in spite of reports to the contrary; but only to meddle with 'what is common and untilled, and to make it fruitful for the · use of man. That the time will suddenly be, when all men 'shall willingly come in and give up their lands and estates, and 'submit to this Community of Goods.'

These are the principles of Everard, Winstanley, and the poor Brotherhood, seemingly Saxon, but properly of the race of the Jews, who were found dibbling beans on St. George's Hill, under the clear April skies in 1649, and hastily bringing in a new era in that manner. And for all such as will come in and work 'with them, they shall have meat, drink, and clothes, which is 'all that is necessary to the life of man: and as for money, there is not any need of it; nor of clothes more than to cover 'nakedness.' For the rest, That they will not defend them'selves by arms, but will submit unto authority, and wait till the 'promised opportunity be offered, which they conceive to be at hand. And that as their forefathers lived in tents, so it would 'be suitable to their condition, now to live in the same.

While they were before the General they stood with their 'hats on; and being demanded the reason thereof, they said, Because he was but their fellow-creature. Being asked the 'meaning of that phrase, Give honour to whom honour is due,they said, Your mouths shall be stopped that ask such a ques' tion.'1

Dull Bulstrode hath 'set down this the more largely because it was the beginning of the appearance' of an extensive levelling doctrine, much to be avoided' by judicious persons, seeing it is 'a weak persuasion.' The germ of Quakerism and much else is curiously visible here. But let us look now at the military phasis of the matter; where a weak persuasion' mounted on cavalry horses, with sabres and fire-arms in its hand, may become a very perilous one.

Friday, 20th April, 1649. The Lieutenant-General has consented to go to Ireland; the City also will lend money; and now this Friday the Council of the Army meets at Whitehall to decide what regiments shall go on that service. After a solemn seeking of God by prayer,' they agree that it shall be by lot: tickets are put into a hat, a child draws them: the regiments, fourteen

1 Whitlocke, p. 384.

of foot and fourteen of horse, are decided on in this manner. 'The officers on whom the lot fell, in all the twenty-eight regi

ments, expressed much cheerfulness at the decision.'

The

officers did :—but the common men are by no means all of that humour. The common men, blown upon by Lilburn and his five small Beagles, have notions about England's new Chains, about the Hunting of Foxes from Triploe Heath, and in fact ideas concerning the capability that lies in man and in a free Commonwealth, which are of the most alarming description.

Thursday, 26th April. This night at the Bull in Bishopsgate there has an alarming mutiny broken out in a troop of Whalley's regiment there. Whalley's men are not allotted for Ireland: but they refuse to quit London, as they are ordered; they want this and that first: they seize their colours from the Cornet, who is lodged at the Bull there :-the General and the LieutenantGeneral have to hasten thither; quell them, pack them forth on their march; seizing fifteen of them first, to be tried by CourtMartial. Tried by instant Court-Martial, five of them are found guilty, doomed to die, but pardoned; and one of them, Trooper Lockyer, is doomed and not pardoned. Trooper Lockyer is shot, in Paul's Churchyard, on the morrow. A very brave young man, they say; though but three-and-twenty, 'he has served seven years in these Wars,' ever since the Wars began. 'Religious' too, 'of excellent parts and much beloved;'-but with hot notions as to human Freedom, and the rate at which the millenniums are attainable, poor Lockyer! He falls shot in Paul's Churchyard on Friday, amid the tears of men and women. Paul's Cathedral, we remark, is now a Horseguard; horses stamp in the Canons' stalls there: and Paul's Cross itself, as smacking of Popery, where in fact Alablaster once preached flat Popery, is swept altogether away, and its leaden roof melted into bullets, or mixed with tin for culinary pewter. Lockyer's corpse is watched and wept over, not without prayer, in the eastern regions of the City, till a new week come; and on Monday, this is what we see advancing westward by way of funeral to him.

About one hundred went before the Corpse, five or six in a file; the Corpse was then brought, with six trumpets sounding a soldier's knell; then the Trooper's Horse came, clothed all over in mourning, and led by a footman. The Corpse was

' adorned with bundles of Rosemary, one half stained in blood; ' and the Sword of the deceased along with them. Some thou'sands followed in rank and file: all had seagreen-and-black 'Ribbon tied on their hats, and to their breasts: and the women 'brought up the rear. At the new Churchyard in Westminster, some thousands more of the better sort met them, who thought not fit to march through the City. Many looked upon this 'funeral as an affront to the Parliament and Army; others called "these people" Levellers;" but they took no notice of any one's sayings.'1

That was the end of Trooper Lockyer: six trumpets wailing stern music through London streets; Rosemaries and Sword half-dipt in blood; funeral of many thousands in seagreen Ribbons and black :-testimony of a weak persuasion now looking somewhat perilous. Lieutenant-Colonel Lilburn and his five small Beagles, now in a kind of loose arrest under the Lieutenant of the Tower, make haste to profit by the general emotion; publish on the 1st of May2 their ' Agreement of the People,'-their Bentham-Sieyes Constitution: Annual very exquisite Parliament, and other Lilburn apparatus; whereby the Perfection of Human Nature will with a maximum of rapidity be secured, and a millennium straightway arrive, sings the Lilburn Oracle.

May 9th. Richard Cromwell is safe wedded; Richard's Father is reviewing troops in Hyde Park, 'seagreen colours in some of their hats.' The Lieutenant-General speaks earnestly to them. Has not the Parliament been diligent, doing its best? It has punished Delinquents; it has voted, in these very days, resolutions for dissolving itself and assembling future Parliaments. It has protected trade; got a good Navy afloat. You soldiers, there is exact payment provided for you. Martial Law? Death, or other punishment, of Mutineers? Well! Whoever cannot stand Martial Law is not fit to be a soldier: his best plan will be to lay down his arms; he shall have his ticket and get his arrears as we others do, we that still mean to fight against the enemies of England and this Cause.4-One trooper shewed signs of insolence; the Lieutenant-General suppressed him by rigour and by

1 Whitlocke, p. 385.

2 Whitlocke's date, p. 385.

3 15 April, 1649, Commons Journals.

▲ Newspapers (in Cromwelliana, p. 56).

'

clemency: the seagreen ribbons were torn from such hats as had them. The humour of the men is not the most perfect. This Review was on Wednesday: Lilburn and his five small Beagles are, on Saturday, committed close Prisoners to the Tower, each rigorously to a cell of his own.

It is high time. For now the flame has caught the ranks of the Army itself, in Oxfordshire, in Gloucestershire, at Salisbury where head-quarters are; and rapidly there is, on all hands, a dangerous conflagration blazing out. In Oxfordshire, one Captain Thompson, not known to us before, has burst from his quarters at Banbury, with a Party of Two-hundred, in these same days; has sent forth his England's Standard Advanced;1 insisting passionately on the New Chains we are fettered with; indignantly demanding swift perfection of Human Freedom, justice on the murderers of Lockyer and Arnald;-threatening that if a hair of Lilburn and the five small Beagles be hurt, he will avenge it 'seventy-and-seven fold.' This Thompson's Party, swiftly attacked by his Colonel, is broken within the week; he himself escapes with a few, and still roves up and down. To join whom, or to communicate with Gloucestershire where help lies, there has, in the interim, open mutiny, above a Thousand strong,' with subalterns, with a Cornet Thompson brother of the Captain, but without any leader of mark, broken out at Salisbury: the General and Lieutenant-General, with what force can be raised, are hastening thitherward in all speed. Now were the time for Lieutenant-Colonel Lilburn; now or never might noisy John do some considerable injury to the Cause he has at heart: but he sits, in these critical hours, fast within stone walls!

Monday, 14th May. All Sunday the General and LieutenantGeneral marched in full speed by Alton, by Andover, towards Salisbury; the mutineers, hearing of them, start northward for Buckinghamshire, then for Berkshire; the General and Lieutenant-General turning also northward after them in hot chase. The mutineers arrive at Wantage; make for Oxfordshire by Newbridge; find the Bridge already seized; cross higher up by swimming; get to Burford, very weary, and turn out their horses to grass;'-Fairfax and Cromwell still following in hot speed, 'a march of near fifty miles' that Monday. What boots 1 Given in Walker's Hist. of Independency, part ii. 168; dated 6 May, VOL. II.

D

it; there is no leader, noisy John is sitting fast within stone walls! The mutineers lie asleep in Burford, their horses out at grass; the Lieutenant-General, having rested at a safe distance since dark, bursts into Burford as the clocks are striking midnight. He has beset some hundreds of the mutineers, 'who could only fire some shots out of windows;'—has dissipated the mutiny, trodden down the Levelling Principle out of English affairs once more. Here is the last scene of the business; the rigorous Court-Martial having now sat; the decimated doomed Mutineers being placed on the leads of the Church to see:

Thursday, 17th May. This day in Burford Churchyard, 'Cornet Thompson, brother to Thompson the chief leader, was brought to the place of execution; and expressed himself to 'this purpose, That it was just what did befall him; that God ' did not own the ways he went; that he had offended the Gene'ral: he desired the prayers of the people; and told the soldiers 'who were appointed to shoot him, that when he held out his ⚫ hands they should do their duty. And accordingly he was immediately, after the sign given, shot to death. Next after him. 'was a Corporal, brought to the same place of execution; where, 'looking upon his fellow-mutineers, he set his back against the ́ wall; and bade them who were appointed to shoot, "Shoot!"

and died desperately. The third being also a Corporal, was 'brought to the same place; and without the least acknowledg'ment of error, or shew of fear, he pulled off his doublet, stand'ing a pretty distance from the wall; and bade the soldiers do 'their duty; looking them in the face till they gave fire, not 'shewing the least kind of terror or fearfulness of spirit.'-So die the Leveller Corporals; strong they, after their sort, for the Liberties of England; resolute to the very death. Misguided Corporals! But History, which has wept for a misguided Charles Stuart, and blubbered, in the most copious helpless manner, near two centuries now, whole floods of brine, enough to salt the Herringfishery, will not refuse these poor Corporals also her tributary sigh. With Arnald of the Rendezvous at Ware, with Lockyer of the Bull in Bishopsgate, and other misguided martyrs to the Liberties of England then and since, may they sleep well! Cornet Dean who now came forward, as the next to be shot, 'expressed penitence;' got pardon from the General: and there