Chapter 12: Social Divisions - The Levellers, Millenarians and The Diggers

Question 1

The Levellers

Answer 1

• The Levellers embodied a populist movement and exercised further control and influence through a propaganda mechanism which involved pamphlets, petitions and speeches, all of which connected the group with the general public and conveyed their message.
• In the summer of 1647, the group began to formalise their plans which involved a sweeping democratising process for both England and Wales which would have revolutionised and contested the accepted authority of parliament.
• In May 1649 around 400 troops, all of whom adhered to the ideas of the Levellers and led by Captain William Thompson, gathered in Banbury and marched towards Salisbury. Whilst a mediator had been sent to deal with the matter, on 13th May Cromwell chose to launch a surprise attack leading to several of the Leveller mutineers being killed in the process. This became known as the Banbury Mutiny. This was the final blow to the Leveller movement and its power base in the New Model Army.

Question 2

The Millenarians

Answer 2

Millenarians believed in the ideas that of the end of the world, and those who took a millenarian view thought that the political crisis was part of the events that heralded the end of the world, and they feared that very soon they would be judged as a part of Judgement Day. This belief came from the Book of Daniel and book of Revelation. From the Book of Daniel, Puritans predicted that after four earthly monarchiesChrist would erect the fifth, godly kingdom.

Question 3

The Diggers and Fifth Monarchists

Answer 3

• The Diggers were another political response to the economic and social effects of the Civil War. They were created and led by Gerrard Winstanley and their main year of action was 1649 after the execution of Charles I. The Diggers believed in total social and political equality, and although their numbers being relatively small and their commune lasting only a year, their influence led to the forming of future communist ideas throughout the world,
• The Fifth Monarchists were a group recognised as a formal emergence of Millenarianism and linked together to campaign for religious, political, economic and social reform. The influence of their group lay primarily within the NMA, the key leading figure Colonel Thomas Harrison, was a leader in the developing Fifth Monarchists movement.