Levellers,ranters,diggers and seekers

Question 1

Levellers-What did they do?

Answer 1

Levellers - Believed against religious radicalisation of parliament, wanting new elections and equality with universal male suffrage. Bible didn’t exclude poor like politics does.

• Lilburne was leader, Agreement of the people (1647). - Putney debates influential on army in civil war. Too radical for most.
• Parliament didn’t take women lead protests seriously.
• Leaders imprisoned 1649.
• Lacked national and MP support.

Question 2

Levellers-How Significant were they?

Levellers

Answer 2

Putney debates influential on army in civil war. Too radical for most.

• Parliament didn’t take women lead protests seriously.
• Leaders imprisoned 1649.
• Lacked national and MP support.

Question 3

Ranters-What did they do?

Answer 3

Those precedent by God, incapable of sin. Ignoring man-made codes of social morality.

• ‘Predestination’ and illegitimacy of sins.
• Not very widespread.

Question 4

Ranters- How Significant were they?

Answer 4

1651 leaders imprisoned.

• Blasphemy act 1650 banned them. People feared them.
• Parliament pass law to reduce toleration.

Question 5

Diggers- what did they do

Answer 5

Digger, any of a group of agrarian communists who flourished in England in 1649–50 and were led by Gerrard Winstanley (q.v.) and William Everard. In April 1649 about 20 poor men assembled at St. George’s Hill, Surrey, and began to cultivate the common land. These Diggers held that the English Civil Wars had been fought against the king and the great landowners; now that Charles I had been executed, land should be made available for the very poor to cultivate. (Food prices had reached record heights in the late 1640s.) The numbers of the Diggers more than doubled during 1649. Their activities alarmed the Commonwealth government and roused the hostility of local landowners, who were rival claimants to the common lands. The Diggers were harassed by legal actions and mob violence, and by the end of March 1650 their colony was dispersed. The Diggers themselves abjured the use of force. The Diggers also called themselves True Levelers, but their communism was denounced by the leaders of the Levelers.
True levellers, Kings death invalid.
- Communes for poor and dug vegetables.
- Compulsory education for both genders.

Question 6

Diggers-How Significant were they?

Answer 6

• Communists ahead of their time.
• Lost court case against landowners.
• 1649 onwards.
  The Surrey Diggers were persecuted by local gentry with legal action, economic boycott and violence. In April 1650, just one year after the original settlement was founded, the Diggers’ shelters were burned down and their crops destroyed. Other communities met a similar fate to the Surrey group and the movement was effectively suppressed by the end of 1650.

Question 7

Seekers/Quakers-What did they do?

Answer 7

Religion comes from God within. Traditional clergy not needed, direct challenge.
- James Naylor case in 1656 wanted publically humiliated.

Question 8

Seekers/Quakers-Group How Significant were they?

Answer 8

Seekers/Quakers - Religion comes from God within. Traditional clergy not needed, direct challenge.
- James Naylor case in 1656 wanted publically humiliated. - 35,000 members by 1660, and still active today.

Question 9

Fifth Monarchists-What did they do?

Answer 9

Fifth Monarchists - Salvation comes to all, only chosen could be saved. - Made up a fifth of the Nominated Assembly.
- Very small group.