Following the Levellers: Political and Religious Radicals in England from the Civil War to the Glorious Revolution, 1645-88: 2016

2017 | Children

This book reinterprets the Leveller authorships of John Lilburne, Richard Overton, and William Walwyn and foregrounds the role of ordinary people in petitioning and protest during an era of civil war and revolution. The Levellers sought to restructure the state in 1647-49 around popular consent and liberty for conscience, especially in their Agreement of the People. Their following was not a 'movement' but largely a political response of the sects that had emerged in London and other localities to the crisis of these years. This study analyses the Leveller following in the contexts of social change and of urban geographic expansion. Unlike previous scholarship, which assumes a 'crushing' of the Levellers in 1649, Following the Levellers also examines their radical successors of the Commonwealth, Protectorate, and Restoration. Ideas like those of the Levellers can be found in each of several succeeding crises of church and state through the Glorious Revolution of 1688.

Gary S. De Krey (Author)