“Letters of great complaints of the taxes in Lancashire:  and that the meaner sort threaten to leave their habitations, and their wives and children to be maintained by the Gentry; that they can no longer bear the oppression, to have the bread taken out of the mouths of their wives and children by taxes; and that if an army of the Turks came to relieve them, they will join them.”

Under such circumstances we cannot be surprised that Winstanley’s revolutionary, though to our mind eternally true, doctrines, upholding the equal claim of all to the use of the land, proclaimed as they were with all the eloquence, zeal and fire of his noble spirit, should have awakened an echo in the hearts of the more thoughtful, as well as of the more necessitous, of his fellow-citizens.  But all in vain.  In his time, as in our time, the Inward Light could not overcome the Outward Darkness, nor Universal Love, which is Justice and Righteousness, overcome Self Love, which is Covetousness.  Then, as now, the Spirit of Equity, of Reason and of Love was impotent when opposed by the power of the Sword, of Force.  And yet, and yet—­more especially in view of the thought to-day stirring advanced political circles in every constitutionally governed country in the world—­who dare maintain that Winstanley lived in vain!

About a fortnight after the publication of his Appeal to all Englishmen, Winstanley issued yet another pamphlet, of which, as it contains nothing save what he had already better expressed in his other writings, we need only quote the suggestive title-page, with which this chapter may fittingly close:  it reads as follows: 

“AN HUMBLE REQUEST TO THE MINISTERS OF BOTH UNIVERSITIES, AND TO
ALL LAWYERS OF EVERY INNS-A-COURT:[161:1] to consider of the
Scriptures and Points of Law herein mentioned, and to give a
rational and Christian answer, whereby the difference may be
composed in peace, between the Poor Men in England who have
begun to dig, plow and build upon the Common Land, claiming it
their own by right of Creation,

AND

The Lords of Manors that trouble them, who have no other claimings
to Commons than from the King’s will, or from the Power of the
Conquest,

AND

If neither Minister nor Lawyer will undertake a Reconciliation in
this case.  Then we appeal to the Stone, Timber and Dust of the
Earth you tread upon, to hold forth the light of this business,
questioning not but that Power that dwells everywhere will
cause Light to spring out of Darkness, and Freedom out of
Bondage.”

FOOTNOTES: 

[146:1] King’s Pamphlets.  British Museum, Press Mark, E. 1365.

[148:1] King’s Pamphlets.  British Museum, Press Mark, E. 534.  We have to thank the late Rev. Thomas Hancock, of Harrow on the Hill, for this reference.  Mr. Hancock’s profound knowledge of the Commonwealth times was well known to every student of the period, at whose disposal he gladly placed the wonderful store of information he had collected.  We would here acknowledge our indebtedness to him for this and other information.