[29:1] This was the point of view taken at the time by the Levellers, the most active and progressive politicians of the period.  In a “Humble Petition of thousands of well affected people inhabiting the City of London,” presented September 11th, 1648, the petitioners address the House of Commons as “the supreme authority of England,” and desire it so to consider itself.  They complain that the Commons have declared their intention not to alter the ancient government of King, Lords and Commons, “not once mentioning, in case of difference, which of them is supreme, but leaving that point, which was the chiefest cause of all our public differences, disturbances, wars, and miseries, as uncertain as ever.”  See Clarke Papers, vol. ii. p. 76.

[29:2] See “The Agreement of the People for a firm and present peace,” as presented to the Council of the Army, October 28th, 1647.  Reprinted at the end of the third volume of Gardiner’s History of the Civil War.

[29:3] History of the Civil War, vol. ii. p. 67.

[30:1] History of the Civil War, vol. iv. pp. 327-328.

[31:1] History of the Civil War, vol. iii. p. 95.

[31:2] See Appendix B.

[32:1] “The Agreement of the People for a firm and present peace.”  (Italics are ours.)

[33:1] See Carlyle’s Cromwell’s Letters and Speeches, part ii. p. 135, and part x. p. 255.

[33:2] See Gardiner’s History of the Civil War, vol. iv. pp. 120-121.

[33:3] Cromwell seems early to have foreseen and guarded against such a contingency.  See Gardiner, ibid. vol. ii. p. 25.

CHAPTER IV

THE DIGGERS

“The way to cast out Kingly Power is not to cast it out by the Sword; for this doth but set him in more power, and removes him from a weaker to a stronger hand.  The only way to cast him out is for the people to leave him to himself, to forsake fighting and all oppression, and to live in love one towards another.  The Power of Love is the True Saviour.”—­WINSTANLEY, A New Year’s Gift for the Parliament and Army.

The Council of State which, on February 13th, 1649, within a month of the execution of the King, had been appointed to administer the public affairs of England, had scarcely settled down to their work when they received the following information of the mysterious doings of “a disorderly and tumultuous sort of people” very near to their doors:[34:1]

     “INFORMATION OF HENRY SANDERS OF WALTON UPON THAMES.