of Winstanley’s book had been momentous ones in this great man’s career.  Owing to Lord Fairfax’s reluctance to invade Scotland, the command of the Commonwealth’s Army had devolved on him:  and right good use had the hero of Naseby made of his opportunities.  In September 1651 he won the decisive battle of Dunbar; and in the same month of the following year he won the even more decisive battle of Worcester, which, to use Gardiner’s words, manifested to the world that England refused “to be ruled by a king who came in as an invader."[163:1] In the following November, when Winstanley was sitting down to write his Dedicatory Epistle, Cromwell was already back in his seat in Parliament, endeavouring “to use the patriotic fervour called out by the invasion to settle the Commonwealth on a broader basis,” and agitating for “a time to be fixed for the dissolution of the existing Parliament and for the calling of a new one."[163:2] And in February 1652, when the book was published, political and religious excitement in England was probably at the greatest height to which it ever attained even in the stirring days of the Commonwealth, and Cromwell may be regarded as standing at the dividing line of his wonderful career.

The title-page of the book reads as follows: 

“THE LAW OF FREEDOM IN A PLATFORM:[164:1]

OR

TRUE MAGISTRACY RESTORED.

Humbly presented to Oliver Cromwel, General of the Commonwealth’s
Army in England, Scotland and Ireland.  And to all English-men
my Bretheren, whether in Church Fellowship or not in Church
Fellowship,[164:2] both sorts walking as they conceive
according to the order of the Gospel:  and from them to all the
Nations of the World.

Wherein is declared, What is Kingly Government, and What is
Commonwealth’s Government.

BY GERRARD WINSTANLEY.

In thee, O England, is the Law arising up to shine,
If thou receive and practice it, the Crown it will be thine. 
If thou reject, and still remain a froward Son to be,
Another Land will it receive, and take the Crown from thee.

REV. 11-15.  DAN. 7. 27.

LONDON.

Printed for the Author, and are to be sold by Giles Calvert at the
Black Spred-Eagle at the West end of Pauls.”

As already mentioned, it opens with a Dedicatory Letter—­

“To His Excellency OLIVER CROMWEL, General of the Commonwealth’s
Army in England, Scotland and Ireland”—­

which commences as follows: 

“SIR,—­God hath honored you with the highest honor of any man since Moses’ time, to be the head of a People who have cast out an oppressing Pharaoh.  For when the Norman Power had conquered our forefathers, he took the free use of our English Ground from them, and made them his servants.  And God hath made you a successful instrument to cast out that Conqueror, and to recover our Land and Liberties again, by your Victories, out of that Norman hand.”

Winstanley then indicates Cromwell’s duty, as well as the alternative ways open to him, in the following words: