“I THINK the poorest has a life to live in England as the greatest. The poorest man in England is not bound to any government he has not had a voice in choosing” — Leveller leader Thomas Rainborough at The Putney Debates (1647).

The Oxford English Dictionary dates the first written use of the term for the political movement to 1644, in Marchamont Needham’s pamphlet, The Case for the Commonwealth of England Stated — although this may have been a retrospective conceit as the pamphlet was printed in 1650, but, for our purposes 1644 suits admirably.

Born from the tyrannical rule of Charles I and subsequent tumult of the English civil wars in the 1640s, proto-democratic semi-socialist republicans the Levellers were the first English political movement with a coherent manifesto, much of which anticipated later trade unions and political parties.

Incidentally, their courageous but fractious chief John Lilburne (1614-57) hated the name, much preferring “Agitators.” Lilburne was an interesting character, brave, principled and popular among his followers, but saddled with an argumentative streak that led him into myriad feuds, trials, property/mercantile disputes and extended periods of imprisonment.

Some of the Levellers’ ideas were later adopted into the US constitution, but sadly in Britain, many of their relatively temperate proposals (their newspaper was actually called The Moderate) such as declaring England a permanent republic are either unenacted or warped.

Unlike the more extreme Diggers, The Levellers didn’t press for common ownership, but they were still sufficiently radical and popular enough to cause Cromwell’s faction to turn against them when the group outlived their usefulness as civil war cannon fodder.

The Levellers’ An Agreement of the People was a series of manifestos, published between 1647 and 1649, whose provisions included the extension of suffrage to include almost all the adult male population, electoral reform, a written constitution, the abolition of the House of Lords, biennial elections, religious freedom, an end to imprisonment for debt, the abolition of corruption within the parliamentary and judicial process, the toleration of religious differences, and (as said) the establishment of an English Republic.

Non-constitutional demands included universal state schools and hospitals to be provided at the state’s expense.

The Levellers organised nationally, including offices in London inns such as Islington’s The Rosemary Branch, which later got its name from the sprigs of rosemary worn in their hats as a sign of identification; they also adopted sea-green ribbons to display their loyalties.

I confess to having a little skin in the game, as my distant ancestor, Leveller leader private Richard Arnell/Arnold was executed by firing squad in 1647 after a failed mutiny at Ware, Hertfordshire, via a rigged lot on the order of Oliver Cromwell.

Frank Finlay played Arnell (named “John Carter” given a fictitious backstory as a former friend of the Protector) in 1970s historical drama film Cromwell, in which he was hanged rather than shot.

According to John Lilburne’s The Young Men’s and the Apprentices’ Outcry (1649), “Commoners are forcibly convented and tried before a Council of War, and some sentenced even unto death, others by a private verbal order made to run the gantlop and whipped most barbarously for refusing to take false and illegal oaths; and the blood of war — expressly against the Petition of Right — shed in times of peace: as the blood of Mr Richard Arnell upon November 15 1647 near Ware.”

The movie Return of The Musketeers (1989) also features a scene where Cromwell (Alan Howard) directly condemns an unnamed Leveller (presumably Arnell) at Ware.

To this day I have a distinct aversion to both the Lord Protector and his spectacularly useless son/brief successor Richard aka “Tumbledown Dick,” who ruined the chance of a permanent republic by instituting the hereditary principle for his family.

During his long years of voluntary continental exile, Richard Cromwell (1625-1712) was invited to dine with Armand de Bourbon, Prince of Conti, who was unaware of exactly who his guest was.

During the meal, the prince opined on Richard’s father: “Well, that Oliver, tho’ he was a traitor and a villain, was a brave man, had great parts, great courage, and was worthy to command; but that Richard, that coxcomb and poltroon, was surely the basest fellow alive; what is become of that fool?” 

Cromwell responded: “He was betrayed by those he most trusted, and who had been most obliged by his father.” Early the next following morning, the second Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland, and Ireland (September 1658-May 1659) quietly left the town.

The Levellers mutinied for a third and final occasion in 1649, this time in the Oxfordshire town of Banbury and were again dealt harshly with by Cromwell, three of three ring-leaders captured then executed at nearby Burford. Ironically, Burford is close to Chipping Norton, lair of former PM (and current Foreign Secretary) David Cameron and his parasitical set of media chums, including Jeremy Clarkson, Elisabeth Murdoch, Rebekah Brooks, and gormless Blur bass plonker/overpriced cheese & wine purveyor Alex James.

In 2011 journalist Peter Oborne (no lefty he) called the group “an incestuous collection of louche, affluent, power-hungry and amoral Londoners located in and around the prime minister’s Oxfordshire constituency.” 

After the Brexit result Blur singer Damon Albarn wore a black armband as he played at Glastonbury on the following Saturday, telling tens of thousands of fans, “democracy has failed us because it was ill-formed.”

Interesting whether Albarn ever discussed these and other matters with his smug, perma-smirking sideman.

Since 1975, Levellers’ Day has been held at Burford to commemorate the three mutineers executed there; this year’s event will be on Saturday May 18. Perhaps they can include an excursion to Chipping Norton this time…