by Frank McLynn
On the afternoon of 29 October the Putney Debates resumed in earnest, and this was the moment when the discussions reached their high-water mark. The occasion was an impassioned verbal contest over universal suffrage. Rainsborough produced a declaration that has become the most famous single quotation from the entire debates, and echoes down the ages (only feminists who dislike his use of the masculine pronoun have reservations: ‘I think that the poorest he that is in England hath a life to live, as the greatest he; the poorest man in England is not at all bound in a strict sense to that government that he hath not had a voice to put himself under.’128 Ireton’s response to this plea for universal manhood suffrage is almost equally well known, as propounding the favourite theory of ruling classes until the modern era: that only the possession of property gives one the vested interest to vote for what is truly beneficial for the nation. In the eighteenth century this notion would be developed by the Tory landed interest contending against the post-1688 Whig financial interest into a refinement that land alone guaranteed full patriotic commitment, since those with their wealth in bonds, stocks and shares could decamp abroad with their money.129 And thus Ireton:
I think that no person hath a right to an interest or share in disposing of the affairs of the kingdom, and in determining or choosing those that shall determine what laws we shall be ruled by here – no person hath a right to this, that hath not a permanent fixed interest in this kingdom … Give me leave to tell you, that if you make this rule I think you must fly for refuge to an absolute natural right and you must deny all civil right; and I am sure it will come to that in the consequence … I would fain have any man show me their bounds, where you will end, and why you should not take away all property.130
Ireton, one of the first in a long line of conservative thinkers (and even some liberal ones like John Stuart Mill) who thought that the enfranchisement of the economically dispossessed would bring chaos, argued, according to his lights quite correctly, that once the political and constitutional arguments for private property were discarded, sheer logic would compel the majority of voters (who were propertyless) to question the socio-economic necessity for the institution. The only remaining argument for gross economic inequality would then be sheer selfishness and greed. It is interesting that Ireton was fearful in this way, for none of the Levellers actually advocated complete equality or perfect freedom – which was why the Diggers, who appeared later, would style themselves ‘True Levellers’.131
There followed some semantic jousting on the various meanings of ‘property’. The flavour of the debate on the afternon of 29 October is best conveyed by verbatim quotes from the transcripts made by Clarke and his stenographers:
RAINSBOROUGH: ‘As to the thing itself, property in the franchise, I would fain know how it comes to be the property of some men and not of others. As for estates and those kind of things, and other things that belong to men, it will be granted that they are property; but I deny that is a property to a lord, to a gentleman any more than to another in the kingdom of England. If it be a property, it is a property by law; neither do I think there is very little property in this thing by the law of the land, because I think that the law of the land in that thing is the most tyrannous law under heaven, and I would fain know what we have fought for, and this is the old law of England, and that which enslaves the people of England, that they should be bound by laws in which they have no voice at all. The thing that I am unsatisfied in is how it comes about that there is such a property in some freeborn Englishmen, and not in others.’132
WILDMAN: ‘Our case is to be considered thus, that we have been under slavery. That is acknowledged by all. Our very laws were made by our conquerors, and whereas it’s spoken much of chronicles, I conceive there is no credit to be given to any of them; and the reason is that those that were our lords, and made us their vassals, would suffer nothing else to be chronicled.133 We are now engaged for our freedom. That is the end of Parliament, to legislate according to the just ends of government, not simply to maintain what is already established. Every person in England hath as clear a right to elect his Representative as the greatest person in England. I conceive that is the undeniable maxim of government, that all government is the free consent of the people. And therefore I should humbly move that if the question be stated which would soonest bring things to an issue – it might perhaps be this: Whether any person can justly be bound by law, who does not give his consent that such persons shall make laws for him?’134
SEXBY: ‘We have engaged in this kingdom and ventured our lives, and it was all for this: to recover our birthright and privileges as Englishmen – and by arguments argued there is none. There are many thousands of us soldiers that ventured our lives: we have had little property in this kingdom as to our estates, yet we had a birthright. But it seems now, except a man hath a fixed estate in this kingdom, he hath no right in this kingdom. I wonder we were so much deceived. If we had not a right to the kingdom, we were mere mercenary soldiers. There are many in my position that have as good a condition, it may be little estate they have at present, and yet they have as much right as those two [Cromwell and Ireton] who are their lawgivers, as any in this place. I shall tell you in a word my resolution. I am resolved to give my birthright to none. Whatever may come in the way and be thought, I will give it to none. I think the poorer and meaner of this kingdom (I speak as in that relation in which we are) have been the means of preservation of this kingdom.’
RAINSBOROUGH (to Ireton): ‘Sir, I see that it is impossible to have liberty but all property must be taken away. If it is to be laid down as a rule, and you will say it, it must be so. But I would fain know what the soldier hath fought for all this while? He hath fought to enslave himself, to give power to men of riches, men of estates, to make him a perpetual slave. We do find in all presses that go forth none must be pressed that are freehold men.135 Unless these gentlemen fall out among themselves they shall press the poor scrubs to come and kill each other for them.’
IRETON: ‘First, the thing itself [universal suffrage] were dangerous if it were settled to destroy property. But I say that the thing that leads to this is destruction to property; for by the same reason that you will alter this Constitution, merely that there’s a greater constitution by nature – by the same reason, by the law of nature, there is a greater liberty to the use of other men’s goods which that property bars you.’
So the fiery debate continued. Rainsborough’s younger brother Major William asked to speak and asserted that without universal suffrage, the army would simply be replacing Charles I’s tyranny with one by plutocracy; rich men could enslave all others in the nation and ‘the one part shall make hewers of wood and drawers of water of the other five’. Inevitably, Major Rainsborough finished his speech with the now familiar mantra: ‘I would fain know what the soldier hath fought for all this while?’ Ireton constantly tried to patronise his opponents but was worsted in debate not just by Rainsborough but by Wildman and Sexby also.136 Ireton’s sticking point was that it was irresponsible to give the franchise to anyone who did not own a freehold worth forty shillings. To the arguments about an Englishman’s natural rights, Ireton declared that the right to breathe air and to travel the highways was indeed a natural right, but this was by no means the same thing as political participation; here the rights were secured by land, since only property gave one a legitimate stake in government. Rainsborough’s refutation of this was threefold: that the key was reason, and God gave all men reason, not just those with property worth forty shillings; that if people were the foundation of all laws, it followed that people must have a say in framing laws; and that it was monstrous to suggest, as Ireton did, that those who had actually lost property by fighting in the Civil War should now be deprived of a say in the new government.137 Ireton could find nothing to say to this except a reiteration of his credo that the suffrage must be grounded in property, for otherwise the result would be chaos and anarchy; universal suffrage opened the floodgates
to a hellish world. Rainsborough replied that this was casuistry. He resented being called an anarchist, and anyway the basic moral law (thou shalt not steal) protected landowners from expropriation.138 At this point Cromwell had to intervene to cool raised tempers. Emolliently he reassured Rainsborough that of course no one could call him an anarchist; nevertheless, he entirely agreed with Ireton’s fundamental thesis, that votes for all men would lead to anarchy.139 The Levellers then zeroed in on the forty shilling requirement. In a pre-echo of eighteenth-century arguments, they pointed out that a property qualification in land disenfranchised both those whose wealth was ‘portable’ or in cash, or those who had leasehold rather than freehold arrangements. Cromwell backtracked at this point and conceded that leaseholders would have to have the vote; he also agreed that The Heads was defective in not calling for electoral reform. Seeing that Rainsborough was winning the argument and clearly had the audience on his side, Ireton tried to make up ground by some rather lame interjections. First he raised the ‘straw man’ argument of a foreigner who would enjoy the vote while visiting England if the vote was divorced from a stake in the kingdom. Then he claimed that it was easy for the ordinary propertyless man to ascend the social ladder by engaging in commerce or trade, seemingly forgetting that only a minority of the parliamentary soldiers were tradesmen. Most of them were yeomen or craftsmen – the very groups whose historical fate was to be overwhelmed by Ireton’s men of property and thus largely sink into the proletariat.140 In reply to the reiterated Leveller theme of ‘What did we fight the war for?’ he tried to argue that the war was not fought for general, abstract principles but for the simple cause of combatting Charles I’s arbitrary government. The effect of this was immediately blunted by a blundering intervention by Cromwell’s chaplain, Hugh Peters. Here was yet another fascinating character in that gallery the 1640s produced. A 49-year-old preacher, who had met the Swedish hero Gustavus Adolphus in the Thirty Years War and done pioneering work for the Church in Boston and Salem, Massachusetts, in 1635–41, Peters was valued by Cromwell as a talented negotiator and peacemaker who, in successive interviews with Charles I at Newmarket and Windsor, seemed to have talked the king round to a more accommodating frame of mind.141 Yet at Putney he can scarcely have impressed his patron, for now Peters proposed that all who fought against Charles I should automatically have the vote. Finally the day’s proceedings came to an end when a committee was formed to discuss the franchise. A motion was proposed and passed that in any case no servants, beggars or apprentices be given the vote, as they were dependent on others and could be browbeaten.142 A straw vote was taken before the meeting adjourned on the general framework and terms of reference of the committee and only three voices were raised against the majority opinion.143 Cromwell’s parting words on the evening of 29 October were that after a couple of days for prayer and reflection the delegates should reassemble on 1 November.
Cromwell doubtless thought he had been very clever in diverting his officers and men from questions of political theory to a contemplation of the Almighty. In fact he had made the most elementary mistake in the politician’s book: asking a question to which you do not already know the answer. When the debates resumed on 1 November, he asked his men what answer God had given to their prayers, perhaps expecting a litany of homiletic bromides. The Levellers pounced: they had been told on no account to negotiate with Charles I, described by a Captain Bishop as ‘that man of blood’.144 Speaker after speaker complained that the Grandees’ determination to preserve the king at all costs would end by destroying the country. Cromwell was taken aback, and his humour did not improve when a bad-tempered debate ensued on whether God had a role in civil affairs anyway. Once again Cromwell’s instinct was to stall and to dissolve the fractious plenary sessions into committees, where the ‘troublemakers’ could be more easily marginalised. On 5 November Fairfax, just recovered from a bad illness, presided over a meeting of the General Council.145 Here was more ill-humour. When Rainsborough got a motion passed that a letter should be sent to Parliament, ordering it to repudiate all negotiations with the king and forbidding any future overtures, Ireton stormed out in a fury.146 On 8 November the debates effectively came to an end. Cromwell proposed a harmless-looking motion that the Army Council be temporarily suspended. The motion was carried, but then Cromwell ordered the Agitators back to their regiments, on the grounds that the legitimating authority for the debates (the council) was no longer in existence. Meanwhile he formed a new committee formed of officers only, thus giving the Grandees an automatic majority, which was instructed to draw up a manifesto in the name of General Fairfax which would replace the Agreement.147 The original accord, hammered out with such difficulty on 29 October, required the General Council to convene another meeting of the entire army to ratify the decisions taken at Putney. After further stalling, Cromwell hit back on 9 November with a small masterpiece of chicanery. In the first place he sent a second letter to Parliament, in defiance of the Putney mandates, repudiating Rainsborough’s earlier letter and stating that negotiations with the king could continue. Even more seriously, he changed the arrangements for the general summoning of the army. The rendezvous was now to be in three separate places, staggered between 15 and 18 November.148 This would allow the Grandees to cherrypick the locations with the most pro-Cromwell regiments and also to pack them with a roving claque of their supporters. Cromwell’s high-handed despotism was egregious. The Levellers rightly read all this as a quite obvious ploy to stop them getting the Agreement adopted by general acclamation of the army. And so the Leveller hopes, which had soared so high during the opening days of the debates, came crashing to earth. ‘One man, one vote’ had been rejected in favour of property qualifications for the suffrage, giving plural votes to the rich. Biennial parliaments, freedom from conscription and indemnity from prosecution for war crimes had all been shelved. Freedom of worship was allowed only in the sense that Cromwell forbade direct compulsion in religious matters, but there was no freedom of belief, since Cromwell banned certain creeds deemed injurious to the public good. He did not allow the House of Commons full sovereignty or the power to overrule the monarch or the House of Lords and, ominously, retained the press gangs for conscription.149
The last committee meeting at Putney took place on 11 November, but any chance that Leveller disappointment with Cromwell might manifest itself in significant armed opposition vanished with the much more dramatic news on that day. Having been housed at Oatlands Palace in a village near Weybridge, Surrey, Charles I was moved to the greater security of Hampton Court. It was from there on 11 November that he made a dramatic escape with the intention of rallying his Scottish supporters. Some claim that Cromwell connived at the escape, since he wished to use the king as a pawn in his struggle with the Levellers. The more conventional view is that Charles was already intriguing with the Scots, that the army had become suspicious, and that he therefore had to escape to continue his dealings with Scotland. He could easily have got away to France but, in an evil hour, somehow got it into his head that Colonel Robert Hammond, governor of the Isle of Wight, would be sympathetic to his cause. The king arrived on the island, justifying his breakout on the many threats and references to ‘man of blood’ at the Putney Debates, which had been reported to him. Hammond, though, another of the young men who rose to high position through wartime exploits (he was just twenty-six), turned out to be a Cromwellian loyalist and imprisoned the monarch in Carisbrooke Castle.150 Nonetheless, Charles successfully intrigued with the Scots Covenanters: they would raise an army, defeat Cromwell and restore Charles, and in return he would make Presbyterianism the State religion.
The outbreak of what became known as the Second Civil War effectively killed off Leveller aspirations, since the army had to unite behind Cromwell in face of the common danger. Yet even before the renewed civil war gave him the perfect excuse to ignore the Levellers, Cromwell had dealt them a devastating blow. On 15 November the first of the three planned rendezvous took place
at Corkbush Field near Ware, Hertfordshire. All officers and men were required to take an oath of loyalty to Fairfax and the Army Council and to accept The Heads as the army’s ideological gospel; in return Cromwell promised there would be full payment of arrears of wages. The Machiavellianism of Cromwell can be seen in a twofold way. First, he argued that if soldiers refused to sign, Parliament would use this as an excuse to welch on back pay or pay only those who had signed; this was a blatant appeal to the most naked aspect of human nature. Second, he ensured that the oath would bind the troops to loyalty to the Army Council, not Parliament.151 Rainsborough made a valiant attempt to counter these shenanigans, but when he tried to present Fairfax with a copy of the Agreement, he was brushed aside. All officers encouraging their men not to sign were arrested by Cromwell’s elite bands. Even so, he had to use physical force to browbeat and overawe the dissidents in the ranks. Seven regiments were present at the rendezvous, but two of them proved particularly troublesome and displayed copies of the Agreement in their hatbands. Colonel Harrison’s regiment of cavalry was at first openly defiant, but Fairfax cajoled them and talked them round, stressing that he would resign as army commander if he did not get his way. Robert Lilburne’s regiment of infantry was made of sterner stuff (Robert was Freeborn John’s brother). Making no headway with exhortation and abstract advocacy, Cromwell and his men eventually rode in among them with drawn swords and arrested nine ringleaders; the colourful story that Cromwell personally pulled the Agreement out of their hatbands is, alas, apocryphal.152 Three of the arrested ringleaders were court-martialled and sentenced to death. Cromwell decided to execute just one of them in terrorem; the luckless man turned out to be Private Richard Arnold. After the execution Cromwell, sensing a grim and sullen mood in the army, commuted all other sentences on the mutineers.153 Fairfax too played a conciliatory role. He told the men that the harsh but necessary treatment meted out to Arnold did not mean that he was going back on his promise to guarantee a regular and representative Parliament. The mixture of carrot and stick was effective: at the other two rendezvous, at Ruislip Heath and Kingston, the cowed troopers signed up to The Heads without demur.154
