I will write about the Diggers shortly but firstly a little about The Levellers who I mention in another piece on this website.
Their aim was to free the people from the oppression of control by absolute monarchy which meant poverty for the many.
To give voice to their aspirations, pursuing the sharing of power, and the extension of the franchise to all men.
They campaigned with Cromwell but later against him, as Cromwell although broadly in sympathy with their objectives initially, was after all a land owner.
This later lead to death for some in the pursuit of their aims.
Pamphleteering gave them a medium to spread their views and they made full use of this, however although the Levellers were classed as radicals in essence they were trying to effect change in the system from within.
Through debate, putting their ideas forward vigorously and passionately but nevertheless within the context of the existing system as a whole.
The chasm between those that held power through the ownership of land and the patronage of those in high office caused immense resentment.
The Levellers believed that they were essentially Freeborn Englishmen, with an entitlement to the protection of a natural law of human rights, and that law they believed came directly from God. T
his belief was in effect saying that the law of God overrode any man made laws,
To reinforce this belief the pamphlets produced by the Levellers made many references to religious quotations such as that seen below -
"The relation of master and servant has no ground in the New Testament; in Christ there is neither bond nor free... The common people have been kept under blindness and ignorance, and have remained servants and slaves to the nobility and gentry."
Their aim was to free the people from the oppression of control by absolute monarchy which meant poverty for the many.
To give voice to their aspirations, pursuing the sharing of power, and the extension of the franchise to all men.
They campaigned with Cromwell but later against him, as Cromwell although broadly in sympathy with their objectives initially, was after all a land owner.
This later lead to death for some in the pursuit of their aims.
Pamphleteering gave them a medium to spread their views and they made full use of this, however although the Levellers were classed as radicals in essence they were trying to effect change in the system from within.
Through debate, putting their ideas forward vigorously and passionately but nevertheless within the context of the existing system as a whole.
The chasm between those that held power through the ownership of land and the patronage of those in high office caused immense resentment.
The Levellers believed that they were essentially Freeborn Englishmen, with an entitlement to the protection of a natural law of human rights, and that law they believed came directly from God. T
his belief was in effect saying that the law of God overrode any man made laws,
To reinforce this belief the pamphlets produced by the Levellers made many references to religious quotations such as that seen below -
"The relation of master and servant has no ground in the New Testament; in Christ there is neither bond nor free... The common people have been kept under blindness and ignorance, and have remained servants and slaves to the nobility and gentry."
John Lilburne a man closely associated with The Levellers paid a high personal price for his principles, and ultimately to help to ensure the rights we enjoy today. Because when we consider those rights, which to cite an often used phrase were "hard won" that must surely apply to him. How many of us stop to think what that really meant, for Lilburne it meant long periods of incarceration, rough treatment and humiliation..
In his many run ins with the state Lilburne refused to compromise his principles, and when dragged to the House of Lords in June 1646 he steadfastly refused to listen to the charge his accusers levelled at him citing the Magna Carta.
His reason being the fact that the Lords were not his peers, and this being the case if he did give in to them and hear the accusation against him he would be "surrendering all the freedoms guaranteed in Magna Carta". That is to be tried by a jury made up of one's peers.
During the Civil War Lilburne fought on the side of Parliament largely as a result of another incident when he criticised The Earl of Strafford, one of Charles 1 key ministers for which he as accused of treason. He fought well and rose to a reasonably high level.
later events led to his loyalty to the Parliamentarian cause to falter when he concluded that Parliament could be as tyrannical as theLKing and that the actual struggle was between the people and tyranny.
The reaction to Lilburne's vociferous opposition by those in power was fairly predictable when they attempted to silence him and others speaking out by preventing him publishing and generally to stifle the presses. Unfortunately for them this only confirmed in Lilburne's mind that what he was doing was right and he continued to publish pamphlets which infuriated those who sought to silence him.
Today we see very similar reactions by the powerful when they are questioned and exposed as charlatans, which to my mind means today more than ever er need men and women like Lilburne who speak out regardless of the personal price they pay as failure to do so is taken as consent.
The advent of the printing press was nothing less than a revolution in how the mass of people could be informed, We also need a truly free press, one which will expose the machinations of our politicians, as we have seen over the years that their claim to represent us is at best spurious, and at worst an outright lie.
In short we need to protect the rights and freedoms won for all of us by the likes of Lilburne and others as if they were lost I'm sure the powers that be would make them extremely hard to regain if not impossible.
Now from those who defied with words to those who defied with direct action.
Now we come to the Diggers or as they called themselves, "The True Levellers", considered even more radical a group of Diggers were present and active in Wellingborough Northamptonshire. they wanted nothing less than a complete restructuring of land ownership, and equality of wealth,the latter of which was an aim that even the suggestion of which surely must have shook the land owning gentry to the core, in another article I will describe Enclosure in Northamptonshire, but for now we stay with the Diggers.
Whereas the Levellers sought change through debate and argument, the Diggers were more inclined to follow a course of direct action, across the country they actively took steps to cultivate common land, hoping for this to herald the beginning of common ownership, land after all could mean the difference between life and death, absolute hunger or the ability to feed the family.
The period of the Civil War visited upon the populace extreme privations and this situation was made even more extreme with the event of a series of bad harvests, something which in those times could be a catastrophe and in this case was, the end result of all this misfortune both man made and coming from nature itself was volatility with a restless and disaffected populace desperate for change.
A Declaration by the Diggers of Wellingborough - 1650A Declaration of the Grounds and Reasons why
we the Poor Inhabitants of the Town of Wellingborrow, in the County
of Northampton, have begun and give consent to dig up,
manure and sow Corn upon the Common, and waste
ground, called Bareshanke belonging to the Inhabitants of
Wellinborrow, by those that have Subscribed and hundreds
more that give Consent.
WEfind in the Word of God, that God made the Earth for the use and comfort of all Mankind, and set him in to till and dresse it, and said, That in the sweat of his brows he should eat his bread; and also we find, that God never gave it to any sort of people, that they should have it all to themselves, and shut out all the rest. but he saith, The Earth hath he given to the children of men, which is every man.2. We find, that no creature that ever God made was ever deprived of the benefit of the Earth, but Mankind; and that it is nothing but covetousnesse, pride, and hardnesse of heart, that hath caused man so far to degenerate.
3. We find in the Scriptures, that the Prophets and Apostles have left it upon Record, That in the last days the oppressor and proud man shall cease, and God will restore the waste places of the Earth to the use and comfort of Man, and that none shall hurt nor destroy in all his holy Mountain.
4. We have great Encouragement from these two righteous Acts, which the Parliament of England have set forth, the one against Kingly Power, the other to make England a Free Common-wealth.
5. We are necessitated from our present necessity to do this, and we hope that our Actions will justifie us in the gate when all men shall know the truth of our necessity: we are in Wellinborrow in one Parish 1169 persons that receive Alms, as the Officers have made it appear at the Quarter Sessions last: we have made our Case known to the Justices, the Justices have given Order that the Town should raise a Stock to set us on work, and that the Hundred should be enjoyned to assist them; but as yet we see nothing is done, nor any man that goeth about it; we have spent all we have, our trading is decayed, our wives and children cry for bread, our lives are a burden to us, divers of us having 5.6.7.8.9. in Family, and we cannot get bread for one of them by our labor, rich mens hearts are hardened, they will not give us if we beg at their doors; if we steal, the Law will end our lives, divers of the poor are starved to death already and it were better for us that are living to dye by the Sword then by Famine. And now we consider that the Earth is our Mother, and that God hath given it to the children of men, and that the common and waste Grounds belong to the poor, and that we have a right to the common ground both from the Law of the Land, Reason and Scriptures; and therefore we have begun to bestow our righteous labor upon it, and we shall trust the Spirit for a blessing upon our labor, resolving not to dig up any mans property, until they freely give us it; and truly we find great comfort already, through the goodnesse of our God, that some of those rich men amongst us, that have had the greatest profit upon the Common, have freely given us their share in it, as one Mr John Freeman, Thomas Nottingham and John Clendon, and divers others; and the Country Farmers have proffered divers of them to give us Seed to sow it, and so we find that God is perswading Japeth to dwell in the tents of Shem: and truly those that we find most against us are such as have been constant enemies to the Parliaments Cause from first to last.
Now at last our desire is, That some that approve of this work of Righteousnesse, would but spread this our Declaration before the great Councel of the Land, that so they may be pleased to give us more encouragement to go on, that so they may be found amongst the small number of those that considers the poor and needy, that so the Lord may deliver them in the time of their troubles, and then they will not be found amongst those that Solomon speaks of, which withhold the Corn (or the Land) from the Poor, which the people shall curse, but blessing shall be upon the heads of those Rulers that sell Corn, and that will let the poor labor upon the Earth to get them Corn, and our lines shall blesse them, so shall good men stand by them, and evil men shall be afraid of them, and they shall be counted the Repairers of our Breaches, and the Restorers of our Paths to dwell in. And thus we have declared the truth of our necessity; and whosoever will come in to us to labor with us, shall have part with us, and we with them, and we shall all of us endeavor to walk righteously and peaceably in the Land of our Nativity.
The Midlands Revolt
I have collated information from various sources but I would like to acknowledge Briony McDonagh and Joshua Rodda who kindly gave me access to a jointly written paper. "Landscape, memory and protest in the Midlands Rising of 1607"
I hear and read a lot about the injustices visited upon the populations of many other countries by the English, there are so many examples to choose from after all. The thriving slave trade carried out from English ports, surely one of mankind's darkest periods. Ireland where thousands died from starvation, partition in India which caused the deaths of huge numbers of innocents. The cruel and inhuman treatment of the Aboriginals, the list is seemingly endless.
These injustices though I feel are sometimes attributed to the ordinary people of England, as though they themselves wanted these things to happen. The truth however is that these acts were carried out by a clique of powerful and ruthless men who had no compunction whatsoever in visiting upon their own countrymen and women the same cruel and unjust practices. I believe the same would apply now if the powerful could get their way today, in fact in some ways nothing has changed.
What we need to consider is that the people of England, that is to say those at the bottom of the food chain were treated in much the same way by their master.s. The rich and powerful treated their own kind with cruelty and contempt, they too suffered great privations, and they had no recourse to law as that was framed by and heavily weighted on the side of the powerful. I feel we need to remember that and think about how we came to gain the freedoms we have today,
A good example is those unfortunates who were transported to Australia for the slightest of crimes, the so called crime of stealing a loaf of bread to stave off hunger could mean a long sea voyage in terrible conditions. Those lucky enough (if it truly could be considered lucky) to survive faced even more privations and harsh treatment at the end of their journey.
However men and women can only be pushed so far, when their children are starving because the means to feed themselves have been taken away by force and with the blessing of the law then they will rise up against these tyrannies and demand justice. We should all be thankful that but for these brave people we would not have the freedoms and rights we enjoy, and to a certain extent take for granted today.
As an example of this lets look at a largely forgotten incident that took place on the June 8th 1607 in the Northamptonshire hamlet of Newton where the peasants had suffered grieviously because of poor harvests as a result of bad weather. Remember at this time people were wedded to the land in a way we can't comprehend, they were completely dependent on it in every way.
Enclosure of land by powerful families spelt nothing less than disaster for the peasants, in this case the perpetrators were the rich and powerful Rushton based family the Treshams, or to be more precise their Cousins at Newton.
Discontent was in the air, and things were soon to boil over into full blown rebellion. The peasants started to dig up the hedges. The landowners were backed up aided in their actions by law and it was not long before Sir Edward Montagu the deputy-lieutenant of Northamptonshire comes into the picture with mounted horsemen. The peasants refused his initial orders to disperse and they charged into them, but they were not easily routed at this point.
However a second charge saw the peasants flee in the face of such terror, to face men mounted on horseback and travelling at speed towards you would have taken great courage and their reaction is entirely understandable. Up to fifty were killed, with many captured and subsequently executed at a later date.
Their mutilated bodies were displayed in Northampton and other towns. The authorities obviously intended to make an example of these unfortunates to ward off any further trouble by those who might be inclined to organise and defy the landowners.
The families responsible for enclosure were it seems serial offenders, and it's postulated in Briony's and Joshua's paper which I quote from below that the construction of Lyveden New Bield may have been the catalyst for open revolt.-
"It may have been here that the Northampton riots of early May were focused and there was certainly significant unrest here and in neighbouring Little Houghton in 1608. Sir Thomas’s cousin, Thomas Tresham, was responsible for the enclosure of Newton – where there were at least 650 sheep as early as 1564 and which seems to have been wholly down to grass by 1607 – and Pilton, 10 miles to the east. The Tresham properties known as Lyveden Old Bield and New Bield both lay within Pilton parish, the latter laid out on land probably enclosed under a 1540 licence to empark. Work started on the New Bield in the mid 1590s and it may be that the construction of this elaborate and expensive building provoked particular ire amongst local inhabitants."
"Thus while the Tresham family were involved in a number of recent enclosures, it was not as if they and the other enclosing landlords had been previously unknown to the local authorities. Instead the Tresham family were involved in enclosure disputes for several decades before the events of 1607. Thomas Tresham of Newton – whose hedges the thousand people at Newton were breaking and who was prosecuted for enclosure in 1608 in the wake of the Rising – had previously been prosecuted for enclosures at Bletchingdon (Oxfordshire) undertaken before Dec 1592.66 Sir Thomas Tresham of Rushton had also built a reputation for enclosing and engrossing."
Intrigued by the reference to Lyveden New Bield I took a trip out to see the building for myself.
Charles Bradlaugh
“The Atheist does not say “There is no God”, but he says, “I know not what you mean by God; I am with without idea of God; the word God is to me a sound conveying no clear or distinct affirmation. I do not deny God, because I cannot deny that of which I have no conception and the conception of which by its affirmer is so imperfect that he is unable to define it to me”.
Now we move on from a group of radicals whose beliefs were firmly rooted in the existence of God and who used this belief to reinforce their arguments for the precedence of God given law, to a man some of whose whose lectures were entitled "Has man a soul" and "The existence of God"
No discussion of radicals in Northamptonshire should omit that avowed Atheist Charles Bradlaugh, a man whose views on religion were the polar opposite of the Diggers. His determination to change what on the face of it seemed unchangeable was as great, and who without hesitation took every opportunity to air his beliefs. He like them would pay a high personal price for this.
Why should he be remembered when there have been so many great men and women whose achievements have had a profound and lasting effect on our world ?.
A question which in my opinion should be answered in this way, because his tenacity and refusal to give in to those in power should be an example to all people today who oppose the suppression of idea's, and who use intellect rather than brute force to achieve what they truly believe to be right.
If Bradlaugh were alive today he would surely rejoice in the secular society we have become, where religion or lack of belief in formalised religion is not a block to achievement or a social stigma.
Charles Bradlaugh came from a poor background and always identified with the poor.
He was a man of huge intellect who took on the government, the church and politicians.
He lectured on Atheism and had a huge following who came to hear him speak and debate vigorously with clergymen.
Here was a man who championed the people of India and became known as "The Member for India"
He bought to the fore Birth Control and because of this was prosecuted and villified, and his own morality was questioned.
He founded the magazine The National Reformer.
He fought a prolonged campaign to take his seat in Parliament against formidable opposition and eventually won.
He taught himself the law and was so knowledgeable on the subject he was able to defend himself against top lawyers of the day.
How did Bradlaughs connection with Northampton come about ?.
Bradlaugh himself stated his first visit to Northampton was in 1855.
He lectures in the town during the early 1860's under the name Iconoclast, and over time he built up a small but close circle of friends. In 1868 he launched his bid for a seat in parliament choosing the town as his base.
What I love about updating this site is the things I'm constantly finding out about this town, and the pleasure I get from the research I do which involves lots of reading, one of my favourite pastimes.
Northampton it seems was a place whose population had a great interest in politics, which is interesting given the political landscape today, maybe we need a modern day Bradlaugh to shake things up. Looking around at the present crop of our representatives doesn't fill me with hope though, not a lot of fire and self belief in evidence, just buck passing and self interest.
Bradlaugh did not intend to fight on the platform of Atheism but instead purely as a radical, interestingly the issue of land rears its head again as he wanted changes in the land laws, seems land is another recurring theme. He called for more security for tenant farmers, amongst other things.
The story of his election bid is a long one with many twists and turns, but I will summarise it as best I can, but what I will point out at this stage is that it turned out to be extremely controversial, arousing very strong passions in all quarters.
A good indication of the spite directed at him is that at one point he was called "The Cerberus of Atheism, Treason and Filth"
This probably seems tame by our modern standards but in Victorian England those three words were as about as bad as anything you could be called, They are a reference to his espousal of atheism, republicanism and birth control, the last of which probably caused the most controversy, and lead to his prosecution.
His many attempts to get elected and then having been elected to take his seat were thwarted by many factors, disunity with the Liberal Party being one, but the main block was because of his non-belief he did not want to take an oath which included religious references.
Affirmation was the method he wanted to use but there was a huge amount of debate as to whether he could be allowed to do this,
which involving the law used up enormous amounts of time,
After much time and many attempts to take his seat he was able to do so, but nor before being subjected to physical violence, ridicule, and having his morality bought into question.
Bradlaugh to his great credit, despite extreme provocation never responded to violence with violence and he urged his many followers to behave accordingly, being an orator of great skill and passion he was able to debate with and answer his critics eloquently,
Some of his quotes you can see below -
“Without free speech no search for truth is possible... no discovery of truth is useful... Better a thousandfold abuse of free speech than denial of free speech. The abuse dies in a day, but the denial slays the life of the people, and entombs the hope of the race.”
“I cannot follow you Christians; for you try to crawl through your life upon your knees, while I stride through mine on my feet"
Just a quick update on the subject of Bradlaugh, yesterday amongst all the dross on Twitter I came across a little gem.
The picture below shows Bradalugh Hall, which is in Lahore
The original article has lot of pictures of the hall however I'm a bit reluctant to post the url here as it shows as having some insecure content. however If you are interested the chap who wrote the orginal article is on facebook.
https://www.facebook.com/Built-Heritage-Pakistan-258954637480467/
The url I post below is from another site which gives has some interesting information about the hall and shows as secure in my browser.
www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2017/10/15/bradlaugh-hall/
