The Levelers: Libertarian Revolutinaries; N. Elliott

185 The Levelers: Libertarian Revolutionaries by Nick Elliott A mong students of intellectual history, . the revolutions in the United States (1776), France (1789), and Russia (1917) attract most interest as being the result and cause of ideas: in America the liberalism of Thomas Paine and the later Federalists, in France the turbulent combination of the liberal ism of Voltaire and Montesquieu with the pop ulism of Rousseau, and in Russia the path breaking implementation of Marxism.' Earlier revolutions in the Netherlands and in England are often passed over. The first English "revolution," following the Civil War of 1641-1646, was a remarkable event for the ideas which led up to it, and which ensued from it. England had been a profoundly individualistic society for centuries before the war. As Alan MacFarlane has shown in The Origins of English Individualism, there was lit tle of the tradition of communal ownership and dependency in social relationships of the sort that prevailed in mainland Europe. 1 This indi vidualism made England particularly hospitable to Reformation ideas, and subsequently to lib eral principles.

The Reformation was a challenge to the monolithic state churches. It also allowed for Mr. Elliott works for the Adam Smith Institute, a free market think tank in London. He is a regular contributor to the journal Economic Affairs, published by the Institute of Economic Affairs. each believer to communicate with God in his own way, and so made the church hierarchy redundant. The fragmentation of English reli gion was aided by the translation and mass pro duction of the Bible, allowing each individual to interpret for himself. Religious radicals, like the Leveler leader John Lilbume, drew upon the stories of Protestant suffering told by John Foxe in his Book of Martyrs. One of the major reasons why civil war erupted was that Charles I and his Archbishop of Canterbury, William Laud, were attempting to impose a uniform high church religion. This policy was inextricably linked to the mainte nance of state hegemony. Laud ordained a weekly reading in every church of the Divine Right of Kings-the doctrine that kingship is directly conferred by God. The Church of En gland had often been used before to control the ideas and behavior of subjects. Those who chal lenged the authority of the church also threat ened the powers of the state. The Earl of Straf ford recognized this when he wrote: ' 'These men do but begin with the Church that they might have free access to the state. ,,2 Early Liberals Against this circumstantial background a group developed known as "The Levelers," an informal alliance of agitators and pamphleteers 186 THE FREEMAN. MAY 1989 who shared the same commitment to liberal principles. The Levelers have been neglected by more recent liberals. Indeed, it has remained a largely unchallenged assumption that they had socialist aspirations.

"Leveler" was a term of abuse, coined by those seeking to exaggerate the threat of their ideas. The only sense in which they were lev elers was that they sought an equality of rights in law; they railed against tipping the scales of justice in favor of those with wealth and status. Yet they explicitly disavowed the charge offa voring the leveling of wealth. They distanced themselves from the "Diggers" or "True Levelers, " who were genuine visionary com munitarians. Against the despotism of the Stuart state the Levelers invoked the concept of natural rights. They drew upon the explication of natural law by Christopher St. Germain in his book Doctor and Student.3 Richard Overton, one of the lead ing Leveler activists, expressed the principle like this: ". . . by natural birth all men are equally and alike borne to like propriety, liberty and freedom.,,4 Natural rights are a current of thought in the liberal tradition: the theory was later expanded by the philosopher John Locke and was the foundation of the Declaration of Independence.

When the Levelers spoke of rights, they as sumed them to reside with individuals. They believed that each man should have freedom limited only by regard for the freedom of oth ers. What went alongside the principle of equal natural rights was the principle of equality in law. In this the Levelers championed the cause of the common man by calling for the law to be applied impartially, without favor to wealth or position. For them, the basis of law was English common law, supplemented by a few statutes which guaranteed individual liberty, such as the Magna Carta and the Petition of Right. Levelers renounced most of the laws made since the Norman invasion, the corruption of the common law tradition being seen as the re sult of the "Norman yoke." Sir Edward Coke's Institutes, the classic contemporary defense of evolutionary common law, was used as a Lev eler handbook. Their approach anticipated the case for evolutionary common law as opposed to statutory law made by later liberals such as David Hume and F. A. Hayek.

It was a principle justified by bitter experi ence. The Leveler leaders suffered many times from arbitrary arrest and imprison~ent, both under the Stuart monarchy and under the post war republic. In a famous trial in 1649, John Lilburne was indicted for high treason.·Lilburne made a strident defense on grounds of principle, and confounded his opponents with procedural delays. He convinced the jury of his innocence and was acquitted. The result was hailed as a great victory; bonfires were lit throughout the capital. Yet, within a year he was tried and convicted by Parliament, acting as judge and jury, and banished to lifelong exile in the Neth erlands. He died under sentence, having spent 12 years of his 42-year life as a prisoner of the state. Lilburne held such a commitment to his legal philosophy that he opposed the trial and execu tion of Charles I-whom Lilburne had enlisted in the Parliamentary army to dethrone. He be lieved that if the King were to be tried at all, then it should be before a common law court and jury, the procedure of justice that should be available to every free-born Englishman.

To the Levelers, all men were born free and equal. It followed that government could be le gitimate only as a contract among free individ uals. Government was justified only as a vol untary combination to provide better protection for property. The cohesion of principles is il lustrated by this statement made by Leveler Maximilian Petty at the Putney debates: "For I judge every man is naturally free; and I judge the reason why the men when they are in so great numbers that every man could not give his voice, was that they who were chosen might preserve property; and therefore men agreed to come into some form of government that they might preserve property. . . .' ,5 Monarchs had obligated the allegiance of subjects by claiming that their authority was granted by God. For the Levelers, government was legitimate only if the consent of those under it was secured. In the context of history their belief in representative government was notably advanced; the idea was to become the basis of Western democracies.

The Response to Despotism It is an accident of history that the Reforma tion movement gave rise to ideas which re assessed the relationship of the individual to the state. Luther was shocked when his denounce ment of church corruption led to uprisings in Germany, and he called for the rebellion to be crushed without mercy. Calvin was less conser vative in accepting the consequences of his doc trinal challenge, but the organization of society which the Calvinists established in Geneva was very closed and restrictive. Neither the state church, nor the Lutherans and Calvinists wanted pluralism in religion, but the unex pected outcome of their conflict was that overall compliance was less easy to enforce. It was the same with religious toleration in England. Parliament had rebelled against the King not because they objected to uniformity of religion, but because they disliked his own pref erence for a High Church, and Laud's inclina tion towards Arminianism. During and after the war neither side held the authority to enforce a doctrine. The result, which neither Parliament nor King sought, was de facto toleration.

Many varieties of faith were being practiced throughout the country. The Levelers them selves differed in religion-Lilburne was a mainstream Puritan until his conversion to Quakerism in later years. William Walwyn was an antinomian, while John Wildman appears to have inclined towards skepticism. The break down of conformity in religion made the law an anachronism, and made law enforcement an ex ercise in futility. The whole basis of Leveler politics was orig inal in that the foundation wasn't religious doc trine. What they sought was a secular republic, without religious direction from the state. In common with later liberals, they called for the abolition of tithes-the feudal fee charged to pay for the state church. They argued for com plete religious toleration-a position that was very radical for the time. Those in government, before and after the Civil War, felt alternative doctrines to be a threat. Tight controls were maintained over the means of communicating new ideas, by vesting the sole right to print and publish with agents of the state. Under Charles I all printing and pubTHE LEVELERS 187 lication were controlled by the Stationers Com pany, which held a legal monopoly.