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The Political Philosophy of Gerrard Winstanley

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2009

Walter F. Murphy
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Extract

The Leveller movement of the Puritan Revolution was composed chiefly of people who represented economically the lower middle classes and religiously the Independents and the Sects. Thus, they had a respectable basis, though their enemies claimed otherwise, and while. they were interested in certain political reforms which appeared sweepingly radical for their times, they did recognize the value of a visible church organization (not a state supported church) and the necessity of such fundamentals of English life as the sanctity of property and the existence of government.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Politics , Volume 19 , Issue 2 , April 1957 , pp. 214 - 238
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 1957

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References

1 Lilburne, John, “Foundations of Freedom,” in Woodhouse, A. P. S. (ed.), Puritanism and Liberty, Being the Army Debates (1647–1649) from the Clarke Manuscripts with Supplementary Documents (Chicago, 1951), pp. 356–367.Google Scholar

2 The reason why the Levellers (Lilburne in particular) went to great lengths to deny these charges was due less to any widespread threat to private property than to the fact that the movement itself was honeycombed with Baptists. (Lilburne and Overton, for example, were at the time Baptists.) In the late 1640's a large portion of English society still called the Baptists “Anabaptists.” In the midst of a religious and political civil war, visions of Munster were not absent. This Munster fear was pointed up by the fact that the years from 1500 to 1650 had formed a century and a half of peasant revolts. (For a discussion of this background see White, Helen C., Social Criticism in Popular Religious Literature of the Sixteenth Century (New York, 1944)Google Scholar and Brown, Louise F., The Political Activities of the Baptists and Fifth Monarchy Men in England during the Interregnum (Washington, 1912).Google Scholar It was mandatory, then, that any political organization which desired a broad and respectable basis disavow connections with egalitarian ideals in the economic sphere. For a view contrary to that expressed in this note see Petegorsky, D. W., Left-Wing Democracy in the English Civil War: A Study in the Social Philosophy of Gerrard Winstanley (London, 1940), p. 111.Google Scholar To complicate matters some of the Levellers (possibly Walwyn) did believe in common property.

3 Lilburne, John, “Foundations of Freedom,” op, cit., p. 363.Google Scholar

4 “Putney Debates,” in ibid., p. 53.

5 Quoted in Eduard Bernstein (trans, by Stenning, H. J.), Cromwell and Communism: Socialism and Democracy in the Great English Revolution (London, 1930), p. 114.Google Scholar

6 Petegorsky, D. W., op. cit., p. 161.Google Scholar

7 Clarke Papers, II, 210–211.Google Scholar

8 Ibid., II, 212.

9 Sabine, G., “Introduction,” p. 16Google Scholar to his edition of The Works of Gerrard Winstanley (Ithaca, 1941).Google Scholar Hereafter this collection is referred to simply as Works.

10 Winstanley's pleading is reprinted by his own account in “Watchword to the City of London and the Armie,” Works, pp. 321–327.Google Scholar

11 Jones, Rufus, Mysticism and Democracy in the English Commonwealth (Cambridge, Mass., 1932), p. 164CrossRefGoogle Scholar, reports 34 Digger communities were in existence at the time. Sabine, (op. cit., p. 20)Google Scholar and Petegorsky, (op. cit., pp. 174–175)Google Scholar mention only two or three. Jones may have confused some of the uprisings against enclosures with Digger groups.

12 Petegorsky, D. W., op. cit., p. 175.Google Scholar

13 Winstanley, G., “An Humble Request …,” Works, pp. 436–437.Google Scholar

14 Winstanley, G., “Watchword to the City of London and the Armie,” Works, p. 315.Google Scholar

15 Petegorsky, D. W., op. cit., p. 124.Google Scholar

16 See for example White, Helen C., op. cit.Google Scholar; and Knox, R. A., Enthusiasm: A Chapter in the History of Religion (New York, 1950).Google Scholar

17 There are two fundamentally opposed interpretations of Winstanley's communism. One, represented by such writers as Bernstein and Petegorsky, holds that his desire for common property was motivated primarily by secular economic reasons. The other, exemplified by Schenk, W., The Concern for Social Justice in the Puritan Revolution (New York, 1948)Google Scholar, seeks the basic explanation of Winstanley's ideas in his religious background. This writer feels that Schenk is the more nearly correct, but here truth, like virtue, stands in the middle. Winstanley was a communist because of his mystic tendencies, but without the existence of severe economic deprivation on the part of a great portion of the English people, he would have confined his religion to mystic symbolism. Winstanley was a seeker after social justice and he thought that the only sure manner in which social justice could be achieved was through communal ownership of the means of production.

18 Winstanley, G., “New Law of Righteousness,” Works, p. 190.Google Scholar

19 Hobbes, Thomas, Leviathan, Part III, Chapter XXXII.Google Scholar

20 Winstanley, G., “True Levellers Standard Advanced,” Works, p. 252; p. 260.Google Scholar

21 Winstanley, G., “New Law of Righteousness,” Works, p. 159.Google Scholar In spite of this reference to Adam, Winstanley did not believe in original sin. For example: “Looke upon a childe that is new borne, or till he growes up to some few yeares, he is innocent, harmless, humble, patient, gentle, easie to be entreated, not envious; And this is Adam, or mankinde in his Innocency; and this continues till outward objects intice him to pleasure, or seeke content without him; And when he consents, or suffers the imaginary Covetousnesse within to close with the objects, Then he falls, and is taken captive, and falls lower and lower.” (“Fire in the Bush,” Works, pp. 493–494.)Google Scholar True to the “Piers Plowman” tradition of social criticism, Winstanley regarded greed as the fundamental cause of evil. (Ibid., p. 496.)

22 Winstanley, G., “Appeal to the House of Commons,” Works, p. 311.Google Scholar

23 Winstanley, G., “A New-Years Gift,” Works, p. 357.Google Scholar

24 Winstanley, G., “True Levellers Standard Advanced,” Works, p. 259.Google Scholar

25 Winstanley, G., “Watchword to the City of London and the Armie,” Works, p. 324.Google Scholar

26 Winstanley, G., “New Law of Righteousness,” Works, pp. 159–160.Google Scholar

27 Winstanley, G., “True Levellers Standard Advanced,” Works, p. 260Google Scholar; “New Law of Righteousness,” Works, p. 179.Google Scholar

28 Winstanley, G., “Appeal to the House of Commons,” Works, pp. 309–310.Google Scholar

29 Winstanley, G., “Appeal to All Englishmen,” Works, p. 408.Google Scholar

30 Winstanley, G., “Watchword to the City of London and the Armie,” Works, p, 337.Google Scholar

31 Winstanley, G., “True Levellers Standard Advanced,” Works, p. 263.Google Scholar

32 Winstanley, G., “New Law of Righteousness,” Works, p. 156.Google Scholar

33 Ibid., p. 182.

34 Winstanley, G., “A Vindication,” Works, p. 402.Google Scholar

35 Winstanley, G., “True Levellers Standard Advanced,” Works, p. 266.Google Scholar

36 Winstanley, G., “Watchword to the City of London and the Armie,” Works, p. 333.Google Scholar

37 Winstanley, G., “A New-Yeers Gift,” Works, p. 371.Google Scholar

38 Winstanley, G., The Law of Freedom in a Platform, Works, p. 510.Google Scholar

39 Petegorsky, D. W., op. cit., p. 212Google Scholar, emphasizes this point. If one were interested in attempting to show that Winstanley was a “scientific socialist” in the sense that this term was defined by Engels in Anti-Dühring it would be worthy of attention. This writer feels it is not particularly demonstrative of anything but discouragement on Winstanley's part.

40 Winstanley, G., Law of Freedom, Works, pp. 504–505; p. 522Google Scholar; and often throughout all of Winstanley's writings. Although the clergy will be maintained in an altered form and new laws written rather than “law” abolished, there is no place in Winstanley's Utopia for a lawyer.

41 Ibid., p. 511.

42 Ibid.

43 Ibid., p. 520.

44 Ibid., p. 593.

45 Schenk, (op. cit., p. 104)Google Scholar thinks that The Law of Freedom marks a change in Winstanley's political philosophy of basic importance in that he “ceased to be an anarchist.” Schenk cites in support of this a passage in “A Letter to Lord Fairfax,” Works, p. 282Google Scholar, in which Winstanley wrote: “we were not against any that would have Magistrates and Laws to govern, as the Nations of the world are governed, but as for our parts we shall need neither the one nor the other in that nature of Government …” This is not a definitive statement of anarchism. On the contrary the prevailing tone of Winstanley's criticisms are not so much anti-government as anti-existing governments. Six months later in another letter to Fairfax, Winstanley stated: “wee shall reioyce in yow and the army in protecting our worke, and wee and our worke wilbee ready to secure that, and wee hope there will not bee any kingly power over us, to rule at will and wee to be slaves, as the power has bin, but that you will rule in love as Moses and Joshua did the Children of Israeli before any kingly power came in, and that the Parliament wilbee as the Elders of Israeli, chosen freely by the people to advise for and assist both yow and us.” Works, p. 349.Google ScholarThe Law of Freedom was not published until almost three years later.

46 Winstanley, G., Law of Freedom, Works, p. 540.Google Scholar Winstanley must have a personal rebuff from a government official; he wrote: “And have we not experience in these days that some Officers of the Commonweatlh are grown so mossy for want of removing, that they will hardly speak to an old acquaintance, if he be an inferior man, though they were very familiar before the Wars began?” (Ibid., p. 541.)

47 Ibid., p. 541.

48 Ibid., p. 542.

49 Ibid., p. 543.

50 Ibid., pp. 543–544; p. 596.

51 Ibid., p. 544.

52 Ibid., pp. 544–566.

53 Ibid., pp. 547–551.

54 Ibid., p. 547.

55 Ibid., p. 554.

56 Ibid., pp. 552–553.

57 Ibid., pp. 555–556.

58 Ibid. Note the similarity between this and the popular French reaction in the middle and late eighteenth century against judicial interpretation of statutes.

59 Ibid., pp. 556–559.

60 Ibid., p. 559.

61 Ibid., pp. 561–562.

62 Ibid., p. 564.

63 Ibid., p. 569.

64 Ibid., pp. 570–571.

65 Ibid., p. 583; p. 592.

66 Ibid., p. 593; p. 599.

67 Ibid., p. 587.

68 Ibid., p. 591.

69 Ibid., p. 599.

70 Ibid., p. 592; pp. 594–595.

71 Ibid., p. 598.

72 Ibid., p. 597.

73 For a treatment of the mystic background which helped form Winstanley's mind (although he himself was probably blissfully unaware of this influence) see Knox, R. A., op. cit.Google Scholar

74 Winstanley, G., “New Law of Righteousness,” Works, p. 170.Google Scholar

75 Winstanley, , “A New-Yeers Gift,” Works, p. 373Google Scholar; Law of Freedom, Works, p. 569.Google Scholar Also note the promise of religious toleration and the absence of any religious test in his Utopia.

76 Winstanley, G., “New Law of Righteousness,” Works, pp. 207–208.Google Scholar

77 Sabine, George, “Introduction,” p. 39 in Works.Google Scholar

78 Dennisoff, E. G. (trans, into Russian), et al., Gerrard Winstanley: Selected Pamphlets (Moscow, 1950).Google Scholar Professor H. R. Keller, Jr., of the Department of Foreign Languages, U. S. Naval Academy, was kind enough to assist this writer with an accurate translation of various editorial notes and interpretations.

79 Ibid., p. 42.

80 See above, footnote 17.

81 Laski, Harold J., Communism (New York, 1927), p. 13.Google Scholar

82 Smith, Russel, Harrington and his Oceana: A Study of a 17th Century Utopia and its Influence in America (Cambridge, 1914), pp. 27–28.Google Scholar

83 James, Margaret, Social Problems and Policy during the Puritan Revolution (London, 1930), pp. 340–341Google Scholar; Troeltsch, Ernst (trans, by Wyon, Olive), The Social Teaching of the Christian Churches (New York, 1931), II, 712.Google Scholar

84 Berens, Lewis H., The Digger Movement in the Days of the Commonwealth as Revealed in the Writings of Gerrard Winstanley, the Digger Mystic and Rationalist, Communist and Social Reformer (London, 1906), p. 232.Google Scholar

85 Schenk, , op. cit., p. 105Google Scholar, says that Winstanley was thinking in terms of small communities rather than a nation. It is true that Winstanley envisioned some practical form of federalism but also true that he conceived of his Utopia as a nation-state.