proved an easy matter. Ranterism, while it produced some fascinating texts, achiever a notoriety disproportionate to its extent.Less
By the late 1640s different groupings emerged, Levellers, Diggers, Ranters, all fading or mutating in the early 1650s, to be supplanted in the English political consciousness by Quakers and Fifth Monarchists. The movements were of profoundly unequal significance in their own age. Levellerism produces demonstrations several thousand strong, provoked serious munities in the New Model Army, and occasioned genuine anxiety among members of the Ram Parliament. The Diggers' experimental communism was a much more localized phenomenon, though possibly more extensive than it once seemed, and its termination proved an easy matter. Ranterism, while it produced some fascinating texts, achiever a notoriety disproportionate to its extent.
Austin Woolrych
- Published in print:
- 1987
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198227526
- eISBN:
- 9780191678738
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198227526.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Early Modern History
This book looks beyond such well-known occasions as the Putney debates to examine the entire political activity of Fairfax's and Cromwell's army between the first and second Civil Wars, and places it ...
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This book looks beyond such well-known occasions as the Putney debates to examine the entire political activity of Fairfax's and Cromwell's army between the first and second Civil Wars, and places it in its full context. It throws new light on the origins and proceedings of the agitators, and by clearly distinguishing between them and the new agents whom the Levellers sponsored in the autumn of 1647, it shows that the protagonists in the Putney debates, and even the issues, were not quite as they have seemed.Less
This book looks beyond such well-known occasions as the Putney debates to examine the entire political activity of Fairfax's and Cromwell's army between the first and second Civil Wars, and places it in its full context. It throws new light on the origins and proceedings of the agitators, and by clearly distinguishing between them and the new agents whom the Levellers sponsored in the autumn of 1647, it shows that the protagonists in the Putney debates, and even the issues, were not quite as they have seemed.
Austin Woolrych
- Published in print:
- 1987
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198227526
- eISBN:
- 9780191678738
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198227526.003.0008
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Early Modern History
This chapter discusses the emergence of new agents' attempts to destabilize parliament. The new agents and their Leveller mentors held daily meetings in London in September and October to suppress ...
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This chapter discusses the emergence of new agents' attempts to destabilize parliament. The new agents and their Leveller mentors held daily meetings in London in September and October to suppress Cromwell's faction and put an end to the parliament. Throughout this time, the General Council provided an adequate forum for the army's grievances and aspirations despite the stalemate in the relations between the king, parliament, and army. The immediate background to the Putney debates gave cause for anxiety, with an army threatened with division by Leveller meetings, a parliament in which the rift between the ‘royal’ Independents and the emergent ‘Commonwealthsmen’ led by Marten was weakening resistance to a Presbyterian revival, and a king whose dwindling inclination to deal with either parliament's propositions or the Army's Heads of the Proposals was being undermined by the prospect of a Scottish invading army.Less
This chapter discusses the emergence of new agents' attempts to destabilize parliament. The new agents and their Leveller mentors held daily meetings in London in September and October to suppress Cromwell's faction and put an end to the parliament. Throughout this time, the General Council provided an adequate forum for the army's grievances and aspirations despite the stalemate in the relations between the king, parliament, and army. The immediate background to the Putney debates gave cause for anxiety, with an army threatened with division by Leveller meetings, a parliament in which the rift between the ‘royal’ Independents and the emergent ‘Commonwealthsmen’ led by Marten was weakening resistance to a Presbyterian revival, and a king whose dwindling inclination to deal with either parliament's propositions or the Army's Heads of the Proposals was being undermined by the prospect of a Scottish invading army.
ADRIAN DAVIES
- Published in print:
- 2000
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198208204
- eISBN:
- 9780191677953
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198208204.003.0005
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Early Modern History, History of Religion
This chapter discusses evidence on how the Quaker creed was a levelling one. These include the dismissal of social conventions and the ...
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This chapter discusses evidence on how the Quaker creed was a levelling one. These include the dismissal of social conventions and the supposition that Quakers disapproved of the ownership of property or the payment of rents. Moreover, some former Levellers joined the sect.Less
This chapter discusses evidence on how the Quaker creed was a levelling one. These include the dismissal of social conventions and the supposition that Quakers disapproved of the ownership of property or the payment of rents. Moreover, some former Levellers joined the sect.
Peter Kivy
- Published in print:
- 2001
- Published Online:
- October 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780300087581
- eISBN:
- 9780300135114
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300087581.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, Psychology of Music
The commercial revolution of the seventeenth century deeply changed English culture. This book explores what that economic transformation meant to the century's greatest poet, John Milton, and to the ...
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The commercial revolution of the seventeenth century deeply changed English culture. This book explores what that economic transformation meant to the century's greatest poet, John Milton, and to the broader literary tradition in which he worked. The book places Milton's work—as well as the writings of contemporary reformers like the Levellers, poets like John Dryden, and political economists like Sir William Petty—within the framework of England's economic history between 1601 and 1724. It demonstrates how literary history swerved in this period, as a burgeoning economic discourse pressed authors to reimagine ideas about self, community, and empire. It shows that, contrary to commonly held views, Milton was a sophisticated economic thinker. Close readings of Milton's prose and verse reveal the importance of economic ideas in a wide range of his most famous writings, from Areopagitica to Samson Agonistes to Paradise Lost.Less
The commercial revolution of the seventeenth century deeply changed English culture. This book explores what that economic transformation meant to the century's greatest poet, John Milton, and to the broader literary tradition in which he worked. The book places Milton's work—as well as the writings of contemporary reformers like the Levellers, poets like John Dryden, and political economists like Sir William Petty—within the framework of England's economic history between 1601 and 1724. It demonstrates how literary history swerved in this period, as a burgeoning economic discourse pressed authors to reimagine ideas about self, community, and empire. It shows that, contrary to commonly held views, Milton was a sophisticated economic thinker. Close readings of Milton's prose and verse reveal the importance of economic ideas in a wide range of his most famous writings, from Areopagitica to Samson Agonistes to Paradise Lost.
Christopher Hill
- Published in print:
- 1997
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198206682
- eISBN:
- 9780191677274
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198206682.003.0013
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Modern History, History of Ideas
A successful underground movement is likely to leave few traces. However, seventeenth-century propagandists were aware of continuities. John Cleveland spoke of ‘Presbyter Wyclif’ and ‘Tyler's ...
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A successful underground movement is likely to leave few traces. However, seventeenth-century propagandists were aware of continuities. John Cleveland spoke of ‘Presbyter Wyclif’ and ‘Tyler's toleration’. From the other side Levellers and William Dell emphasized the politically radical element in the heretical tradition; and Quakers brought into prominence many long-standing lower-class gestures of insubordination, such as refusing to doff the hat in the presence of social superiors or before a magistrate, or using ‘thou’ instead of the more deferential ‘you’. One seventeenth-century heresy with political implications was rejection of the Calvinist doctrine that only a favoured few are predestined to salvation. Almost by definition such a theology must be that of an elite and is unlikely to be accepted by the silent majority.Less
A successful underground movement is likely to leave few traces. However, seventeenth-century propagandists were aware of continuities. John Cleveland spoke of ‘Presbyter Wyclif’ and ‘Tyler's toleration’. From the other side Levellers and William Dell emphasized the politically radical element in the heretical tradition; and Quakers brought into prominence many long-standing lower-class gestures of insubordination, such as refusing to doff the hat in the presence of social superiors or before a magistrate, or using ‘thou’ instead of the more deferential ‘you’. One seventeenth-century heresy with political implications was rejection of the Calvinist doctrine that only a favoured few are predestined to salvation. Almost by definition such a theology must be that of an elite and is unlikely to be accepted by the silent majority.
Christopher Hill
- Published in print:
- 1997
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198206682
- eISBN:
- 9780191677274
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198206682.003.0015
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Modern History, History of Ideas
The debates of the sixteen-forties and fifties gave wide circulation to ideas which had originated with critics of the old regime before 1640. The priesthood of all believers led some to advocate ...
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The debates of the sixteen-forties and fifties gave wide circulation to ideas which had originated with critics of the old regime before 1640. The priesthood of all believers led some to advocate varying degrees of democracy based on respect for the individual conscience. The abolition of feudal tenures led to agitation for granting absolute property rights to copyholders, comparable with those which the gentry had voted to themselves. Voluntary service for Parliament against the King led to resentment at conscription for wars in whose righteousness not all conscripts believed. The reconquest of Ireland led William Walwyn and other Levellers to ask what right Englishmen had to be in Ireland at all. Ideas originally advanced with one object in view frequently backfired and were used against the original libertarians. This is what makes the discussions of the forties and fifties so fascinating and so revealing of pre-existing rifts in English society.Less
The debates of the sixteen-forties and fifties gave wide circulation to ideas which had originated with critics of the old regime before 1640. The priesthood of all believers led some to advocate varying degrees of democracy based on respect for the individual conscience. The abolition of feudal tenures led to agitation for granting absolute property rights to copyholders, comparable with those which the gentry had voted to themselves. Voluntary service for Parliament against the King led to resentment at conscription for wars in whose righteousness not all conscripts believed. The reconquest of Ireland led William Walwyn and other Levellers to ask what right Englishmen had to be in Ireland at all. Ideas originally advanced with one object in view frequently backfired and were used against the original libertarians. This is what makes the discussions of the forties and fifties so fascinating and so revealing of pre-existing rifts in English society.
Dr. Rachel Foxley
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- September 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780719089367
- eISBN:
- 9781781705810
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719089367.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, European Early Modern History
The Leveller movement of the 1640s campaigned for religious toleration and a radical remaking of politics after the English civil war. This book challenges received ideas about the Levellers as ...
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The Leveller movement of the 1640s campaigned for religious toleration and a radical remaking of politics after the English civil war. This book challenges received ideas about the Levellers as social contract theorists and Leveller thought as a mere radicalization of parliamentarian thought, analysing the writings of the Leveller leaders John Lilburne, Richard Overton, and William Walywn to show that that the Levellers’ originality lay in their subtle and unexpected combination of different strands within parliamentarianism. The first part of the book offers a systematic analysis of different aspects of the Levellers’ developing political thought, considering their accounts of the origins of government, their developing views on the relationship between parliament and people, their use of the language of the law, and their understanding of the relationship between religious liberty and political life. Two concluding chapters examine the Levellers’ relationship with the New Model Army and the influence of the Levellers on the republican thought of the 1650s. The book takes full account of revisionist and post-revisionist scholarship, and contributes to historical debates on the development of radical and republican politics in the civil war period, the nature of tolerationist thought, the significance of the Leveller movement, and the extent of Leveller influence in the ranks of the New Model Army.Less
The Leveller movement of the 1640s campaigned for religious toleration and a radical remaking of politics after the English civil war. This book challenges received ideas about the Levellers as social contract theorists and Leveller thought as a mere radicalization of parliamentarian thought, analysing the writings of the Leveller leaders John Lilburne, Richard Overton, and William Walywn to show that that the Levellers’ originality lay in their subtle and unexpected combination of different strands within parliamentarianism. The first part of the book offers a systematic analysis of different aspects of the Levellers’ developing political thought, considering their accounts of the origins of government, their developing views on the relationship between parliament and people, their use of the language of the law, and their understanding of the relationship between religious liberty and political life. Two concluding chapters examine the Levellers’ relationship with the New Model Army and the influence of the Levellers on the republican thought of the 1650s. The book takes full account of revisionist and post-revisionist scholarship, and contributes to historical debates on the development of radical and republican politics in the civil war period, the nature of tolerationist thought, the significance of the Leveller movement, and the extent of Leveller influence in the ranks of the New Model Army.
NICHOLAS McDOWELL
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199260515
- eISBN:
- 9780191717628
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199260515.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, 17th-century and Restoration Literature
There has been a tendency among those who see the Levellers as the forbears of modern ideals of popular democracy to sentimentalize the lowly social and cultural background of their leaders. The ...
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There has been a tendency among those who see the Levellers as the forbears of modern ideals of popular democracy to sentimentalize the lowly social and cultural background of their leaders. The first half of this chapter reconsiders the intellectual biography of the Leveller leader Richard Overton, arguing that his rejection of the humanist educational framework in which he had himself been trained at Cambridge combines with the heretical, mortalist conception of the soul he advances in Mans Mortalitie (1644) to develop a metaphysical rationale for his Leveller arguments about individual liberty and rights. The second half of the chapter explores the engagement of another Leveller leader, William Walwyn, with the sceptical humanist tradition of Montaigne and Charron. The non-university-educated Walwyn gained access to this intellectual tradition through translations, and it became central to shaping his Leveller ideas about religious toleration.Less
There has been a tendency among those who see the Levellers as the forbears of modern ideals of popular democracy to sentimentalize the lowly social and cultural background of their leaders. The first half of this chapter reconsiders the intellectual biography of the Leveller leader Richard Overton, arguing that his rejection of the humanist educational framework in which he had himself been trained at Cambridge combines with the heretical, mortalist conception of the soul he advances in Mans Mortalitie (1644) to develop a metaphysical rationale for his Leveller arguments about individual liberty and rights. The second half of the chapter explores the engagement of another Leveller leader, William Walwyn, with the sceptical humanist tradition of Montaigne and Charron. The non-university-educated Walwyn gained access to this intellectual tradition through translations, and it became central to shaping his Leveller ideas about religious toleration.
John Gurney
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- July 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780719061028
- eISBN:
- 9781781700747
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719061028.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Early Modern History
This is a full-length modern study of the Diggers or ‘True Levellers’, who were among the most remarkable of the radical groups to emerge during the English Revolution of 1640–60. Acting at a time of ...
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This is a full-length modern study of the Diggers or ‘True Levellers’, who were among the most remarkable of the radical groups to emerge during the English Revolution of 1640–60. Acting at a time of unparalleled political change and heightened millenarian expectation, the Diggers believed that the establishment of an egalitarian, property-less society was imminent. This book establishes the local origins of the Digger movement and sets out to examine pre-Civil War social relations and social tensions in the parish of Cobham—from where significant numbers of the Diggers came—and the impact of civil war in the local community. The book provides a detailed account of the Surrey Digger settlements and of local reactions to the Diggers, and it explores the spread of Digger activities beyond Surrey. In chapters on the writings and career of Gerrard Winstanley, the book seeks to offer a reinterpretation of one of the major thinkers of the English Revolution.Less
This is a full-length modern study of the Diggers or ‘True Levellers’, who were among the most remarkable of the radical groups to emerge during the English Revolution of 1640–60. Acting at a time of unparalleled political change and heightened millenarian expectation, the Diggers believed that the establishment of an egalitarian, property-less society was imminent. This book establishes the local origins of the Digger movement and sets out to examine pre-Civil War social relations and social tensions in the parish of Cobham—from where significant numbers of the Diggers came—and the impact of civil war in the local community. The book provides a detailed account of the Surrey Digger settlements and of local reactions to the Diggers, and it explores the spread of Digger activities beyond Surrey. In chapters on the writings and career of Gerrard Winstanley, the book seeks to offer a reinterpretation of one of the major thinkers of the English Revolution.
David R. Como
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- August 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780199541911
- eISBN:
- 9780191779107
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780199541911.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Political History
This book charts the way the English Civil War of the 1640s mutated into a revolution (paving the way for the later execution of King Charles I and the abolition of the monarchy). Focusing on ...
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This book charts the way the English Civil War of the 1640s mutated into a revolution (paving the way for the later execution of King Charles I and the abolition of the monarchy). Focusing on parliament’s most militant supporters, the book reconstructs the origins and nature of the most radical forms of political and religious agitation that erupted during the war, tracing the process by which these forms gradually spread and gained broader acceptance. Drawing on a wide range of manuscript and print sources, the study situates these developments within a revised narrative of the period, revealing the emergence of new practices and structures for the conduct of politics. In the process, the book illuminates the appearance of many of the period’s strikingly novel intellectual currents, including ideas and practices we today associate with western representative democracy—notions of retained natural rights, religious toleration, freedom of the press, and freedom from arbitrary imprisonment. The book also chronicles the way the civil war shattered English Protestantism—leaving behind myriad competing groupings, including congregationalists, baptists, antinomians, and others—while examining the relationship between this religious fragmentation and political change. Finally, the book traces the gradual appearance of openly anti-monarchical, republican sentiment among parliament’s supporters. Radical Parliamentarians provides a new history of the English Civil War, enhancing our understanding of the dramatic events of the 1640s, and shedding light on the long-term political and religious consequences of the conflict.Less
This book charts the way the English Civil War of the 1640s mutated into a revolution (paving the way for the later execution of King Charles I and the abolition of the monarchy). Focusing on parliament’s most militant supporters, the book reconstructs the origins and nature of the most radical forms of political and religious agitation that erupted during the war, tracing the process by which these forms gradually spread and gained broader acceptance. Drawing on a wide range of manuscript and print sources, the study situates these developments within a revised narrative of the period, revealing the emergence of new practices and structures for the conduct of politics. In the process, the book illuminates the appearance of many of the period’s strikingly novel intellectual currents, including ideas and practices we today associate with western representative democracy—notions of retained natural rights, religious toleration, freedom of the press, and freedom from arbitrary imprisonment. The book also chronicles the way the civil war shattered English Protestantism—leaving behind myriad competing groupings, including congregationalists, baptists, antinomians, and others—while examining the relationship between this religious fragmentation and political change. Finally, the book traces the gradual appearance of openly anti-monarchical, republican sentiment among parliament’s supporters. Radical Parliamentarians provides a new history of the English Civil War, enhancing our understanding of the dramatic events of the 1640s, and shedding light on the long-term political and religious consequences of the conflict.
Ken Hiltner
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- August 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780801449406
- eISBN:
- 9780801460760
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9780801449406.003.0006
- Subject:
- Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature
This chapter considers how thousands of individuals rose up across England in the seventeenth century to defend the newly emerging, endangered countryside, as well as draws attention to issues of ...
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This chapter considers how thousands of individuals rose up across England in the seventeenth century to defend the newly emerging, endangered countryside, as well as draws attention to issues of environmental justice. Radical groups known as Levellers and Diggers developed a number of very modern environmental positions by arguing the need for diversity (both in plant and animal life); suggesting that changes to local ecosystems can have regional, even national, consequences; proposing that human cultures should be built on customs that respond to the particular conditions of local habitats; resisting the introduction of agricultural monocultures; and so forth. However, while the protesters were articulating this environmental discourse, prospective developers of England's early modern countryside were countering with their own by systematically touting the benefits of introduced species and monocultures; arguing that the vagaries of certain local ecosystems were so great that destruction of these otherwise fertile places was justified; and suggesting that the benefit to the poor would warrant the destruction of existing ecosystems.Less
This chapter considers how thousands of individuals rose up across England in the seventeenth century to defend the newly emerging, endangered countryside, as well as draws attention to issues of environmental justice. Radical groups known as Levellers and Diggers developed a number of very modern environmental positions by arguing the need for diversity (both in plant and animal life); suggesting that changes to local ecosystems can have regional, even national, consequences; proposing that human cultures should be built on customs that respond to the particular conditions of local habitats; resisting the introduction of agricultural monocultures; and so forth. However, while the protesters were articulating this environmental discourse, prospective developers of England's early modern countryside were countering with their own by systematically touting the benefits of introduced species and monocultures; arguing that the vagaries of certain local ecosystems were so great that destruction of these otherwise fertile places was justified; and suggesting that the benefit to the poor would warrant the destruction of existing ecosystems.
Dan Edelstein
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780226588988
- eISBN:
- 9780226589039
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226589039.003.0002
- Subject:
- History, History of Ideas
Debates over natural rights received new urgency with the outbreak of the wars of religion in France. In the early sixteenth century, Paris was the center of a Thomist revival. After the St. ...
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Debates over natural rights received new urgency with the outbreak of the wars of religion in France. In the early sixteenth century, Paris was the center of a Thomist revival. After the St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre (1572) revolutionary Huguenots embraced these arguments, placing them at the heart of their constitutional arguments for armed resistance. Catholics also championed this regime, even going so far as to justify tyrannicide. With the assassination of Henri IV in 1610, this doctrine of rights would hardly be heard again among French authors until 1685. Across the Channel, the preservation regime surfaced during the English Civil War. The Levellers made natural rights the foundation of their constitutional demands. But the mid-seventeenth century also witnessed sophisticated theories that denied political subjects their natural rights. Hobbes promoted the abridgement regime of rights. Others followed the lead of Spinoza and Locke, arguing that we “transfer” our natural rights to government, thus forfeiting our individual enjoyment of them, but also limiting the actions of the state. By the early eighteenth century, voices advocating for the full enjoyment of our natural rights in political society were few. Only after 1750 would the preservation regime regain favor among political thinkers.Less
Debates over natural rights received new urgency with the outbreak of the wars of religion in France. In the early sixteenth century, Paris was the center of a Thomist revival. After the St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre (1572) revolutionary Huguenots embraced these arguments, placing them at the heart of their constitutional arguments for armed resistance. Catholics also championed this regime, even going so far as to justify tyrannicide. With the assassination of Henri IV in 1610, this doctrine of rights would hardly be heard again among French authors until 1685. Across the Channel, the preservation regime surfaced during the English Civil War. The Levellers made natural rights the foundation of their constitutional demands. But the mid-seventeenth century also witnessed sophisticated theories that denied political subjects their natural rights. Hobbes promoted the abridgement regime of rights. Others followed the lead of Spinoza and Locke, arguing that we “transfer” our natural rights to government, thus forfeiting our individual enjoyment of them, but also limiting the actions of the state. By the early eighteenth century, voices advocating for the full enjoyment of our natural rights in political society were few. Only after 1750 would the preservation regime regain favor among political thinkers.
John Donoghue
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- May 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780226157658
- eISBN:
- 9780226072869
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226072869.003.0006
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Early Modern History
This chapter links Coleman Street Ward London to the rise of the Leveller movement. Saints from the Ward’s network of gathered churches and their members serving in the New Model Army travelled ...
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This chapter links Coleman Street Ward London to the rise of the Leveller movement. Saints from the Ward’s network of gathered churches and their members serving in the New Model Army travelled widely across the country, preaching antinomianism and demanding liberty of conscience as they fulminated against kingly government. Simultaneously, they organized Leveller mass petitions and operated an underground press in Coleman Street Ward that became the Leveller’s unofficial publishing house. Former New Englanders figured prominently among the Coleman Street churches, which supplied the New Model Army with soldiers and the cause of liberty of conscience with its popular base of support. Although the Bay Colony’s agents in Old England decried the Levellers, other former Bay colonists who subscribed to radical reformation principles heralded the Leveller movement and were elected officers in one of the New Models’ most militantly republican regiments. In 1647, they led a mutiny against the army high command to promote the Leveller constitution, The Agreement of the People.The mutiny arose in part from ideological cleavages between Levellers and the army commanders over how to interpret the republican principle of government by consent, which the Levellers articulated in their attempts to abolish the embodied, political “slavery” of military impressment. (conscription).Less
This chapter links Coleman Street Ward London to the rise of the Leveller movement. Saints from the Ward’s network of gathered churches and their members serving in the New Model Army travelled widely across the country, preaching antinomianism and demanding liberty of conscience as they fulminated against kingly government. Simultaneously, they organized Leveller mass petitions and operated an underground press in Coleman Street Ward that became the Leveller’s unofficial publishing house. Former New Englanders figured prominently among the Coleman Street churches, which supplied the New Model Army with soldiers and the cause of liberty of conscience with its popular base of support. Although the Bay Colony’s agents in Old England decried the Levellers, other former Bay colonists who subscribed to radical reformation principles heralded the Leveller movement and were elected officers in one of the New Models’ most militantly republican regiments. In 1647, they led a mutiny against the army high command to promote the Leveller constitution, The Agreement of the People.The mutiny arose in part from ideological cleavages between Levellers and the army commanders over how to interpret the republican principle of government by consent, which the Levellers articulated in their attempts to abolish the embodied, political “slavery” of military impressment. (conscription).
Blair Hoxby
- Published in print:
- 2002
- Published Online:
- October 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780300093780
- eISBN:
- 9780300129632
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300093780.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Milton Studies
The commercial revolution of the seventeenth century deeply changed English culture. This book explores what that economic transformation meant to the century's greatest poet, John Milton, and to the ...
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The commercial revolution of the seventeenth century deeply changed English culture. This book explores what that economic transformation meant to the century's greatest poet, John Milton, and to the broader literary tradition in which he worked. The book places Milton's work—as well as the writings of contemporary reformers like the Levellers, poets like John Dryden, and political economists like Sir William Petty—within the framework of England's economic history between 1601 and 1724. It demonstrates how literary history swerved in this period, as a burgeoning economic discourse pressed authors to reimagine ideas about self, community, and empire. It shows that, contrary to commonly held views, Milton was a sophisticated economic thinker. Close readings of Milton's prose and verse reveal the importance of economic ideas in a wide range of his most famous writings, from Areopagitica to Samson Agonistes to Paradise Lost.Less
The commercial revolution of the seventeenth century deeply changed English culture. This book explores what that economic transformation meant to the century's greatest poet, John Milton, and to the broader literary tradition in which he worked. The book places Milton's work—as well as the writings of contemporary reformers like the Levellers, poets like John Dryden, and political economists like Sir William Petty—within the framework of England's economic history between 1601 and 1724. It demonstrates how literary history swerved in this period, as a burgeoning economic discourse pressed authors to reimagine ideas about self, community, and empire. It shows that, contrary to commonly held views, Milton was a sophisticated economic thinker. Close readings of Milton's prose and verse reveal the importance of economic ideas in a wide range of his most famous writings, from Areopagitica to Samson Agonistes to Paradise Lost.
