"I think that the poorest he that is in England hath a
life to live as the greatest he; and therefore truly, sir, I think it's clear,
that every man that is to live under a government ought first, by his own
consent, to put himself under that government".
Colonel Rainborowe
"We were not a mere mercenary army, hired to serve any
arbitrary power of a state, but called forth and conjured, by the several
Declarations of Parliament, to the defence of our own and the people's just
rights, and liberties".
Towards the end of 1647 with King Charles, I heavily defeated
in a bitter civil war, a group of New Model Army officers and soldiers met at St.
Mary's parish church, near the Thames, at Putney Bridge, southwest London.
The extraordinary discussion that took place at that church
has been examined and then fought over by historians for decades if not
centuries. At the time little was known of this debate. Very few of the news
broadsheets mentioned the historic debate.
Although the debate was recorded by William
Clarke using shorthand, his documents lay dormant for over 243 years. They were
found by a librarian at Worcester College Oxford who told the historian Charles
Firth and the rest is history.
The discovery of these documents has been called a "serendipitous
find" and has led to a significant amount of historiography surrounding
the events at Putney. It is strange given the extraordinary radical nature of
the debates that most of this historiography has been dominated by a set of
conservative/revisionist historians. The collection of essays that came out of
a conference held at the Folger Shakespeare Library in 1997, the 350th
anniversary of the debates continues this conservative historiographical
stranglehold.
One such contributor Blair Worden said it was "fitting
that the 350th anniversary was celebrated in two places: in Putney Church, with
speeches by Christopher Hill and Tony Benn, representatives of the tradition
that has looked east to Moscow; and, in the conference from which this book has
emerged, in Washington, the capital of the free world".[1]
It is clear that the editor, Michael Mendle was mindful of
the extremely conservative and unified nature of the collection of essay
writers, so much so that he issued a strange declaration that I have not seen
anywhere else: "Those that write here have no party line to follow are
adherents of no single interpretive school, and perhaps most notably, span
several scholarly generations".[2]
It is, of course palpably not true. Two themes run through
the book. Theme one is to play down the influence of the Levellers, and theme
two is to oppose a Marxist analysis of the English bourgeois revolution. The Putney debates started on October 28th 1647. A Meeting
of the army's General Council of the Parliament's New Model Army met to discuss
the state of the revolution and more specifically the Levellers document The
Agreement of the People and the more conservative document The Heads of
Proposals.
According to Wikipedia the Agreement was produced by "civilian
Levellers or agitators and called for regular, two-yearly Parliaments and equal
distribution of MPs' seats by several inhabitants. It guaranteed freedom of
conscience, indemnity for Parliamentarian soldiers and equality before the law".
A Counter document the Heads of Proposals was issued by the
Grandees. A much more moderate document. "Heads of Proposals" was the
document to be adopted later on by Cromwell's government. It recommended a
written constitution and led to Cromwell being given powers that bordered on a
dictatorship. Oliver Cromwell came to the Putney debates in 1647 from a position
of considerable political and military strength. Although the fact that he
still needed to invite radical elements within the army to the Putney Debates
meant that he and his general's position of power had been far from
consolidated.
Cromwell was well aware that the invitation of civilian
Levellers meant that the discussion held at Putney would have a resonance far
beyond the walls of Putney church. How much Cromwell was aware of the growing
radicalisation of his army is open to conjecture. To what extent Cromwell read
the volumes of letters sent to him from the various radical groups is again
hard to fathom. But even this conservative of men would have least noted
with alarm the growing influence of radical groups such as the Levellers and
Fifth Monarchists. After all one of his top general's Thomas Harrison was a
Fifth Monarchist supporter and shared similar religious and political positions
with other radicals. Cromwell also up until Putney had a reasonably close
social and political relationship with one of the Leaders of the Leveller's
John Lilburne.
In the months leading up to Putney Cromwell and his generals
faced a growing threat to their leadership. They faced a two-pronged attack
from the Presbyterians and the radical groups. One of the most important radical tracts printed by October
29th was called A Call to All Soldiers of the Army by the Free People of
England which was a defence of the radical regiments and demanded a purge of the parliament
amidst a call for the agitators to meet as an 'exact council' and to act with
the 'truest lovers of the people you could find'. One of the main aims of the
document was to expose the "hypocrisy" and "deceit" of
Cromwell and Ireton. It must have been with extreme reluctance that Cromwell
invited the agitators to Putney. In doing so his aim was to defeat these forces
politically at Putney and then militarily later on.
Politically Cromwell was to the right of the English
bourgeois revolution. In many ways his actions at Putney were largely
opportunistic, he promised the Levellers to look into their demands but in
reality, he had no intention of adopting the Agreement. He read very little outside of the bible and had only a
superficial understanding of the radical tracts produced during the early
period of the revolution. An interesting PhD dissertation topic would be to
examine what was in his library at the time of his death.
It is clear that Cromwell at Putney completely
underestimated his political opponents in the army. The documents presented by
Leveller supporters in the army clearly shocked and dismayed this conservative
of a gentleman. The debates brought to the surface deep-seated ideas
regarding property, democracy and the future course of the revolution.
Political divisions were becoming sharper in the run-up to the Putney Debates.
Even deeper divisions among historians have meant that there is no agreement as
to how radical the army was or when its radicalisation started. This
radicalisation did not fall from the sky. The ideas that came to the fore at Putney
were not only exacerbated by war they were provoked by grievances over pay and
condition, the fact of the matter is that these developed into broader
political demands is because they were the products of longer gestation.
Perhaps the most surprising aspect of this collection of essays
is the absence of any examination of what was said at Putney as Rachel Foxley
points out "it is sad that an entire volume on the Putney debates should
have so little room for analysis of the vocabulary and dynamics of the debates
in terms of political thought. There is much more work to be done here. The
debates are more than a script written for the actors by simple circumstance,
and all we now know about their context should enable us to read their content
in genuinely illuminating new ways".[3]
If any proof was needed about the overarching conservative
nature of these essays, it is that most of them were influenced by leading
revisionist historian Mark Kishlansky who attended the conference but did not
write an essay for this collection. Kishlansky classified the period as being marked
by its "vaunted peace and harmony," However, this was not a period that was marked by its "vaunted peace and harmony". The radicalisation brought about by heated
attacks on the army by the Presbterains provoked one writer to say "it is
objected to us, that we would have toleration of all sectaries, schismatiques,
heretiques, blasphemies, errours, licentiousnesse, and wickednesses".[4]
The hostility to the radicalisation of the soldiers was
given further political expression by the Presbyterian faction in parliament
when it published its 'Declaration of Dislike' in the House of Commons. The
document provocatively called the soldiers "enemies to the State and
disturbers of the public peace". The document represented a declaration of war against both
independent and radicals alike. It was an expression of growing class differences
contained within and outside of parliament. As Austin Woolrych commented, "seldom
can ten words have done more mischief than Holles's 'enemies of the state and
disturbers of the public peace".[5]
There existed a growing nerviness inside the Presbyterian
party within parliament that was caused by the growing calls inside the army
for more democracy, protests against social inequality and an end to property. In answer to The Declaration of Dislike, the army said "We were not a mere mercenary army, hired
to serve any arbitrary power of a state, but called forth and conjured by the
several declarations of Parliament to the defence of our own and the People's
just Rights and Liberties".[6]
This would have sent shockwaves through the Presbyterian Party.
Austin Woolrych in his essay takes a very cautious approach to
the Putney Debates. Woolrych somewhat controversially states that the army had
"refrained from political activity despite the tendency of the
Presbyterians both religious and political, to portray it as a hotbed of
sectaries and radicals." If this is true then did Putney drop from the
skies? Is there no connection between the activity of the army before Putney
and during? Surely history is not just a series of unconnected episodes.
Woolrych continues "Anyone who strains to hear the voice of
the soldiery in the Putney debates should be aware that, apart from one brief
interjection by an unnamed agent, the only troopers who spoke that day were Sex
by and Everard, and on the other two days recorded by Clarke the only others
who opened their mouths were Lockyer and Allen. No agitator of a foot regiment
is known to have spoken. Out of just fifty officer-agitators listed in October,
twelve spoke in the course of the three-recorded days five of them only once,
and very briefly. We should be very cautious about treating the Putney debates,
wonderful as they are as the typical voice of the army'?[7]
This theme of downplaying the influence of the radicals at
Putney is continued by other essayists. While it is true that the ordinary
soldiers were thin on the ground, the politics that were debated at Putney had
a deep resonance inside the army. Even Woolrych is forced to describe such
incidents where 'open incitements to mutiny and were already bearing poisoned
fruit. Fairfax had lately ordered Colonel Robert Lilburn's foot regiment to
Newcastle, for sound military reasons but a party of new agents bearing copies
of the Case of the Armie overtook it and urged it not to let the army be
divided. Thereupon its soldiers turned back, held an unauthorised rendezvous
and refused to obey their officers. Other regiments were in a state of
incipient mutiny before the debates at Putney were would up".
One thing not mentioned by Woolrych is that Presbyterians
alongside the Independents had a lot to lose if Lilburne and his
revolutionaries had their way. A large number of MP's had grown rich out of the
civil war and intended to keep their newfound wealth come what may. Many in parliament had grown rich from the change of
relations of land ownership, although the enclosure and the sequestration of church holdings had begun before the civil war it was continued with during the
first revolution with fresh impetus. The Long Parliament had got rid of the
Episcopate and to administer its interests, it organised a committee for the
sale of church lands.
Often the officers and soldiers of the New Model Army were permitted
to buy land cheap. Sometimes exchange for their unpaid salary and at half
price. Fifth Monarchist's like Lieutenant colonel Thomas Harrison became very
rich out of this process.
According to Evgeny Pashukanis "The Civil War between
Parliament and the Crown thus had, as a result, the mass transfer of property
(which was partly annulled upon the Restoration). Not less than half of all the
movable property and half of the lands, rents and incomes of the noblemen who
fought on the side of the Crown fell under sequestration. In order to raise the
sequestration, it was necessary to pay a composition in the amount of
approximately one-fifth of the total value. Such an operation was conducted in
1644 on not less than 3,000 "gentlemen". The direct profit from this
measure was received by the Presbyterian party which then held sway in parliament,
a party whose members became rich buying land cheaply, squeezing out the
Royalists who had fallen under sequestration, with money at usurious interest,
and finally, releasing sequestration for a bribe. The corruption which
developed gave one of the major trump cards to the Independents and their struggle
against the parliamentary majority. In the interest of justice it should be
noted that after this when Cromwell's army triumphed over parliament, the
Independent majority of the "Rump" began to engage in the same dirty
business".[8]
Cromwell may have led the debate at Putney, but thanks to Barbara
Taft's excellent essay we get to know better the real theoretical leader of the
Grandees at Putney which was Henry Ireton. Ireton and other members of the General Council of the new
Model army resided in Putney church essentially to discuss the Levellers
Agreement of the People from October 28th to November 11th 1647. According to H
N Brailsford' When one compares these debates with those of its sittings at Reading
in July, it is clear that in three months the temper and outlook of the army
were changed. At Putney, the mood was sultry and tense'. While it true that the
grandees and the agitators were moving roughly in the same direction in July by
October a huge chasm was to open up between them ".[9]
It is clear from the Clarke transcripts that Cromwell was no
great theoretician but it is worth quoting one of his better contributions: While
it took Cromwell a little while to understand what was going on at Putney when
he saw the Levellers Pamphlet The Agreement of the People he reacted in this
way on October 28th "These things that you have now offered, they are new
to us: they are things that we have not at all (at least in this method and
thus circumstantially) had any opportunity to consider of, because they came to
us but thus, as you see; this is the first time we had a view of them. Truly
this paper does contain in it very great alterations of the very government of
the kingdom, alterations from that government that it hath been under, I
believe I may almost say, since it was a nation –I say, I think I may almost
say so. And what the consequences of such an alteration as this would be, if
there were nothing else to be considered, wise men and godly men ought to
consider. I say, if there were nothing else to be considered but the very
weight and nature of the things contained in this paper. Therefore, although
the pretensions in it, and the expressions in it, are very plausible, and if we
could leap out of one condition into another that had so specious things in it
as this hath, I suppose there would not be much dispute – though perhaps some
of these things may be very well disputed. How do we know if, whilst we are
disputing these things, another company of men shall not gather together, and
put out papers plausible perhaps as this? I do not know why it might not be
done by that time you have agreed upon this, or got hands to it if that be the
way. And not only another, and another, but many of this kind. And if so, what
do you think the consequence of that would be? Would it not be confusion? Would
it not be utter confusion? Would it not make England like the Switzerland
country, one canton of the Swiss against another and one county against another
to go on along with it, and whether those great difficulties that lie in our
way are in a likelihood to be either overcome or removed".?
While Cromwell was no great thinker Ireton was. Ireton was
ambitious, and with a class, understanding to match. He had a valuable ability to
process complicated theoretical arguments and respond to them on the spur of
the moment. Ireton's goal at Putney was to diffuse the more radical
elements of the Leveller programme and if possible, co-opt them into the
Grandes strategy if this failed Cromwell and Ireton were not adverse to use
force to achieve their aims. Ireton would use the Levellers up to a point as a bulwark
against the Presbyterians in Parliament they were after all according to E. Bernstein" were the first among the
people and the simple soldier agitators in the army to understand the necessity
of energetic opposition for the counter-revolutionary elements of Parliament".[10]
It was a dangerous game played by Cromwell and Ireton
according to Pashukanis "One can have doubts about the degree to which
Cromwell and the other leaders of the Independents truly wished to remain loyal
to the Presbyterian majority in parliament. But there is no doubt that the
soldiers' organisations never entered into their calculations for the purpose
of their struggle with parliament. It is one thing to put pressure on parliament
by relying upon a disciplined armed force subordinate to oneself, but entirely
another thing to create an illegal organisation embracing the mass of soldiers
and awakening their independent activity, an organisation which immediately and
inevitably had to bring forth socio-political demands extending far beyond the
ideas of the moderate Independents".[11]
As was said earlier, the historiography of the Putney
Debates has been dominated by right-leaning historians. It is beginning to
change as left historians begin to even up the score. It is worth quoting one
of them John Rees who recently wrote "The main axis of debate on both
sides assumes that what is under discussion is a universal male franchise.
Cromwell and Ireton object to this proposal on the basis that if the poor are
given the vote, they will use it to take property away from the rich.
Rainsborough responds that unless the poor are given the vote ', I say the one
parte shall make hewers of wood and drawers of water' of the rest and 'the
greatest parte of the Nation bee enslav'd'. Sexby argued that though the
soldiers had little property in the kingdom that they must be included in its
political settlement.
Only on one occasion during the Putney debates does Leveller
Maximillian Petty retreat from the idea of universal male suffrage. Petty
suggested that servants or those dependent on others might be excluded from the
franchise. This reads as a rather off-the-cuff response to debate with Henry
Ireton, who has himself admitted that the franchise might be 'better than it
is'. John Rede also adds an interesting cautionary note. He says that those who
have given themselves over to 'voluntary servitude' should also be excluded
from the vote".[12]
As was already mentioned by Rachel Foxley, the essays
collected in this book could have done with more of the actual debate. Perhaps
the famous exchange of these debates was between Colonel Rainborowe, leader of
the Levellers in parliament and H. Ireton, Cromwell's son in law. Rainborowe
stated that 'The poorest he that is in England has a life to live as the
greatest he and therefore every man that is to live under a government ought,
first, by his own consent. To put himself under the government'.
He continues 'Sir, I see that it is impossible to have
liberty but all property must be taken away. If you say it, it must be so. But
I would fain know what the soldier hath fought for all this while? He hath
fought to enslave himself, to give power to men of riches, men of estates, to
make him a perpetual slave. We do find in all presses that go forth none must be
pressed that are freehold men. When these gentlemen fall out among themselves,
they shall press the poor scrubs to come and kill one another for them'. Do
these comments represent an individual or did his words echo a much wider yet
unconscious expression that Putney represented not just the people that took
part but had a broader significance in the army and within the country itself".
To the participants at Putney his words would have seemed revolutionary
but as Christopher Hill argued 'The
Leveller conception of free Englishmen, was thus restricted, even if much
wider, than that embodied in the existing franchise. Their proposals would
perhaps have doubled the number of men entitled to vote. But manhood suffrage
would have quadrupled it".[13]
Ireton recognised that if the franchise were widened, it
would threaten the Independents interest. As Hill again explains 'Defending the
existing franchise, Henry Ireton rejected the doctrine "that by a man
being born here, he shall have a share in that power that shall dispose of the
lands here and of all things here". The vote was rightly restricted to
those who "had a permanent fixed interest in this kingdom". Namely,
the persons in whom all lands lies and those incorporation's in whom all
trading lies".[14]
Ireton claimed the present House of Commons represented them
and went on to ask by what right the vote was demanded all free Englishmen. If
by natural right, taking up the Levellers point that they should be free. Who
could freely dispose of their labour? Then Ireton could see no reason why men
had as much natural right to property as to the vote. He went on to point out
that if you give them the vote, then they will be the majority in parliament
and they will give equal property rights to everybody.
The centrepiece of this collection of essays is the one by
John Morrill and Phillip Baker. This type of essay is what Jim Holstun called a "revisionist
manifesto".Their refusal to call the Levellers and their supporters
agitators preferring the less radical sounding adjutators sets the tone for the
rest of their essay. Morrill's and Baker's argument is that the main voice at the
Putney debates of 1647 was that of New Model Army soldiers not of the Levellers.
They argue that these soldiers were not as radical as some left-leaning
historians have made out.
What is also is clear is the influence of Mark Kishlansky on
this essay. Even amongst conservative historians, this essay was controversial.
So much so that it provoked a heated debate at the conference with other
historians providing in writing their differences. It is a shame that a
modern-day William Clarke did not record the debate.
The Levellers undoubtedly were a petit-bourgeois party.
While some historians including Morrill protest that capitalist relations were
not that developed to describe them as such. There were sufficient
bourgeois-capitalist relationships, at the 1640s to warrant such a
claim. Indeed, capitalist relations had not developed to a large extent
into the English countryside, to such an extent demands could not enter into
their programme for a general division of land.
The Levellers appeared and were organised as a political
party in the years 1645-46. They were responsible for many of modern-day
political techniques such as mass demonstrations, collecting petitions,
leafleting and the lobby of MPs. Their strength mainly lay in London and other
towns and had quite considerable support in the army. The movement was an
extremely disparate group-containing a group called the Diggers or as they have
been called the True Levellers, another group the Ranters were on the extreme
left wing of the revolution.
The Levellers called for a democratic republic in which the
House of Commons would be more important than the House of Lords. A Leveller
would have wanted redistribution and extension of the franchise, legal and
economic reform on behalf of men of small property, artisans, yeoman, small
merchants, and the very layer which made up the Levellers themselves.
Levellers also wished to democratise the gilds and the City
of London, a decentralisation of justice and the election of local governors
and stability of tenure for copyholders. While the Levellers were sympathetic
to the poor, which stemmed from their religion which essentially was not
different from that of Cromwell, they had no concrete programme to bring about
social change; they never advocated a violent overturning of society. Their
class outlook, that being of small producers, conditioned their ideology. At no
stage did the Levellers constitute a mass movement.
This contradiction caused some tension between their concern
for the poor and their position of representatives of the small property
owners. They had no opposition to private property, and therefore they accepted that inequality would always exist, they merely argued for the lot of the
poor to be made more equitable. One of their members John Cooke explained 'I am
no advocate for the poore further than to provide bread and necessaries for
them, without which, life cannot be maintained, let rich men feast, and the
poore make hard meale, but let them have bread sufficient'.
Knowing that they
could not come to power through the presently constituted electorate, the
Levellers attempted to find constitutional ways of getting around it. As was said before it seems the overriding influence on these
essays such as Morrill's and Bakers is the arch revisionist historian Mark
Kishlansky who agrees with much in this chapter of the book. Kishlansky, like
Morrill, is hostile to a Marxist interpretation of the English bourgeois
revolution.
He writes 'Much has been written about the ideology of the
army, but most of it misconceived. A principal reason for this has been
historians have assumed that the lowly social origins of many of the officers
created a commitment to radical ideology. This is false on both factual and
logical grounds. There were men of low birth among the new Model's officers,
and much has been made of Pride the drayman and Hewson the cobbler more still
might be made of obscure officers like Sponger and Creamer whose surnames
suggest backgrounds in trades and service. The army also contained a Cecil, a
Sheffield, and three colonels who were knights. Yet a careful study of the
armies social origin, which lends support to the view that they were more
traditional in nature (of solid status in rural and urban structures) still
does not meet the real objection to existing interpretation- the fallacy of
social determinism'.
This revisionist domination of Putney debates historiography
is beginning to change. Several left-leaning historians such as John Rees have
started to challenge the largely right-wing conceptions typical of the essays
in this collection.
In his recently published essay,[15]
Rees makes the following observations. “Perhaps the most famous discussion of
the relationship between the Levellers and the labouring classes of the
mid-17th century comes in the Putney debates of 1647. These critical
discussions between the most senior officers of the New Model Army, elected
representatives from the army rank and file, and civilian Levellers have
rightly fascinated historians.
One issue to which historical debate has frequently returned
concerns whether or not the Leveller spokespeople at Putney advocated the
expansion of the franchise implied in the Agreement of the People, first
presented at Putney. Should it include the poorest males in society, or should
servants and wage labourers be excluded from the vote?
It might be said that this issue has been over-analysed by
historians. Jason Peacey, for instance, has suggested that historians have
tended to divorce the study of a Levellers from the broader spectrum of radical
Parliamentary opinion of which they were a part and also that they have
concentrated too narrowly on the franchise debate at Putney. Both issues are of
relevance here. The Levellers certainly were part of, indeed emerged from, a
wider current of radical parliamentarianism. And the debate over the
constitutional settlement of the nation after the First Civil War was one in
which Levellers were engaged in debate with a much wider constituency of
parliamentarians, some of whom contributed directly to the content of the
Agreement of the People. Others held opinions with which the Levellers had to
contend, even if they disagreed with them or distrusted those advancing them.
We will see this dynamic at work throughout this discussion. But for all the
differentiation among them, it is still the case that the Levellers were a
distinct political movement. They recognised themselves as such, and their
opponents did likewise".
To conclude Michale Mendle's book despite it' revisionist
historiography is an important contribution to the debates about the Putney
debates. One worrying aspect has been the lack of challengers to the right-wing
nature of the historiography. Despite the huge passage of time, the debates
still provoke much heat is testimony to their importance. It is now high time
that left-leaning historians begin to step up to the plate and challenge this right-leaning
historiography.
Notes
John Rees's paper The Levellers, the labouring classes, and
the poor-John Rees- https://www.counterfire.org/articles/history/21256-the-levellers-the-labouring-classes-and-the-poor
was first given at Honest Labour: exploring the interface between work and
nonconformity, a regional day conference of the International John Bunyan
Society, organised in association with the University of Bedfordshire, Keele
University, Loughborough University and Northumbria University in April 2019.
It will appear in the forthcoming issue of Bunyan Studies.
[1] The Putney Debates of
1647: The Army, the Levellers and the English State
edited by Michael Mendle
[2] Introduction-The Putney
Debates of 1647: The Army, the Levellers and the English State edited by
Michael Mendle
[3] Review by: Rachel Foxley
Source: The Historical Journal, Vol. 46, No. 4 (Dec., 2003), pp. 1010-1011
[4] Vox Militaris: Or an
Apologetical Declaration Concerning the Officers and Souldiers of the Armie,
under the Command of his Excellency Sr. Thomas Fairfax, (London: 11 August [Thomason]),
[5] Taken from Austin
Woolrych, Soldiers and Statesmen), page 36-37.
[6] From the Representation of
the Army 1647
[7] http://keith-perspective.blogspot.com/2014/12/the-levellers-radical-political-thought.html
[8] Evgeny Pashukanis
Revolutionary Elements in the History of the English State and Law
[9] The Levellers and the
English revolution (1961)
[10] E. Bernstein, Socialism
and Democracy in the Great English Revolution (1919), 3rd German edition, p.78.
– See also E. Bernstein, Cromwell and Communism: Socialism and Democracy in the
Great English Revolution (1930), Allen and Unwin, London [eds.]
[11] Evgeny Pashukanis
Revolutionary Elements in the History of the English State and Law
[12] The Levellers, the
labouring classes, and the poor-John Rees- https://www.counterfire.org/articles/history/21256-the-levellers-the-labouring-classes-and-the-poor
[13] The Century of
Revolution: 1603–1714-By Christopher Hill-p129
[14] Taken from http://keith-perspective.blogspot.com/2015/04/
[15] The Levellers, the
labouring classes, and the poor-John Rees-
https://www.counterfire.org/articles/history/21256-the-levellers-the-labouring-classes-and-the-poor
