Just Curious

Levellers

I've finished reading the assigned readings from the Collection of Leveller writings. It's great fun reading these vulgar, rude, pointed and acerbic broadsheets and tracts written by some of the first liberals in human history (classical liberals that is, since the term "liberal" has been so poisoned in the U.S. that it is more often than not used to denote people I would call "statists.")

In fact, I had a conversation with my friend Kirk Wattles (of Street Corner society) some time last week about these Levellers, and was informed that some of them, after being suppressed by Oliver Cromwell in 1649, joined the Society of Friends in the early 1650s. John Lilburne is the most prominent among them. The tract I read written by him was about how it was in the Parliament, not the King, that the Sovereign People of Britain has invested the imperium over all armed forces in that country. This really is interesting since it addresses the question of who could legitimately decide when the law should end and violence should be employed. It also addresses the question of who could legitimately use violence in times of emergency. The King, or the Commons?

Well the English Civil War provided the answer. Within four years after this tract was written, King Charles the First of Great Britain was defeated and captured by the Parliamentary Army, known as the New Model Army, then under the command of Lord General Sir Thomas Fairfax and Lieutenant General Oliver Cromwell. The latter, after crushing the Royalist insurrections, dismissed the Parliament and imposed military rule over England in 1648. He was later proclaimed Lord Protector of England, Scotland and Ireland in 1653, and ruled the British Isles as a military dictator from 1653 till his death in 1658. The Journal of George Fox recorded two fascinating conversations between him and the Lord Protector. It was reported that after their first conversation, the Lord Protector held Fox's hand, and "with tears with his eyes said, 'Come again to my house; for if thou and I were but an hour of a day together, we should be nearer one to the other,' adding that he wished [Fox] no more ill than he did to his own soul."

Very interesting man indeed.

posted by James Chang @ 10:50 PM