You Noble Diggers All, Stand Up Now
October 9, 2022 9:33 PM Subscribe
(Cue Chumbawamba on the soundtrack) It is the late 1640s. The king of England is about to be killed and a protestant capitalist Commonwealth under Cromwell is in formation. IN another decade, the powerful and propertied will turn over the country to the royals again. But there are other revolutions afoot that seek to turn the world upside down. The tradition of the left is older than we often remember...
In the 20-year window from 1640 to 1660, with royal censorship broken, a vast and fractious liberal tradition pours forth in pamphlets from the new printing presses. The rural poor, the religiously enlightened, and the working men of the New Model Army debate the nature of freedom. Common soldiers challenge generals and argue for egalitarian democracy. Radical "ranters" practice free love and call for anarchy, with their long-haired spokesman, Abiezer Coppe, every bit as gonzo as the beats and yippies centuries later. In the courts, "Freeborn John" Lillburne, a "Leveller", braves trial after trial to establish core due process rights that will later inspire the Bill of Rights.
And on St. George's Hill, in Surrey, ordinary people begin to dig a garden into land claimed by the nobles, inspired by Gerrard Winstanley, an ordinary man who is articulating a radical Christian communism centuries ahead of his time. With its themes of gender equality, calls for national healthcare, and a democratic allocation of labor and property, Winstanley's vision threatens to turn the world upside down.
Though the Diggers are long since dispersed, and St. George's Hill, in an ironic coup de grace, turned into a gated community owned by global elites, his ideas are foundational and his frank address to Cromwell and the monarchists still ringing. His ecological and egalitarian views anticipate Thoreau, the Fabian socialists, and the modern Green New Deal.
In the long history of the Left, no victory is ever total, and much is lost. But there were other turnings, other worlds possible -- and though our world turned back to the Royals in 1660, the wilder revolutionary possibilities still remain. (For more on all this, see "The World Turned Upside Down" by the wonderful Christopher Hill, himself a lion of the Left who bears remembering).
In the 20-year window from 1640 to 1660, with royal censorship broken, a vast and fractious liberal tradition pours forth in pamphlets from the new printing presses. The rural poor, the religiously enlightened, and the working men of the New Model Army debate the nature of freedom. Common soldiers challenge generals and argue for egalitarian democracy. Radical "ranters" practice free love and call for anarchy, with their long-haired spokesman, Abiezer Coppe, every bit as gonzo as the beats and yippies centuries later. In the courts, "Freeborn John" Lillburne, a "Leveller", braves trial after trial to establish core due process rights that will later inspire the Bill of Rights.
And on St. George's Hill, in Surrey, ordinary people begin to dig a garden into land claimed by the nobles, inspired by Gerrard Winstanley, an ordinary man who is articulating a radical Christian communism centuries ahead of his time. With its themes of gender equality, calls for national healthcare, and a democratic allocation of labor and property, Winstanley's vision threatens to turn the world upside down.
Though the Diggers are long since dispersed, and St. George's Hill, in an ironic coup de grace, turned into a gated community owned by global elites, his ideas are foundational and his frank address to Cromwell and the monarchists still ringing. His ecological and egalitarian views anticipate Thoreau, the Fabian socialists, and the modern Green New Deal.
In the long history of the Left, no victory is ever total, and much is lost. But there were other turnings, other worlds possible -- and though our world turned back to the Royals in 1660, the wilder revolutionary possibilities still remain. (For more on all this, see "The World Turned Upside Down" by the wonderful Christopher Hill, himself a lion of the Left who bears remembering).
There are so many eras of history I can understand much more clearly now than I did x years ago. Now the feeling of like they're opening the doors of the cages and everything is about to change - and then they just close the doors again.
posted by bleep at 9:54 PM on October 9, 2022 [5 favorites]
posted by bleep at 9:54 PM on October 9, 2022 [5 favorites]
Yippee ! po-faced Puritans running the country.
posted by Narrative_Historian at 12:27 AM on October 10, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by Narrative_Historian at 12:27 AM on October 10, 2022 [3 favorites]
Dick Gaughan did my favourite version.
(composition challenge: we need a song about the nine people "cut down" for the 2021 Insulate Britain protests)
posted by rongorongo at 1:30 AM on October 10, 2022 [1 favorite]
(composition challenge: we need a song about the nine people "cut down" for the 2021 Insulate Britain protests)
posted by rongorongo at 1:30 AM on October 10, 2022 [1 favorite]
There’s a fantastic two-parter of the Cool People who Did Cool Stuff podcast on this very topic with John Darnielle of the Mountain Goats as the guest.
posted by Jon_Evil at 4:51 AM on October 10, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by Jon_Evil at 4:51 AM on October 10, 2022 [2 favorites]
Billy Bragg's song is the only reason I ever heard of this history.
And it's the counter-example I always think of when I despair that the bulk of popular music is love songs: it proves that it *is* possible to sing about something else!
posted by wenestvedt at 6:19 AM on October 10, 2022 [5 favorites]
And it's the counter-example I always think of when I despair that the bulk of popular music is love songs: it proves that it *is* possible to sing about something else!
posted by wenestvedt at 6:19 AM on October 10, 2022 [5 favorites]
Some of the so-called communism feels like a return to the open field system, and a backlash to the enclosure laws that were starting to be passed. Having land held in common was actually the norm pre-17th century, but the nobles were starting to glom on to this idea of private property that gave them sole control.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 7:02 AM on October 10, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 7:02 AM on October 10, 2022 [4 favorites]
There was a 1960s San Francisco counter-culture group that called themselves Diggers apparently modeled after the original 17th century movement cited here. The wikipedia article I linked to above goes into this group's history and associated activities in detail. TIL: Peter Coyote, the actor, was a member of the SF Diggers. I also remember someone telling me that at one point they had a 'free car' which was used in and around the Haight for a while before it just disappeared one day.
posted by Insert Clever Name Here at 7:53 AM on October 10, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by Insert Clever Name Here at 7:53 AM on October 10, 2022 [1 favorite]
The English Civil War came up recently somewhere else too... after a bit of a deep dive I was just talking to my wife about how this era of tumult in England was seeding across the ocean. The Pilgrims and religious freedom seekers heading to North America and I was trying to emphasize how kooky the social environment they left to come west was and that impact on the American religious foundations.
posted by djseafood at 8:01 AM on October 10, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by djseafood at 8:01 AM on October 10, 2022 [2 favorites]
Previously posted on MeFi: A Christian Communist DESTROYS PragerU.
Note: not nearly as incendiary as the title makes it out to be.
posted by Lord Chancellor at 8:05 AM on October 10, 2022
Note: not nearly as incendiary as the title makes it out to be.
posted by Lord Chancellor at 8:05 AM on October 10, 2022
The English Civil War feels like the French Revolution arrived 144 years early and in the wrong place, looked around, realized it’s mistake and vanished back to where the zeitgeists wait for their moment.
posted by vorpal bunny at 8:22 AM on October 10, 2022 [5 favorites]
posted by vorpal bunny at 8:22 AM on October 10, 2022 [5 favorites]
Where were all the Digger women? Kate Evans in the St George's Hill cartoon cited at Top implies that they were hauling water and singling the turnips while Gerrard Winstanley was sucking his quill pen. Those 144 years allowed the incubation of Olympe de Gouges. In September 1791 she launched her counter-blast to Déclaration des droits de l'homme et du citoyen [1789] and recalibrated the scales of justice: Déclaration des droits de la Femme et de la Citoyenne. You can get the full text in English. It took another 240 years before Grace Petrie climbed the barricades and started singing.
posted by BobTheScientist at 9:30 AM on October 10, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by BobTheScientist at 9:30 AM on October 10, 2022 [3 favorites]
San Francisco counter-culture group
I can't speak to this particular usage of this term in this place by these people. But since we are on the subject it is perhaps worth noting that, in between the 1660s and the 1960s, the term D***** acquired a particularly ugly past as a racial slur used to justify genocide in California and neighboring states.
posted by Not A Thing at 9:41 AM on October 10, 2022 [1 favorite]
I can't speak to this particular usage of this term in this place by these people. But since we are on the subject it is perhaps worth noting that, in between the 1660s and the 1960s, the term D***** acquired a particularly ugly past as a racial slur used to justify genocide in California and neighboring states.
posted by Not A Thing at 9:41 AM on October 10, 2022 [1 favorite]
after a bit of a deep dive I was just talking to my wife about how this era of tumult in England was seeding across the ocean.
Six years after the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth, Thomas Morton convinced the nearby Mount Wollaston colony to walk away from their corporate debts and start living for themselves. He renamed the colony "Mare Mount" (it was a hill next to the ocean) which was a deliberate pun on "Merrymount", erected a maypole topped with deer antlers, and invited everyone to come and get drunk with "mine Host of Mare Mount" as he proclaimed himself.
Plymouth didn't like this at all. They were still deeply in debt with their own corporate sponsors and Morton who, no longer having to pay dividends to far-off shareholders, was undercutting their business of trading with Native Americans by offering them better price. Also Morton was kind of a dirtbag who enjoyed mocking his puritanical neighbors. "They thinke themselves so perfect in the highe way to heaven, that they can find it blindfould. So doe not I."
Myles Standish was dispatched to arrest Morton, which he did. The maypole was chopped down and the Pilgrims renamed the colony "Mount Dagon" vowing to turn it into a place of woe. Morton was put on trial and banished back to England where he'd write an entire book dedicated to dragging them.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 9:43 AM on October 10, 2022 [8 favorites]
Six years after the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth, Thomas Morton convinced the nearby Mount Wollaston colony to walk away from their corporate debts and start living for themselves. He renamed the colony "Mare Mount" (it was a hill next to the ocean) which was a deliberate pun on "Merrymount", erected a maypole topped with deer antlers, and invited everyone to come and get drunk with "mine Host of Mare Mount" as he proclaimed himself.
Plymouth didn't like this at all. They were still deeply in debt with their own corporate sponsors and Morton who, no longer having to pay dividends to far-off shareholders, was undercutting their business of trading with Native Americans by offering them better price. Also Morton was kind of a dirtbag who enjoyed mocking his puritanical neighbors. "They thinke themselves so perfect in the highe way to heaven, that they can find it blindfould. So doe not I."
Myles Standish was dispatched to arrest Morton, which he did. The maypole was chopped down and the Pilgrims renamed the colony "Mount Dagon" vowing to turn it into a place of woe. Morton was put on trial and banished back to England where he'd write an entire book dedicated to dragging them.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 9:43 AM on October 10, 2022 [8 favorites]
djseafood, I believe you might've read this piece in Harper's (which is another great dive into all this).
By Marilynne Robinson I now recall having looked it up
posted by TheProfessor at 10:09 AM on October 10, 2022
By Marilynne Robinson I now recall having looked it up
posted by TheProfessor at 10:09 AM on October 10, 2022
Whoa where is THAT movie I need it NOW.
posted by bleep at 10:25 AM on October 10, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by bleep at 10:25 AM on October 10, 2022 [1 favorite]
I now know exactly where I'm going if Dr. Who ever comes to pick me up like he said he would.
posted by bleep at 10:26 AM on October 10, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by bleep at 10:26 AM on October 10, 2022 [2 favorites]
The connection from the Levellers to the Bill of Rights passes through Flushing, Queens. The same year of John Lillburne’s trial, Quaker residents of Flushing issued the Flushing Remonstrance demanding the universal right to freedom of worship.
While it’s hard to draw a through-line from the Levellers to English Quakers in the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam, these movements were heavily cross-pollinated.
posted by Headfullofair at 10:32 AM on October 10, 2022
While it’s hard to draw a through-line from the Levellers to English Quakers in the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam, these movements were heavily cross-pollinated.
posted by Headfullofair at 10:32 AM on October 10, 2022
It's easy to draw a through-line from puritans in New England to religious liberalism. Most of those original congregations had already turned Unitarian by the mid-1700s and are today Unitarian Universalist.
Even that original church in Plymouth founded by the those puritanical Pilgrims.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 10:48 AM on October 10, 2022 [1 favorite]
Even that original church in Plymouth founded by the those puritanical Pilgrims.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 10:48 AM on October 10, 2022 [1 favorite]
So maybe there's some hope.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 10:50 AM on October 10, 2022
posted by RonButNotStupid at 10:50 AM on October 10, 2022
RonButNotStupid,
I agree that the eventual toleration that came to Puritan New England should give cause for hope, but in the 17th C, New England Puritans were not religious liberals. They are rather famous for persecuting other religions and expelling or executing their followers. Many also moved back across the Atlantic to support Cromwell against the Levellers.
When I say it’s hard to draw a through line between Levellers and Flushing Quakers, I mean we don’t have correspondence or coparticipants to corroborate a direct connection, and have to infer one by general mixing between the two movements in England and the flood of emigrants headed to the colonies. The timing and origin of the Flushing Remonstrance appears far more than coincidental, however, and is generally accepted as the earliest evidence of Leveller rhetoric making its way into colonial American politics.
posted by Headfullofair at 11:10 AM on October 10, 2022 [1 favorite]
I agree that the eventual toleration that came to Puritan New England should give cause for hope, but in the 17th C, New England Puritans were not religious liberals. They are rather famous for persecuting other religions and expelling or executing their followers. Many also moved back across the Atlantic to support Cromwell against the Levellers.
When I say it’s hard to draw a through line between Levellers and Flushing Quakers, I mean we don’t have correspondence or coparticipants to corroborate a direct connection, and have to infer one by general mixing between the two movements in England and the flood of emigrants headed to the colonies. The timing and origin of the Flushing Remonstrance appears far more than coincidental, however, and is generally accepted as the earliest evidence of Leveller rhetoric making its way into colonial American politics.
posted by Headfullofair at 11:10 AM on October 10, 2022 [1 favorite]
Thanks to TheProfessor for the Harpers article, I'm reading it now and enjoying it.
I realize now it was a clip of QI that featured Steven Fry asking about the English Civil War that inspired my deep dive, but I feel like it's a subject that's been in the news quite a bit lately.
posted by djseafood at 12:29 PM on October 10, 2022
I realize now it was a clip of QI that featured Steven Fry asking about the English Civil War that inspired my deep dive, but I feel like it's a subject that's been in the news quite a bit lately.
posted by djseafood at 12:29 PM on October 10, 2022
→
the English Civil War ... a subject that's been in the news quite a bit lately
- useless parliament? Check.
- the people are run down and angry? Check.
- a pointless thronewarmer named Charles? Check.
and St. George's Hill, in an ironic coup de grace, turned into a gated community owned by global elites
From the comfort of my apartment across the ocean, this sounds like a place that's begging for a repeat.
posted by clawsoon at 9:07 PM on October 10, 2022 [3 favorites]
From the comfort of my apartment across the ocean, this sounds like a place that's begging for a repeat.
posted by clawsoon at 9:07 PM on October 10, 2022 [3 favorites]
The Pilgrims and religious freedom seekers heading to North America and I was trying to emphasize how kooky the social environment they left to come west was
The Pilgrims arrived at Plymouth Rock in 1620, when England (and Scotland) was still being ruled by James VI and I. No one had doubts about James's Protestant bona fides, unlike those of his son, whom Cromwell would execute. They were the kooks of the lot.
posted by praemunire at 9:15 PM on October 10, 2022
The Pilgrims arrived at Plymouth Rock in 1620, when England (and Scotland) was still being ruled by James VI and I. No one had doubts about James's Protestant bona fides, unlike those of his son, whom Cromwell would execute. They were the kooks of the lot.
posted by praemunire at 9:15 PM on October 10, 2022
Cue Chumbawamba on the soundtrack
posted by clawsoon at 9:42 PM on October 10, 2022 [1 favorite]
The club is all their lawI guess that's why Methodism, whose founder said to introduce your kids to the club by beating them before they could speak or walk, became an acceptable religion for poor English people in the following century. It let them know how the "law" worked before they understood anything else, and helped keep "order" through the horrors of the 1700s.
posted by clawsoon at 9:42 PM on October 10, 2022 [1 favorite]
Personally what got me reading about the English Revolution was suddenly having a King Charles again.
posted by lokta at 5:18 AM on October 11, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by lokta at 5:18 AM on October 11, 2022 [2 favorites]
Great post.
posted by doctornemo at 6:58 AM on October 11, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by doctornemo at 6:58 AM on October 11, 2022 [1 favorite]
There is a film about Gerrard Winstanley by Kevin Brownlow and Andrew Mollo, fascinating filmmakers of historical aim. Its built for accuracy over entertainment, they went so far to get as close to period domesticated animals, but for me it was an excellent introduction to the movement of that era.
posted by Brainstorming Time! at 9:02 PM on October 11, 2022
posted by Brainstorming Time! at 9:02 PM on October 11, 2022
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posted by SandCounty at 9:35 PM on October 9, 2022 [10 favorites]