Winstanley and the Law of Freedom

Gerrard Winstanley & The Diggers and all that!

Gerrard says: JUST DIG IT!

The Law of Freedom – 1649

During the century and half which separate Thomas More’s Utopia from Winstanley’s Law of Freedom, the conditions of the English labourer had steadily worsened. Though commerce and industry were expanding, the seventeenth century was, in the words of Thorold Rogers, ” a period of excessive misery among the mass of the people and the tenants, a time in which a few might have become rich, while the many were crushed down into hopeless and almost permanent indigence.” The unemployment, homelessness and vagrancy brought about by the enclosure of the lands was continually increasing, copyhold tenants were being deprived of the strips of land they cultivated in the open fields and the landless labourers of their right to pasture their beasts and cut firewood on the commons.

In spite of these measures vagrancy and petty theft increased for, as Thomas More had said,

” when the stomachs of those that are turned out of doors, grow keen, they rob no less keenly; and what else can they do? ” They could also revolt, and they did. Fences and hedges which enclosed the once common fields were levelled and peasants’ insurrections followed one another at short intervals. Movements also came into existence which sought a remedy to the misery of the people through political action. With the fall of the Monarchy and the rise of the Independents there was a hope that radical reforms would take place, but these hopes were short lived. Discontent spread to the army and mutinies had to be crushed by wholesale cashiering. Even among the Levellers who had advocated constitutional political reforms, many began to lose faith in the Long Parliament, dominated by the landlords, who did little to relieve the increased poverty brought about by the Civil War and showed no concern for the families of those who had been maimed or killed serving in their own army. The “left wing” of the Levellers realised that a solution to the economic situation could only be found by improving the conditions of the peasantry, and they advocated the restoration of all common lands to the landless labourers and the abolition of “base tenures.”

Towards 1648 a movement sprang up, of the ” true levellers ” or “Diggers,” which went beyond the demands of even the most extreme of the Levellers. They saw that nothing, short of direct action, would give back to the peasants the lands they had lost, and eventually they even challenged the right of a few to private property in the land. This involved a complete change in the structure of society for, as Gerrard Winstanley, who became the leader and theoretician of the Diggers’ Movement, expressed it, it was not enough to ” remove the Conqueror’s power out of the king’s hand into other men’s, maintaining the old laws still.”

By the beginning of 1649 the ” Conqueror’s power ” had been removed out of the King’s hands, the King had been executed, the House of Commons had been purged of its ” malignant members” and the Councils of State had been appointed to administer the public affairs of England. But the Diggers took it upon themselves to remove the ” old Laws.” On the 16th of April, 1649, the Council of State was informed that a ” disorderly and tumultuous sort of people ” led by ” one Everard, once of` the army but was cashiered,” had begun to dig on St George’s Hill in Surrey ” and sowed the ground with parsnips, carrots and beans.” The Council of State was so alarmed by the activities of the Diggers, though they only numbered twenty or thirty, that they instructed Lord Fairfax, the Lord General of the armed forces of the Commonwealth, to send some ” force of horse. . . with orders to disperse the people so met, and to prevent the like for the future ” and, so as almost to excuse themselves for their fears, they added ” although the pretence of their being there may seem very ridiculous, yet that conflux of people may be a beginning to whence things of a greater and more dangerous consequence may grow, to the disturbance of the peace and quiet of the Commonwealth. ”

Thus at a momentous time in history the tiny Digger Movement occupied the attention of the Council of State and of the Lord General of the Armed Forces of the Commonwealth. Had they known the reasons which prompted the Diggers to occupy St George’s Hill their fears would have been still greater. These reasons had been set down by Gerrard Winstanley before they began their activities:

The work we are going about is this, To dig up George’s Hill and the waste grounds thereabouts, and sow corn, and to eat our bread together by the sweat of our brows.
And the first reason is this, that we may work in righteousness, and lay the foundation of making the earth a common treasury for all, both rich and poor, that everyone that is born in the land may be fed by the earth his mother that brought him forth, according to the reason that rules in the creation.

Of Gerrard Winstanley, who emerges at that time as one of the leaders of the movement, little is known until 1648 when he published four pamphlets expressing some daring theological views and for which he was accused, by some orthodox ministers of the Church, of denying God, the Scriptures and the Ordinances of God. These pamphlets were probably written before he came in contact with William Everard and the ” true Levellers,” for they do not reveal an interest in social questions, but Winstanley had already had cause to reflect on the injustices of society. He had been a small trader and a freeman of the City of London but, like so many others, he had been ruined by the Civil War. As he said later, in a letter addressed to the City of London, ” I had an estate in thee. . . by thy cheating sons in the thieving art of buying and selling, and by the burdens of and for the soldiery in the beginning of the war, I was beaten out of both estate and trade, and forced to accept the good-will of friends, crediting of me, to live a country life.”

In January, 1649, he published The New Law of Righteousness, which has been described by H. N. Brailsford ” as the most characteristic of his books…which is in reality a Communist Manifesto written in the dialect of its day” and in which, as George Woodcock has pointed out, ” he revealed an understanding of social problems in advance of any English social thinker before Godwin.” He fiercely denounced the private ownership of the land:

And let all men say what they will, so long as such are rulers as call the land theirs, upholding this particular propriety of mine and thine, the common people shall never have their liberty, nor the land be ever freed from troubles, oppressions, and complainings, by reason whereof the Creator of all things is continually provoked. . .

The man of the flesh judges it a righteous thing that some men who are cloathed with the objects of the earth, and so called rich men, whether it be got by right or wrong, should be magistrates to rule over the poor; and that the poor should be servants, nay, rather slaves, to the rich. But the spiritual man, which is Christ, doth judge according to the light of equity and reason, that all mankind ought to have a quiet subsistence and freedom to live upon earth; and that there should be no bondman nor beggar in all his holy mountain.

And he advocated the end of the exploitation of man by man:

No man shall have any more land than he can labor himself or have others to labor with him in love, working together, and eating bread together, as one of the tribes or families of Israel neither giving nor taking hire.

Though his doctrines were revolutionary Winstanley did not incite people to violence or to the expropriation of the rich. He wanted the poor to seize the waste lands and cultivate them in common: “And let the common people that say the earth is ours, not mine, let them labor together, and eat bread together upon the commons, mountains and hills.”

During the two years which followed, the Diggers of St George’s Hill were persecuted by the Lords, the soldiery and the freeholders. They were beaten up, their spades were taken away, their houses pulled down, their corn was destroyed and their carts torn to pieces. Some of them were arrested and prosecuted and, as they could not pay the heavy fine imposed upon them, their meagre possessions were taken away. After one year only a few Diggers were left, who, says Winstanley, ” have made little hutches to lie in, like calf-cribs.. .and have planted divers acres of wheat and rye,. . . and nothing shall make them slack but want of food, which is not much now, they being all poor people, and having suffered so much in one expense or other since they began.”

In spite of their courage and perseverance the Diggers were defeated. Winstanley had done all in his power to defend them; in several forceful pamphlets he had shown the justice of their claims and their peaceful intentins and hills.”

During the two years which followed, the Diggers of St George’s Hill were persecuted by the Lords, the soldiery and the freeholders. They were beaten up, their spades were taken away, their houses pulled down, their corn was destroyeons and had appealed to the Army, to Parliament, and to the City of London, that the persecutions should cease.

It was after the adventure of St George’s Hill had failed to gain any support and to spread, as the pioneers had hoped, into a mass movement, that Winstanley published in 1652, The Law of Freedom , where he set forth the plan for an ideal commonwealth. It was written less than four years after the publication of his first pamphlet and during this short time his religious and political ideas had undergone a swift development; they had passed from a religious mysticism to a kind of rational atheism, from agrarian reformism to integral collectivism. Winstanley was also beginning to lose faith in the methods by which he and hpared to give up their lands. Their resistance was one of non-violence and they never employed force to defend themselves against the soldiers and the rich tenant farmers who attacked them.

The failure of the experiment at St George’s Hill seems to have led Winstanley to the belief that as long as the army was against the people it would be impossible for them to seize and work the land as free men. It was perhaps for this reason that the Law of Freedom opens with an epistle addressed to Cromwell, who was at the time Commander in Chief of the Army, and who, more than anybody else, would have had the power to carry out far-reaching reforms. From the contents and tone of the letter, however, it is clear that Winstanley had little hope that Cromwell would carry out the programme set forth in his book and that he merely told him what he should do to be in a better position to criticise what he would do. He would not have addressed Cromwell in this way if he had seen in him a future liberator and law-giver:

That which is yet waiting on your part to be done is this, to see the oppressor’s power to be cast out with his person; and to see that the free possession of the land and liberties be put into the hands of the oppressed commoners of England. . .

And now you have the power of the land in your hand, you must do one of these two things. First, either set the land free to the oppressed commoners, who assisted you, and paid the Army their wages; and then you will fulfil the Scriptures and your own engagements, and so take possession of your deserved honour.

Or secondly, you must only remove the Conqueror’s power out of the King’s hand into other men’s, maintaining the old laws still;

Cromwell would carry out the programme set forth in his book and that he merely told him what he should do to be in a better position to criticise what he would do. He would not have addressed Cromwell in this way if he had seen in him a future luld be transformed through the work of one man, and he realised that a revolution from the top would be useless if man’s mental and moral outlook remained the same. But he was firmly convinced that when Christ or the ” spreading of light ” would penetrate people’s minds they would cease to covet and oppress and a new society would come into being.”

For all his biblical quotations and biblical language Winstanley rejected all the foundations of orthodox religion. He did not believe in a personal God, and went as far as identifying God with Reason and once took the resolution, (which he did not keep) ” to use the word Reason instead of the word God ” in his writings. He anticipated the conception of a ” socialist Christ ” by declaring that he was ” the true and faithful Leveller” but he did not imply by it that he was an historical figure but ” the spreading power of light.”

Winstanley abolishes the private ownership of the means of production, but on the grounds that ” true Freedom ” cannot exist as long as men do not have economic freedom and, as he considers the land as the main source of wealth, he declares: ” True commonwealth’s freedom lies in the free enjoyment of the earth,” and again, ” A man had better to have no body than to have no food for it. Therefore this restraining of the earth from brethren by brethren is oppression and bondage; but the free enjoyment thereof is true freedom.” From the freedom to enjoy the fruits of the earth derives also the freedom of the mind, for, says Winstanley, ” I am assured that if it be rightly searched into, the inward bondages of the mind, as covetousness, pride, hypocrisy, envy, sorrow, fears, desperation and madness, are all occasioned by the outward bondage that one sort of people lay upon another.”

Before defining the government of a true Commonwealth Winstanley denounces the kingly government based on property and like Proudhon he believes that ” property is theft “:

Kingly government governs the earth by that cheating art of buying and selling, and thereby becomes a man of contention his hand is against every man, and every man’s hand against him. And take this government at the best, it is a diseased government and the very City Babylon, full of confusion, and if it had not a club law to support it there would be no order in it, because it is the covetous and proud will of a conqueror, enslaving the conquered people.

This kingly government is he who beats pruning hooks and ploughs into spears, guns, swords, and instruments of war; that he might take his younger brother’s creational birth-right from him, calling the earth his, and not his brother’s, unless his brother will hire the earth of him; so that he may live idle and at ease by his brother’s labours.

Indeed this government may well be called the government of highwaymen, who hath stolen the earth from the younger brethren by force, and holds it from them by iorce. He sheds blood not to free the people from oppression, but that he may be king and ruler over an oppressed people….

Commonwealth’s government governs the earth without buying and selling and thereby becomes a man of peace, and the restorer of ancient peace and freedom. He makes provision for the oppressed, the weak and the simple, as well as for the rich, the wise and the strong. He beats swords and spears into pruning hooks and ploughs. He makes both elder and younger brother free-men in the earth. Micah, iv, 3, 4, Isaiah, xxxiii, I and Ixv, 17-25.

If once Commonwealth’s government be set upon the throne then no tyranny or oppression can look him in the face and live.

For when oppression lies upon brethren by brethren, that is no Commonwealth’s government, but the kingly government still; and the mystery of iniquity hath taken that peace-maker’s name to be a cloak to hide his covetousness, pride, and oppression under.

A Commonwealth government cannot be the work of some lawgiver or saviour: ” This government depends not upon the will of any particular man, or men . . . the great lawgiver in the Commonwealth government is the spirit of universal righteousness dwelling in mankind, now rising up to teach everyone to do to another as he would have another do to him, and is no respecter of persons, and this spirit hath been killed by the pharisaical spirit of self-love, and been buried in the dunghill of their enmity for many years past.”

The laws of the true commonwealth spring from ” common preservation,” or what Kropotkin would call ” mutual aid,” which is ” a principle in every one to seek the good of others as himself “:

This is the root of the tree magistracy, and the law of righteousness and peace; and all particular laws found out by experience, necessary to be practised for common preservation, are the boughs and branches of that tree. And because, among the variety of mankind, ignorance may grow up, therefore this original law is written in the heart of every man, to be his guide or leader. So that if an officer be blinded by covetousness and pride, and that ignorance rule in him yet an inferior man may tell him where he goes astray; for common preservation and peace is the foundation rule of all government.

The task of the magistrates of the true Commonwealth is ” to maintain the common law, which is the root of right government, and preservation and peace to everyone; and to cast out all self-ended principles and interests, which is tyranny and oppression, and which breaks common peace.”

In The New Law of Righteousness Winstanley had advocated a society where there would be no need for lawyers or magistrates, but in his imaginary commonwealth the administration is to be carried out by elected officers. His belief that ” everyone that gets an authority into his hands tyrannises over others ” did not altogether abandon him, however, and he took great precautions to ensure that this would not happen. All officers of the commonwealth must enjoy the confidence of the people and be freely elected. The first link in the magistracy is to be the father who will rule over his family, and Winstanley argues (not very convincingly) that he has been elected by his children ” because the necessity of the young children chose him by a joint consent, and not otherwise.” The other links in the chain are to be the officers elected by the parish, county, shire or land.

Winstanley, being convinced that ” power corrupts,” particularly if enjoyed for long, advocates that new officers should be elected every year:

When public officers remain long in place of judicature they will degenerate from the bounds of humility, honesty and tender care of brethren, in regard the heart of man is so subject to be overspread with the clouds of covetousness, pride, vain glory. For though at first entrance into places of rule they be of public spirit, seeking the freedom of others as their own; yet continuing long in such a place, where honours and greatness is coming in, they become selfish, seeking themselves and not common freedom; as experience proves it true in these days, according to this common proverb, Great offices in a land and army have changed the disposition of rmany sweet-spirited men.

And nature tells us that if water stands long it corrupts; whereas running water keeps sweet and is fit for common use.

Therefore as the necessity of common preservation moves the people to frame a law, and to choose officers to see the law obeyed, that they may live in peace: so doth the same necessity bid the people, and cries aloud in the ears and eyes of England, to choose new officers and to remove old ones, and to choose state officers every year.

The Commonwealth hereby will be furnished with able and experienced men, fit to govern, which will mightily advance the honour and peace of our land, occasion the more watchful care in the education of children, and in time will make our Commonwealth of England the lily among the nations of the earth.

He then determines with great care ” Who are fit to choose and fit to be chosen officers in a Commonwealth “:

All uncivil livers, as drunkards, quarrellers, fearful ignorant men, who dare not speak truth lest they anger other men; likewise all who are wholly given to pleasure and sport, or men who are full of talk; all these are empty of substance and cannot be experienced men, therefore not fit to be chosen officers in a commonwealth; yet they may have a voice in the choosing.

Secondly, all those who are interested in the monarchical power and government ought neither to choose nor be chosen officers to manage Commonwealth’s affairs; for these cannot be friends to common freedom.

Choose such as are men of peaceable spirits and of a peaceable conversation.

Choose such as have suffered under kingly oppression, for they will be fellow-feelers of other bondages.

Choose such as have adventured the loss of their estates and lives to redeem the land from bondage, and who have remained constant.

Choose such as are understanding men, and who are experienced in the laws of peaceable and right ordered government.

Choose men of courage, who are not afraid to speak the truth for this is the shame of many in England at this day; they are drowned in the dunghill mud of slavish fear of men; these are coveteous men, not fearing God, and their portion is to be cast without the city of peace amongst the dogs.

Choose officers out of the number of those men that are above forty years of age, for they are most likely to be experienced men and all these are likely to be men of courage, dealing truly and hating covetousness.

And if you choose men thus principled, who are poor men as times go, for the Conqueror’s power hath made many a righteous man a poor man, then allow them a yearly maintenance from the common stock, until such time as a Commonwealth’s freedom is established, for then there will be no need of such allowances.

As in More’s Utopia, with which Winstanley seems to have been acquainted, the unit of society is the family and the father not only directs the education of the children but also supervises their work:

A father is to cherish his children till they grow wise and strong; and then as a master he is to instruct them in reading, in learning languages, arts and sciences, or to bring them up to labour or employ them in some trade or other, or cause them to be instructed therein, according as is shown hereafter in the education of mankind.

A father is to have a care that as all his children do assist to plant the earth, or by other trades provide necessaries, so he shall see that every one have a comfortable livelihood, not respecting one before another.

He is to command them their work, and see they do it, and not suffer them to live idle. He is either to reprove them by words, or whip those who offends for the rod is prepared to bring the unreasonable ones to experience and moderation: that so children may not quarrel like beasts, but live in peace like rational men, experienced in yielding obedience to the laws and officers of the Commonwealth, everyone doing to another as he would have another do to him.

The army, in Winstanley’s Commonwealth, is not to be a permanent body of hired or conscripted soldiers. It is levied only in case of emergency and is composed of the officers who form the magistracy in times of peace and, if necessary, of the whole people in arms:

A ruling army is called magistracy in times of peace, keeping that land and government in peace by execution of the laws, which the fighting army did purchase in the field by their blood out of the hands of oppression.

And here all officers, from the father in a family, to the Parliament in a land, are but the heads and leaders of an army; and all people arising to protect and assist their officers, in defence of a right ordered government, are but the body of an army.

Winstanley saw the need to strengthen the social bonds between the various parishes and counties which compose the commonwealth and for this purpose he imagined that there should be post-masters, whose role is not dissimilar from that of our newspaper editors, though their airns seem more altruistic:

In every parish throughout the Commonwealth shall be chosen two men (at the time wheign enemy or against an insurrection at home, it is the work of a Parliament to manage that business for to preserve common peace.

So then, a Parliament is the head of power in a Commonwealth, and it is their work to manage public affairs in timeen other officers are chosen), and these shall be called postmasters.

Now the work of the country postmaster shall be this. They shall every month bring up or send by tidings, from their respective parishes to the chief city, of what accidents or passages fall out which is either to be the honour or the dishonour, hurt or profit of the Commonwealth. And if nothing have fallen out in that month worth observation, then they shall write down peace or weekly bill of observation.

Winstanley then goes on to describe the tasks of the Ministers of the Commonwealth who are to be laymen, elected every year by the members of the parish. each Sunday when the parish holds its meeting the minister reads aloud the laws of the Commonwealth and the report contained in the Postmaster’s gazette and this is followed by speeches and discussions on historical and scientific subjects. Thus we see that there is no room for religion in Winstanley’s ideal Commonwealth and that it has been replaced by the study of nature and history

If there were good laws, and the people be ignorant of them, it would be as bad for the Commonwealth as if there were no laws at all.

Therefore according to one of the laws of Israel’s Commonwealth made by Moses, who was the ruler of the people at that time, it is very rational and good that one day in seven be still set apart, for three reasons.

First, that the people in such a parish may generally meet together to see one another’s faces, and beget or preserve fellowship in friendly love.

Secondly, to be a day of rest or cessation from labour; so that they may have soIne bodily rest for themselves and cattle

Thirdly, that he who is chosen minister (for that year) in that parish may read to the people these things.

First, the affairs of the whole land, as it is brought in by the postmaster, as it is related in his ofrlce hereafter following.

Secondly, to read the law of the Commonwealth; not only to strengthen the memory of the ancients, but that the young people also, who are not grown up to ripeness of experience, may be instructed, to know when they do well and when they do ill.

Winstanley asserted that under ” kingly ” government education had remained the privilege of a few: ” kingly bondage,” he says, ” is the cause of the spreading ignorance in the earth. But when Commonwealth’s freedom is established, and Pharisaical or kingly slavery cast out, then will knowledge cover the earth as the waters cover the seas, and not till then.”

We have already seen that Winstanley abolished private ownership of the means of production, but unlike Thomas More, he retained private ownership of ” consumer goods.”

If any other man endeavour to take away his house, furniture, food, wife, or children, saying, Everything is common, and so abusing the law of peace, such a one is a transgressor, and shall suffer punishment, as by the government and laws following expressed.

For though the public storehouses be a common treasury, yet every man’s particular dwelling is not common, but by his consent; and the Commonwealth’s laws are to preserve a man’s peace in his person, and in his private dwelling, against the rudeness and ignorance that may arise in mankind.

Nevertheless in his ideal commonwealth there is neither money nor wages and each gives according to his ability and receives according to his needs. At the end of The Law of Freedom he returns to the organisation of a moneyless society and explains how it will work:

The earth is to be planted and the fruits reaped and carried mto barns and storehouses by the assistance of every family. And if any man or family want corn or other provision, they may go to the storehouses and fetch without money. If they want a horse to ride, go into i.he fields in summer, or to the common stables in winter, and receive one from the keepers, and when your journey is performed, bring him where you had him, without money. If any plant food or victuals, they may either go to the butchers’ shops, and receive what they want without money – or else go to the flocks of sheep, or herds of cattle, and take and kill what meat is needful for their families, without buying and selling.

In the last chapter of The Law of Freedom Winstanley analyses the nature of laws and attempts to show the difference between customary, conventional and written laws, and the unwritten laws which spring from the ” inward light of reason.” ” The King’s old laws,” he says, ” cannot govern in tirnes of bondage and in times of freedom too,” and, with his characteristic concreteness, he compares them to ” old soldiers, who will change their name, and turn about, and as they were.” The law of the true commonwealth must be ” a covenant of peace to whole mankind.” This law ” sets the earth free to all. This unites both Jew and Gentile into one brotherhood, and rejects none. This makes Christ’s garment whole again, and makes the kingdoms of the world to become Commonwealths again. It is the inward power of right understanding, which is the true law that teaches people in action, as well as in words, to do as they would be done unto.”

Winstanley was a staunch defender of the family and he had often denounced those who, ” through unreasonable beastly ignorance, think there must be a community of all men and women for copulation, and so strive to live a bestial life.” In a free Commonwealth ” every family shall live apart, as now they do. Every man shall enjoy his own wife, and every woman her husband, as now they do.” The laws concerning marriage are however extremely simple and though rape is, in some cases punished by death, adultery is not considered a crime:

If, in the drafting of the laws of his ideal commonwealth, Winstanley reveals an authoritarian spirit common to most Utopians he is, on the other hand, completely free from that nationalism which characterises so many of them. Not only does his Commonwealth not engage in wars of aggression, but he also seems to have believed that the other nations of the world would soon follow its example and that the whole of humanity would live in peace:

In that nation where this Commonwealth’s government shall be first established, there shall be abundance of peace and plenty and all nations of the earth shall come flocking thither to see his beauty, and to learn the ways thereof. And the law shall go forth from that Zion, and that word of the Lord from that Jerusalem which shall govern the whole earth. Micah, iv. 1, 2.

There shall be no tyrant kings lords of manors, tithing priests, oppressing lawyers, exacting landlords, nor any such like pricking briar in all this holy mountain of the Lord God our Righteousness and Peace; for the righteous law shall be the rule for everyone and the judge of all men’s actions.

The whole earth would become one immense family:

And the rule of right government, being thus observed, may make a whole land, nay the whole fabric of the earth, to become one family of mankind ancl one well governed Commonwealth; as Israel was ealled one house of Israel, though it consisted of many tribes, nations and family.

The Law of Freedom marks the end of Winstanley’s short, but intense, literary and political activity. At the time of its appearance it must have enjoyed a certain success for it soon ran into a second edition, and like most of his other works was widely pirated. But with the return of the monarchy and the final enslavement of the English working class, Winstanley’s message lost its meaning and his works were ignored both by historians and social thinkers. It was not until the beginning of this century that a comprehensive study of his activities and writings was made by L. H. Berens in Thc Digger Movement in thc Days of the Commonwealth. Since then a selection from his works has been published in England and a complete edition has appeared in America. Yet Berens points out the neglect from which Winstanley has suffered, which still applies to-day:

“It’s perusal (of The Law of Freedom ) convinced us, and our subsequent investigations have only served to strengthen the belief, that Winstanley was, in truth, one of the most courageous, far-seeing and philosophical preachers of social righteousness that England has given to the world. Thomas More’s Utopia has secured its author world-wide renown; it is spoken of, even if not read, in every civilised country in the world. Gerrard Winstanley’s Utopia is unknown to his own countrymen.”