The Digger Movement in the Days of the Commonwealth Part 3

"The SPEECHES of Lord General FAIRFAX and the Officers of the Army to the Diggers at St. George's Hill in Surrey, and the Diggers'

several answers and replies thereunto.

"As his Excellency the Lord General came from Gilford to London, he went to view the Diggers at St. George's Hill in Surrey, with his Officers and Attendants. They found about twelve of them hard at work, and amongst them one Winstanley was the chief speaker.

Several questions were propounded by the Officers, and the Lord General made a short speech by way of admonition to them, and this Winstanley returned sober answers, though they gave little satisfaction (if any at all) in regard of the strangeness of their action. It was urged that the Commons were as justly due to the Lords as any other lands. They answered that these were Crown Lands where they digged, and the King who possessed them by the Norman Conquest being dead, they were returned again to the Common People of England, who might improve them if they would take the pains; that for those who would come dig with them, they should have the benefit equal with them, and eat of their bread; but they would not force any, applying to all the golden rule, to do to others as we would be done unto. Some Officers wished they had no further plot in what they did, and that no more was intended than what they did pretend.

"As to the barrenness of the ground, which was objected as a discouragement, the Diggers answered they would use their endeavours, and leave the success to G.o.d, who had promised to make the barren ground fruitful. They carry themselves civilly and fairly in the country, and have the report of sober, honest men.

Some barley is already come up, and other fruits formerly; but was pulled up by some of the envious inhabitants thereabouts, who are not so far convinced as to promise not to injure them for the future. The ground will probably in a short time yield them some fruit of their labour, how contemptible soever they do yet appear to be."

Before following the further adventures of the Diggers, as revealed in the numerous pamphlets they left us, from which alone they can now be gathered, we deem it best to lay before our readers what we have been able to ascertain of Gerrard Winstanley's previous life's history and writings. Behind every movement that has ever influenced the thoughts of mankind, there is always some master-mind, a Lautze, a Gautama, a Jesus of Nazareth, a Wiclif, a John Wesley, a Darwin, a Tolstoy, or a Henry George; and it is in the comparatively unknown Gerrard Winstanley that we shall find the master-mind, the inspirer and director, of the Digger Movement. As Gardiner well says, "It is not only by the immediate accomplishment of its aim that the value of honest endeavour is to be tested." And the reader's interest in our work may be quickened if we so far forestall the pages that are to follow as to indicate that not only were Winstanley's earlier theological writings the source whence the early Quakers, or the Children of Light, as they at first called themselves, drew many of their most characteristic tenets and doctrines, but that the fundamental principles which inspired and animated his political writings were in all respects identical with those that during the past quarter of a century have been so honourably a.s.sociated with the name of Henry George. We are not here called upon to p.r.o.nounce judgement on these principles; but in pa.s.sing we shall endeavour to point out how far the demands and doctrines of the Land Reformers of the Seventeenth Century, as revealed in Winstanley's writings, coincide with those of their successors in the Twentieth Century. In all cases we shall, as far as possible, let Gerrard Winstanley speak for himself.

FOOTNOTES:

[34:1] _Clarke Papers_, vol. ii. p. 209. Bulstrode Whitelocke, then already a member of the Council of State, in his _Memorial of English Affairs_ (p. 396), under date April 17th, 1649, has an entry referring to and summarising this letter.

[34:2] That is to say, a week last Sunday, or last Sunday week.

[35:1] _Loc. cit._ vol. ii. p. 210.

[36:1] _Loc. cit._ vol. ii. pp. 211-212.

[37:1] P. 397.

[38:1] A glance at the t.i.tles of John Hare's well-known pamphlets, the work of a learned, prosaic, diffuse, moderate, and loyal writer, suffices to show how widespread this jealousy and impatience of what he terms Normanism was. One runs as follows:--"_St. Edwards Ghost or Anti Normanism_: Being a pathetical Complaint and Motion, in the behalf of our English Nation, against the grand yet neglected grievance Normanism." Another, {3}"_Englands Proper and Only Way to an Establishment in Honor, Freedom, Peace and Happiness_: Or the Norman Yoke once more uncased, and the Necessity, Justice, and Present Seasonableness of breaking it in pieces demonstrated, in Eight most plain and true Propositions, with their proofs." The pamphlets are interesting only as showing the prevalence of the idea that the dishonour of the English Nation, and the slavery and impoverishment of the ma.s.ses of the English people, were due to Norman Laws and inst.i.tutions introduced by William the Conqueror.

[39:1] British Museum, Press Mark, E. 530.

CHAPTER V

GERRARD WINSTANLEY

"Your word-divinity darkens knowledge. You talk of a body of Divinity, and of Anatomysing Divinity. O fine language! But when it comes to trial, it is but a husk without the kernel, words without life. The Spirit is in the hearts of the people whom you despise and tread under foot."--WINSTANLEY, _The New Law of Righteousness (1649)_.

Gerrard Winstanley, whose strange entry on the stately stage of English History we have recorded in the previous chapter, was born at Wigan in the County of Lancashire, on October 10th, 1609.[41:1] He was, therefore, some ten years younger than his great contemporary Oliver Cromwell (born 1599), one year the junior of the immortal Milton (born 1608), and some fifteen years older than George Fox (born 1624). Of his earlier years we know nothing; but, to judge from many pa.s.sages in his writings, he appears to have received a good middle-cla.s.s education, and to have been brought up a dutiful follower of the Church as by law established. When arrived at man's estate, he settled as a small trader in London, of which City he probably became a freeman; for in a pamphlet addressed to the City of London,[41:2] he claims to be "one of thy sons by freedom." He then goes on to relate how, "by thy cheating sons in the thieving art of buying and selling, and by the burdens of and for the soldiery in the beginning of the war," he "had been beaten out of both estate and trade," and had been forced "to accept of the good-will of friends, crediting of me, to live a country life."

Those who have pa.s.sed through a similar experience, who have been driven from the comparatively comfortable middle-cla.s.s life to the precarious and comfortless existence of the vast majority of the toiling ma.s.ses, will readily realise that under such circ.u.mstances Winstanley's mind would naturally be full of questionings such as might not have forced themselves on his attention under more prosperous conditions. What was the aim and object of that incessant struggle out of which he had just emerged "beaten out of both estate and trade"? What made it necessary?

who really benefited by it? For whose benefit was the war being waged, the burden of which had fallen so heavily upon him? How was it going to advantage the ma.s.ses of the people? Was it ever intended that it should benefit them? was it possible that it should do so? Could any such struggle be a means of delivering the great ma.s.ses of the people, "the younger brothers," out of the straits of poverty, with its attendant train of ignorance, misery, vice, and crime, to which they had hitherto been ruthlessly and hopelessly condemned? Was it, in truth, inevitable, was it inherent in the very nature of things, was it G.o.d's intention that a privileged few, "the elder brothers," should be lords and masters, and that the great majority of mankind should for ever remain the mere hewers of wood and drawers of water, the slaves and servants of an insignificant minority of their fellow-creatures? Were these things due to natural causes, to the inscrutable workings of a Divine Providence; or were they but the necessary though unforeseen fruits of mere man-made laws and inst.i.tutions the existing generation had inherited from a by-gone and ignorant past? Such were the questions which vaguely and indistinctly may have pa.s.sed, and, as we shall see, did pa.s.s, through the active, original, philosophic and deeply religious mind of Winstanley in the quiet solitude of his country life.

His life had drifted from its accustomed moorings; his troubles were greater than he could bear; and when he turned to Religion for guidance and consolation, alas! he found that the teachings he had imbibed in his childhood, and never questioned in his manhood, now failed him in his hour of need. Foiled, though not beaten, he turned to the pages of the Holy Scriptures themselves for guidance and information, for consolation and revelation. In these inspired writings, if anywhere, there surely must be found some expression, some revelation, of G.o.d's intentions towards His children, some indication of His holy will, which, if men would wholly follow, would lead them down the path of righteousness to happiness and peace. And it was from these pages that Winstanley derived those religious and political convictions that find such eloquent and forcible expression in his writings, and which he made such heroic efforts to proclaim by word and deed to his fellow-men.

What seems to us to give a special charm to the study of Winstanley's writings is that they reveal the gradual development of his acute and powerful mind. His earlier pamphlets betray the influence of the mysticism so prevalent in his days; his last utterance on theological questions, as we shall see, might have been penned by an advanced thinker of the present day, imbued with modern scientific views, and recognising the necessary relation and co-ordination of all the physical and psychical phenomena of the universe, "of the several bodies of the stars and planets in the heavens above, and the several bodies of the earth below, as plants, gra.s.s, fishes, beasts, birds, and mankind."

As to how far Winstanley owes the views that find expression in his earlier pamphlets--which deal exclusively with cosmological or theological speculations--to others, or to the writings of earlier mystics, we have no means of knowing.[43:1] From them we gather, however, that he had learned or had come to regard the whole Biblical narrative as an allegory, of which he gives a most poetical interpretation. The Creation is mankind. The Garden of Eden is the mind of man, which he describes as originally filled with herbs and pleasant plants, "as love, joy, peace, humility, delight, and purity of life."

The serpent he holds to be self-love, the forbidden fruit to be "selfishness," following the promptings of which "the whole garden becomes a stinking dunghill of weeds, and brings forth nothing but pride, envy, discontent, disobedience, and the whole actings of the spirit and power of darkness." And he argues that--"If the creature should be honored in this condition, then G.o.d would be dishonored, because his command would be broken.... And if the creature were utterly lost ... then likewise G.o.d would suffer dishonor, because his work would be spoiled." Hence he maintains that "the curse that was declared to Adam was temporary," and that eventually the whole creation, the whole of mankind, shall be saved, and "the work of G.o.d shall be restored from this lost, dead, weedy and enslaved condition."[44:1]

Winstanley, however, regarded the word "G.o.d" as too vague satisfactorily to denote the supreme spiritual power which pervades, upholds and governs the whole universe. He had, he tells us, "been held in darkness by that word, as I see many people are."[44:2] And so that neither he nor others should "rest longer upon words without knowledge, but hereafter may look upon that spiritual power, and know what it is that rules them, which doth rule in and over all," he felt himself impelled to conceive of and to refer to this spiritual power, which is G.o.d, as "Reason." He contends that "though men may esteem the word Reason to be too mean a name to set forth the Father by, yet it is the highest name that can be given to Him. For it is Reason that made all things; and it is Reason that governs the whole Creation. If flesh were but subject thereunto, that is, to the Spirit of Reason within itself, it would never act unrighteously.... For this Spirit of Reason is not without a man, but within every man; hence he need not run after others to tell him or to teach him; for this Spirit is his maker, he dwells in him, and if the flesh were subject thereunto, he would daily find teaching therefrom, though he dwelt alone and saw the face of no other man."[45:1] "This is the Spirit, or Father, which as he made the Globe and every creature, so he dwells in every creature, but supremely in man. He it is by whom everyone lives, and moves, and hath his being.

Perfect man is the eye and face that sees and declares the Father: and he is perfect when he is taken up in the Spirit and lives in the light of Reason."[45:1] "Reason is that living Power of Light that is in all things. It is the salt that savours all things. It is the fire that burns up dross, and so restores what is corrupted, and preserves what is pure. He is the Lord our Righteousness. It lies in the bottom of love, of justice, of wisdom: for if the Spirit Reason did not uphold and moderate these, they would be madness; nay, they could not be called by their names, for Reason guides them in order and leads them to their right end, which is not to preserve a part, but the whole Creation."[45:2]

The reason of man, Winstanley regarded but as an emanation of the Divine Spirit Reason, as the one true Inward Light, which if men would only and wholly follow would lead them to live in peace and harmony, and in accordance with the Divine Spirit. "Man's reasoning," he says,[45:2] "is a creature which flows from that Spirit to this end, to draw up man into himself. It is but a candle lighted by that soul, and this light, shining through flesh, is darkened by the imagination of the flesh. So that many times men act contrary to reason, though they think they act according to Reason.... The Spirit Reason, which I call G.o.d, the Maker and Ruler of all things, is that spiritual power that guides all men's reasoning in right order, and to a right end ... and knite every creature together into a oneness, making every creature to be an upholder of his fellows; and so everyone is an a.s.sistant to preserve the whole. And the nearer man's reasoning comes to this, the more spiritual they are; the further off they be, the more selfish and fleshy they be."

Winstanley took care to point out,[46:1] however, that "this word Reason is not the alone name of this spiritual power; but everyone may give him a name according to that spiritual power that they feel and see rules in them, carrying them forth in actions to preserve their fellow-creatures as well as themselves. Therefore some may call him King of Righteousness, or Prince of Peace; some may call him Love, and the like.

But I can and I do call him Reason, because I see him to be that living, powerful light that is in righteousness, making righteousness to be righteousness, or justice to be justice, or love to be love. For without this moderator and ruler they would be madness; nay, the self-willedness of the flesh, and not what we call them."[46:1]

But, he warns his readers,[46:2] "truly let me tell you, that you cannot say the Spirit, Reason, is your G.o.d, till you see and feel by experience that the Spirit doth govern your flesh. For if Envy be the Lord that rules your flesh, if Pride and Covetousness rule your flesh, then is Envy, Covetousness, or Pride your G.o.d. If you fear man so greatly that you dare not do righteously for fear of angering men, then slavish fear is your G.o.d. If rash anger govern your flesh, then is anger your G.o.d.

Therefore deceive not yourselves, but let Reason work within you; and examine and see what your flesh is subject to. For whatever doth govern in you, that is your G.o.d."

Winstanley's characteristic theological doctrines were, then, the realisation of the function and importance of the Inward Light, of Reason, which he regarded as the necessary and all-sufficient guide for human conduct; his keen appreciation of silence as the necessary precursor of all real prayer, if not as in itself a form of worship; and his intense conviction of the ultimate salvation of the whole of mankind. To Winstanley, Reason is the Ruling Spirit of the whole Creation, is G.o.d, the Spirit of Righteousness, who is ever seated within the hearts of men combating the l.u.s.ts of the flesh, the promptings of the brute animal nature of mankind. Disobedient man may know him not, because covetous flesh, the promptings of self-love, hath deceived him, and "so he looks abroad for a G.o.d, and so doth imagine or fancy a G.o.d in some particular place of glory beyond the skies; or else, if men do look for a G.o.d within them, yet are they led by the notions of King Flesh, and not of King Spirit."[47:1] Reason, in short, is the spark of the Divine in man, the Spirit of Light that dwells within and may rule the mind and actions of every man. Conscience is but the promptings of Reason, inspiring men to right action, to deal justly and brotherly and to live in peaceful and harmonious a.s.sociation with their fellows.

Self-love, covetousness, the desire of the flesh, is ever the enemy of Reason. And life is but a continuous struggle between these two powers for dominion in the Creation, over the hearts and actions of mankind.

Self-love ruling the hearts of man, is the Adam that causes him to sin, not the crime of the man Adam who lived so many thousand years ago. And similarly it is the ruling of the spirit of Jesus Christ, the Inward Light, within the hearts of man, not the sufferings of a man Christ Jesus, which is the essential condition of individual and social salvation. "This is the lightning that shall spread from East to West.

This is the Kingdom of Heaven within you, dwelling and ruling in your flesh. Therefore learn to know Jesus Christ as the Father knows him; that is, not after the flesh; but know that the Spirit within the flesh is that mighty man Christ Jesus. He within governs the flesh; he within laid down the flesh, when he was said to die; he within is to arise, not at a distance from man, but he will rise up in men, and manifest himself to be the light and life of every man and woman that is saved by him."[47:2] By following the desires of the flesh, the promptings of selfish covetousness, we can never gain true happiness, which is Heaven, for the voice of Reason within us, of our conscience, or the Inward Light illumining the inner darkness, will upbraid{4} us and cast us into h.e.l.l within us. True happiness, complete satisfaction, which is Heaven, can only be gained by following the dictates of Reason, by following the promptings of the Inward Light. Thus to Winstanley, as to Tolstoy, the Kingdom of Heaven, as well as the kingdom of h.e.l.l, is within men's minds, and "there is no other."[48:1] Everything that happens, however, is ordained, or rather permitted, by G.o.d the Father, "the Ruling Spirit of the Whole Creation," for His own ends. He controls the Spirits or Powers we call evil, as well as those we call good: all work in accordance with His commands, to further His ends. In Winstanley's philosophy, unlike that of Luther, there was no room for an independent Devil. Though in our blindness we may attribute our sufferings to such a personage, yet whatever happens to a man is somehow or other for his own good, though in an unregenerate state we may not realise this. All suffering, in truth, does but tend to purify the soul from the l.u.s.t of the flesh, to enable the Inward Light to overcome the inward darkness, to enable Reason to overcome Self-Love, good to overcome evil: and thus to lead men to G.o.d. In the end, in the day of Judgement, the good will triumph, Reason will cast out Covetousness, Universal Love will cast out Self Love, meekness will cast out pride, righteousness will cast out unrighteousness: and all men made perfect by the Inward Light, the Spirit of Christ within them, will rejoice in the knowledge and glory of G.o.d.

It is almost impossible to read Winstanley's earlier theological pamphlets without being struck by the similarity in thought and doctrine with those to-day still held by the Society of Friends, or Quakers, whose original name amongst themselves, be it remembered, was the Children of Light. And it is interesting to note that during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the opponents of the Quakers repeatedly taunted them with being disciples of Winstanley the Leveller.[49:1] Thus the Right Reverend Thomas Coomber, Dean of Durham, in a pamphlet significantly ent.i.tled _Christianity no Enthusiasm: Or the several kinds of inspiration and Revelation pretended to by the Quakers tried and found destructive to Holy Scripture and True Religion_, published in 1678, wrote as follows:

"First for their original, it may seem more difficult to discover, where Sects are not called after their Founder, but after some property, etc., it may be harder to trace them to their head. In 1652 their beginning is supposed, and then abouts they were so called and known. John Whitehead fixes it in the year 1648;[49:2]

and Hubberthorne in 1660 told the King that they were then twelve years standing.[49:3] In that black year to these kingdoms (1648) their pretended light appeared.[50:1] ... But the very draughts and even body of Quakerism are to be found in the several works of Gerrard Winstanley, a zealous Leveller, wherein he tells us of the arising of new times and dispensations, and challengeth Revelation very much for what he writ."

Coomber proceeds to quote from every one of Winstanley's theological pamphlets, and then continues:

"That these are the Quaker principles is well enough known, allowing for some little alterations, as few Sect-Masters but have their doctrines varied by their Proselytes.... Now, considering these opinions, the year, the country[50:2] (as _The Mystery of G.o.d_ is dedicated to his "beloved countrymen of the County of Lancaster"), the printer Giles Calvert, and that several Levellers settled into Quakers, we incline to take them for Winstanley's Disciples and a branch of the Levellers. And what this man writes of--levelling men's estates, of taking in of Commons, that none should have more ground than he was able to till and husband by his labour--proving unpracticable by reason of so many tough old laws which had fixed propriety; yet it is pursued by the Quakers as much as they well can, in thouing everybody, in denying t.i.tles, Civil Respects, and terms of distinction among men, and at first they were for Community."

If Winstanley's writings be really the source whence the early Quakers, the Children of Light, drew their most characteristic tenets and doctrines, as we ourselves do not doubt, then surely his n.o.ble ambition has been satisfied: for through them he has, indeed, influenced the thought of his country, the thought of the whole world, which owes more than we even yet realise to their pure and altruistic teachings.

However, leaving this most interesting question to be decided by our readers, each for himself, we shall now place the chief contents of these writings before them, using as far as possible Winstanley's own words.

FOOTNOTES:

[41:1] Both Gerrard and Winstanley are common names in that part of Lancashire which lies between Wigan and Liverpool. In the Wigan Parish Register there is an entry under the above date--"Gerrard Winstanlie, son of Edward Winstanlie." The first pamphlet he wrote, _The Mystery of G.o.d concerning the whole Creation_, is dedicated "To my beloved countrymen of the County of Lancaster." In his time the term "countrymen" had a more contracted meaning than now, and implied a common nativity of a Shire or Parish: indeed it still has this meaning in some parts of Cheshire.

[41:2] _A Watchword to the City of London._

[43:1] Between the years 1644-1662 the works of the German mystic Jakob Boehme were translated into English. All Winstanley's theological pamphlets were published in the year 1648-1649, to which year the origin of the Quaker doctrines is generally attributed.

[44:1] See _The Mystery of G.o.d concerning the whole Creation, Mankind_.

British Museum, Press Mark, 4377, a. 1. The whole pamphlet consists of some 69 closely printed pages.

[44:2] _Truth lifting up its Head above Scandals._ British Museum, Press Mark, 4372, a.a. 17.

[45:1] _The Saint's Paradise._ British Museum, Press Mark, E. 2137.

[45:2] _Truth lifting up its Head above Scandals._

[46:1] _Truth lifting up its Head above Scandals._

[46:2] _The Saint's Paradise._