“What is the point of fighting the King’s Tyranny, if we just end up with another set of Great Men over us?”
They wanted the vote and they wanted land.
“I think that the poorest Hee that is in England hath a life to live as the greatest Hee; and therefore truly, Sir, I think it clear, that every Man that is to live under a Government ought first, by his own Consent, to put himself under that Government…” Thomas Rainsborough, at the Putney Debates, 1647
‘Leave the dances and the masquerades, the swish of silk and the piles of sweetmeats. Come with me to Marston Moor, where the Dead tell tales. Take his thigh-bone: he won’t need it – fashion a flute. I will teach you a very old tune – the beautiful song of freedom’
The Poorest Hee tells of a struggle for freedom of religion, freedom of the Press, and for the vote.
It swoops from the cropping of William Prynne’s ears to the death of Freeborn John!
Here are the Levellers, musket practice, the Putney debates, the illegal newspaper-women of St Paul’s and a little-known connection with… Peru!
