A Virginian's view of the Levellers

 

A Virginian's view of the Levellers

To John Winthrop
"..... The Adiutators (2 chosen out of every company to assist in consultation at the head quarters) are baptizd levellers: proiecting to bringe allmost a parity upon all persons in the kingdome, none to excede 400 lbs. per annum: noe freman, to be without 10 lbs. yearly rents, etc. This designe (if it be not a chimaera, formd & forgd only in malignant braines, whose well knowne fruitfullnes in furnishing the world with such Minervas, makes me still suspect, though I see it mentioned & called the Levellers doctrine by the Kinge himselfe, in his letter left upon the table when he escaped from the army, & since published to the kingdome) this proiect I say found many, even innumerable approvers & abettors, I mean all those who had little or nothing to loose or liue on, none but such exempt from painefull & pannicke fears. Bookes entitled Appeales to the people are put forth by Lilburne & others, informing them that now as well the Parliament, (as formerly the Kinge), haue lost all their authority by male administration, turning all the arguments upon the 2 Houses, whereby they themselues haue battered & scourged the Royall usurpations & errours, perswading the people, that all power & soveraignty is devolud & come back to its first subiect, viz. themselues, & instructing them for a new mint & modell of government. The authors of these bookes were notably favoured & protected, & some of them forcibly freed out of Newgate; the Adiutators printing an accusation against Cromwell, intended to remoue both him & their Generall, & to take Lilburne into his roome; I mean for their Generall; (those are all said to be Anabaptists or Seekers, or I know not what); to prevent this the head quarters were broken up at Putney, & all the Adiutators scattered by the Generall & his seconds, immediately before the last ships coming away; part of this newes (such as it is) I had from the mouth of an old Jesuite, who wanted neither information to know the truth, nor malice to misreport & misrepresent it. ......
Thom: Harrison"
"Mr. Harrison from Nanseman [in Virginia]. 10 (2)48: pr.Jos:Grafton"

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Lawrence Stone and the historiography of the 'gentry controversy'

Simon Healy has died

Transcribing Walter Yonge's notes on proceedings in the House of Commons between 1642 and 1645