In March 1647 a copy of the ‘large’, that is, comprehensive petition was seized in London while being circulated for subscription. With its bold and revolutionary claim that the Commons was the supreme authority of the nation, it caused considerable uproar within Parliament. Two of its promoters were imprisoned and the petition itself was burned by the common hangman. Known to be a collaborative work, the Leveller William Walwyn1 was prominent amongst its authors.
To the right honourable and supreme authority of this nation, the Commons in Parliament assembled. The humble petition of many thousands, earnestly desiring the glory of God, the freedom of the commonwealth and the peace of all men.
Shows,
That as no government is more just in the constitution than that of Parliaments, having its foundation in the free choice of the people, and as the end of all government is the safety and freedom of the governed, even so the people of this nation in all times have manifested most hearty affection unto Parliaments as the most proper remedy of their grievances. Yet such have been the wicked policies of those who from time to time have endeavoured to bring this nation into bondage that they have in all times, either by the disuse or abuse of Parliaments, deprived the people of their hopes. For testimony whereof the late times foregoing this Parliament will sadly witness: when it was not only made a crime to mention a Parliament, but either the pretended negative voice (the most destructive to freedom) or a speedy dissolution2 blasted the fruit and benefit thereof, whilst the whole land was overspread with all kinds of oppression and tyranny extending both to soul and body, and that in so rooted and settled a way that the complaints of the people in general witnessed that they would have given anything in the world for one six months’ freedom of Parliament. Which has been since evidenced in their instant and constant readiness of assistance to this present Parliament, exceeding the records of all former ages, and wherein God has blessed them with their first desires, making this Parliament the most absolute and free of any Parliament that ever was, and enabling it with power sufficient to deliver the whole nation from all kinds of oppressions and grievances, though of never so long continuance, and to make it the most absolute and free nation in the world.
And it is most thankfully acknowledged that you have in order to the freedom of the people suppressed the High Commission, Star Chamber and Council Table; called home the banished,3 delivered such as were imprisoned for matters of conscience4 and brought some delinquents to deserved punishment;5 that you have suppressed the bishops and popish lords, abolished episcopacy and that kind of prelatic persecuting government;6 that you have taken away ship money and all the new illegal patents. Whereby the hearts of all the well-affected were enlarged and filled with a confident hope that they should have seen long before this a complete removal of all grievances, and the whole people delivered from all oppressions over soul or body.
But such is our misery, that after the expense of so much precious time, of blood, and treasure, and the ruin of so many thousands of honest families in recovering our liberties, we still find this nation oppressed with grievances of the same destructive nature as formerly, though under other notions; and which are so much the more grievous unto us because they are inflicted in the very time of this present Parliament, under God, the hope of the oppressed. For, as then all the men and women in England were made liable to the summons, attachments, sentences and imprisonments of the lords of the Council Board, so we find by woeful experience and sufferings of many particular persons that the present lords do assume and exercise the same power, than which nothing is, or can be, more repugnant and destructive to the commons’ just liberties.
As the unjust power of Star Chamber was exercised in compelling of men and women to answer to interrogatories tending to accuse themselves and others, so is the same now frequently practised upon divers persons — even your cordial friends, that have been, and still are, punished for refusing to answer to questions against themselves and nearest relations.
As then the great oppression of the High Commission was most evident in molesting of godly peaceable people for nonconformity or different opinion and practice in religion, judging all who were contrary-minded to themselves to be heretics, sectaries, schismatics, seditious, factious enemies to the state, and the like; and under great penalties forbidding all persons not licensed by them to preach or publish the gospel — even so now at this day, the very same if not greater molestations are set on foot and violently prosecuted by the instigation of a clergy no more infallible than the former, to the extreme discouragement and affliction of many thousands of your faithful adherents, who are not satisfied that controversies in religion can be trusted to the compulsive regulation of any, and after the bishops were suppressed, did hope never to have seen such a power assumed by any in this nation any more.
And although all new illegal patents are by you abolished, yet the oppressive monopoly of Merchant Adventurers and others do still remain to the great abridgement of the liberties of the people and to the extreme prejudice of all such industrious people as depend on clothing or other woollen manufacture (it being the staple commodity of this nation), and to the great discouragement and disadvantage of all sorts of tradesmen, seafaring men, and hindrance of shipping and navigation.
Also the old tedious and chargeable way of deciding controversies or suits in law is continued to this day, to the extreme vexation and utter undoing of multitudes of families, a grievance as great and as palpable as any in the world. Likewise that old but most unequal punishment of malefactors is still continued, whereby men’s lives and liberties are as liable to the law, and corporal pains as much inflicted for small as for great offences, and that most unjustly upon the testimony of one witness, contrary both to the law of God and common equity: a grievance very great but little regarded.
Also tithes7 and other enforced maintenance are still continued, though there be no ground for either under the gospel and though the same have occasioned multitudes of suits, quarrels and debates, both in former and later times. In like manner, multitudes of poor distressed prisoners for debt lie still unregarded in a most miserable and woeful condition throughout the land, to the great reproach of this nation. Likewise prison-keepers or gaolers are as presumptuous as ever they were, both in receiving and detaining of prisoners illegally committed; as cruel and inhumane to all, especially to such as are well-affected; as oppressive and extorting in their fees, and are attended with under-officers of such vile and unchristian demeanour as is most abominable. Also thousands of men and women are still (as formerly) permitted to live in beggary and wickedness all their life long and to breed their children to the same idle and vicious course of life, and no effectual means used to reclaim either or to reduce them to any virtue or industry.
And last, as those who found themselves aggrieved formerly at the burdens and oppressions of those times (that did not conform to the church government then established, refused to pay ship money or yield obedience to unjust patents) were reviled and reproached with nicknames of Puritans, heretics, schismatics, sectaries, or were termed factious or seditious, men of turbulent spirits, despisers of government and disturbers of the public peace; even so is it at this day in all respects, with those who show any sensibility of the fore-recited grievances, or move in any manner or measure for remedy thereof; all the reproaches, evils and mischiefs that can be devised are thought too few or too little to be laid upon them, as Roundheads, sectaries, Independents, heretics, schismatics, factious, seditious, rebellious, disturbers of the public peace, destroyers of all civil relation and subordinations. Yes, and beyond what was formerly, nonconformity is now judged a sufficient cause to disable any person, though of known fidelity, from bearing any office of trust in the commonwealth,8 whilst neuters, malignants and disaffected are admitted and continued.9 And though it be not now made a crime to mention a Parliament, yet is it little less to mention the supreme power of this honourable House.
So that in all these respects this nation remains in a very sad and disconsolate condition; and the more, because it is thus with us after so long a session of so powerful and so free a Parliament, and which has been so made and maintained by the abundant love and liberal effusion of the blood of the people.
And therefore, knowing no danger nor thraldom like unto our being left in this most sad condition by this Parliament, and observing that you are now drawing the great and weighty affairs of this nation to some kind of conclusion, and fearing that you may before long be obstructed by something equally evil to a negative voice, and that you may be induced to lay by that strength which (under God) has hitherto made you powerful to all good works;10 whilst we have yet time to hope, and you power to help, and lest by our silence we might be guilty of that ruin and slavery which without your speedy help is like to fall upon us, yourselves and the whole nation, we have presumed to spread our cause thus plainly and largely before you; and do most earnestly entreat that you will stir up your affections to a zealous love and tender regard of the people who have chosen and trusted you, and that you will seriously consider that the end of their trust was freedom and deliverance from all kind of grievances and oppressions.
1. And that therefore in the first place, you will be exceeding careful to preserve your just authority from all prejudices of a negative voice in any person or persons whomsoever which may disable you from making that happy return unto the people which they justly expect; and that you will not be induced to lay by your strength until you have satisfied your understandings in the undoubted security of yourselves and of those who have voluntarily and faithfully adhered unto you in all your extremities and until you have secured and settled the commonwealth in solid peace and true freedom, which is the end of the primitive institution of all governments.
2. That you will take off all sentences, fines and imprisonments imposed on commoners, by any whomsoever, without due course of law or judgement of their equals, and to give due reparations to all those who have been so injuriously dealt withal; and for preventing the like for time to come, that you will enact all such arbitrary proceedings to be capital crimes.
3. That you will permit no authority whatsoever to compel any person or persons to answer to questions against themselves or nearest relations, except in cases of private interest between party and party in a legal way; and to release all such as suffer by imprisonment or otherwise for refusing to answer to such interrogatories.
4. That all statutes, oaths and covenants may be repealed so far as they tend, or may be construed, to the molestation and ensnaring of religious, peaceable, well-affected people for nonconformity or different opinion or practice in religion.
5. That no man, for preaching or publishing his opinion in religion in a peaceable way, may be punished or persecuted as heretical by judges (that are not infallible but may be mistaken as well as other men in their judgements) lest upon pretence of suppressing errors, sects or schisms, the most necessary truths and sincere professors thereof may be suppressed, as upon the like pretence it has been in all ages.
6. That you will, for the encouragement of industrious people, dissolve that old oppressive company of Merchant Adventurers and the like, and prevent all such others by great penalties, forever.
7. That you will settle a just, speedy, plain and unburdensome way for deciding of controversies and suits in law, and reduce all laws to the nearest agreement with Christianity, and publish them in the English tongue; and that all processes and proceedings therein may be true, and also in English, and in the most usual character of writing, without any abbreviations, that each one who can read may the better understand their own affairs; and that the duty of all judges, officers and practisers in the law, and of all magistrates and officers in the commonwealth, may be prescribed and their fees limited, under strict penalties, and published in print to the view and knowledge of all men: by which just and equitable means this nation shall be forever freed of an oppression more burdensome and troublesome than all the oppressions hitherto by this Parliament removed.
8. That the life of no person may be taken away but under the testimony of two witnesses at least, of honest conversation; and that in an equitable way you will proportion punishments to offences, that so no man’s life may be taken, his body punished, nor his estate forfeited, but upon such weighty and considerable causes as justly deserve such punishments; and that all prisoners may have a speedy trial, that they be neither starved nor their families ruined by long and lingering imprisonment; and that imprisonment may be used only for safe custody until time of trial, and not as a punishment for offences.
9. That tithes and all other enforced maintenance may be forever abolished and nothing in place thereof imposed, but that all ministers may be paid only by those who voluntarily chose them and contract with them for their labours.
10. That you will take some speedy and effectual course to relieve all such prisoners for debt as are altogether unable to pay, that they may not perish in prison through the hard-heartedness of their creditors; and that all such as have any estates may be enforced to make payment accordingly and not shelter themselves in prison to defraud their creditors.
11. That none may be prison-keepers but such as are of approved honesty, and that they may be prohibited under great penalties to receive or detain any person or persons without lawful warrant; that their usage of prisoners may be with gentleness and civility, their fees moderate and certain, and that they may give security for the good behaviour of their under-officers.
12. That you will provide some powerful means to keep men, women and children from begging and wickedness, that this nation may be no longer a shame to Christianity therein.
13. That you will restrain and discountenance the malice and impudency of impious persons in their reviling and reproaching the well-affected with the ignominious titles of Roundheads, factious, seditious and the like, whereby your real friends have been a long time, and still are, exceedingly wronged, discouraged and made obnoxious to rude and profane people. And that you will not exclude any of approved fidelity from bearing office of trust in the commonwealth for nonconformity: rather neuters and such as manifest disaffection or opposition to common freedom, the admission and continuation of such being the chief cause of all our grievances.
These remedies, or what other shall seem more effectual to your grave wisdoms, we humbly pray may be speedily applied; and that in doing thereof you will be confident of the assistance of your petitioners and of all considerate, well-minded people to the uttermost of their best abilities, against all opposition whatsoever, looking upon ourselves as more concerned now at last to make a good end than at the first to have made a good beginning. For what shall it profit us, or what remedy can we expect, if now after so great troubles and miseries this nation should be left by this Parliament in so great a thraldom, both of body, mind and estate?
We beseech you therefore that with all your might whilst you have time, freedom and power, so effectively to fulfil the true end of Parliaments in delivering this nation from these and all other grievances, that none may presume or dare to introduce the like forever.
And we trust the God of your good success will manifest the sincerity of our intentions herein, and that our humble desires are such as tend not only to our own particular but to the general good of the commonwealth, and proper for this honourable House to grant, without which this nation cannot be safe or happy. And that He will bless you with true Christian fortitude, suitable to the trust and greatness of the work you have undertaken, and make the memory of this Parliament blessed to all succeeding generations.
Shall ever be the prayer of your humble petitioners.