Army headquarters had been situated at Putney since August 1647, and from September weekly meetings of the General Council were held in Putney church. This, then, was the setting on 28 October when a delegation of agents and civilians arrived at the church. However, and unbeknown to the council, they came not to discuss ‘The case of the army’ but the Agreement of the people’.
At the General Council of the Army at Putney, 28 October 1647.
The Officers being met, first said
Lieutenant-General Oliver Cromwell: That the meeting was for public businesses; those that had anything to say concerning the public business, they might have liberty to speak. […]
Edward Sexby:1 I was desired by the lieutenant-general to know the bottom of the agents’ desires. They gave us this answer: that they would willingly draw them up and represent them unto you. They are come at this time to tender them to your considerations, with their resolutions to maintain them.
We have been by providence put upon strange things, such as the ancientest here do scarce remember. The army acting to these ends, providence has been with us, and yet we have found little fruit of our endeavours. The kingdom and army calls for expedition. And really I think all here, both great and small, both officers and soldiers, we may say we have leaned on, and gone to Egypt for help. The kingdom’s cause requires expedition, and truly our miseries (with our fellow soldiers’) cry out for present help. I think, at this time, this is your business, and I think it is in all your hearts to relieve the one and satisfy the other. You resolved if anything reasonable should be propounded to you, you would join and go along with us.
The cause of our misery is upon two things. We sought to satisfy all men, and it was well; but in going about to do it we have dissatisfied all men. We have laboured to please a king, and I think, except we go about to cut all our throats, we shall not please him; and we have gone to support an house which will prove rotten studs – I mean the Parliament, which consists of a company of rotten members. And therefore we beseech you that you will take these things into your consideration.
I shall speak to the lieutenant-general and commissary-general concerning one thing. Your credits and reputation have been much blasted, upon these two considerations. The one is for seeking to settle this kingdom in such a way wherein we thought to have satisfied all men, and we have dissatisfied them – I mean in relation to the king. The other is in reference to a Parliamentary authority, which most here would lose their lives for – to see those powers to which we will subject ourselves, loyally called. These two things are, as I think conscientiously, the cause of all those blemishes that have been cast upon either the one or the other. You are convinced God will have you to act on. But only consider how you shall act, and take those ways that will secure you and the whole kingdom. I desire you will consider those things that shall be offered to you; and, if you see anything of reason, you will join with us, that the kingdom may be eased and our fellow soldiers may be quieted in spirit. These things I have represented as my thoughts. I desire your pardon.
Cromwell: I think it is good for us to proceed to our business in some order, and that will be if we consider some things that are lately past. There has been a book printed, called ‘The case of the army truly stated’, and that has been taken into consideration, and there has been somewhat drawn up by way of exception to things contained in that book. And I suppose there was an answer brought to that which was taken by way of exception, and yesterday the gentleman that brought the answer,2 he was dealt honestly and plainly withal, and he was told that there were new designs adriving, and nothing would be a clearer discovery of the sincerity of their intentions than their willingness, that were active, to bring what they had to say to be judged of by the general officers and by this General Council, that we might discern what the intentions were. Now it seems there be divers that are come hither to manifest those intentions, according to what was offered yesterday; and truly I think that the best way of our proceeding will be to receive what they have to offer. […]
Buff-Coat:3 May it please your Honour: I desired to give you satisfaction in that there was such a willingness that we might have a conference. Whereupon I did engage that interest that was in me that I would procure some to come hither, both of the soldiers and of others for assistance. And in order thereunto, here are two soldiers4 sent from the agents, and two of our friends also,5 to present this to your considerations, and desire your advice. According to my expectations and your engagements, you are resolved every one to purchase our inheritances which have been lost, and free this nation from the tyranny that lies upon us. I question not but that it is all your desires. And for that purpose we desire to do nothing but what we present to your consideration. And if you conceive that it must be for us to be instruments (that we might shelter ourselves like wise men before the storm comes), we desire that all carping upon words might be laid aside, and that you may fall directly upon the matter presented to you.
We have here met on purpose, according to my engagement, that whatsoever may be thought to be necessary for our satisfaction, for the right understanding one of another, might be done, that we might go on together. For, though our ends and aims be the same, if one thinks this way, another another way, that way which is the best for the subject is that they both may be hearkened unto.
[‘An agreement of the people’ read.]
Buff-Coat: For the privileges here demanded, I think it will be strange that we that are soldiers cannot have them for ourselves, if not for the whole kingdom; and therefore we beseech you consider of it.
Cromwell: These things that you have now offered, they are new to us: they are things that we have not at all (at least in this method and thus circumstantially) had any opportunity to consider of, because they came to us but thus, as you see; this is the first time we had a view of them.
Truly this paper does contain in it very great alterations of the very government of the kingdom, alterations from that government that it has been under, I believe I may almost say, since it was a nation – I say, I think I may almost say so. And what the consequences of such an alteration as this would be, if there were nothing else to be considered, wise men and godly men ought to consider. I say, if there were nothing else to be considered but the very weight and nature of the things contained in this paper. Therefore, although the pretensions in it, and the expressions in it, are very plausible, and if we could leap out of one condition into another that had so specious things in it as this has, I suppose there would not be much dispute – though perhaps some of these things may be very well disputed. How do we know if, whilst we are disputing these things, another company of men shall not gather together, and put out a paper as plausible perhaps as this? I do not know why it might not be done by that time you have agreed upon this, or got hands to it if that be the way. And not only another, and another, but many of this kind. And if so, what do you think the consequence of that would be? Would it not be confusion? Would it not be utter confusion? Would it not make England like the Switzerland country, one canton of the Swiss against another, and one county against another? I ask you whether it be not fit for every honest man seriously to lay that upon his heart? And if so, what would that produce but an absolute desolation – an absolute desolation to the nation – and we in the meantime tell the nation, ‘It is for your liberty; ’tis for your privilege; ’tis for your good.’ Pray God it prove so, whatsoever course we run. But truly, I think we are not only to consider what the consequences are if there were nothing else but this paper, but we are to consider the probability of the ways and means to accomplish the thing proposed: that is to say, whether, according to reason and judgement, the spirits and temper of the people of this nation are prepared to receive and to go on along with it, and whether those great difficulties that lie in our way are in a likelihood to be either overcome or removed. Truly, to anything that’s good, there’s no doubt on it, objections may be made and framed; but let every honest man consider whether or no there be not very real objections to this in point of difficulty. I know a man may answer all difficulties with faith, and faith will answer all difficulties really where it is, but we are very apt, all of us, to call that faith, that perhaps may be but carnal imagination, and carnal reasonings. Give me leave to say this: there will be very great mountains in the way of this, if this were the thing in present consideration; and, therefore, we ought to consider the consequences, and God has given us our reason that we may do this. It is not enough to propose things that are good in the end, but suppose this model were an excellent model, and fit for England and the kingdom to receive, it is our duty as Christians and men to consider consequences, and to consider the way. […]
First of all there is the question what obligations lie upon us and how far we are engaged. This ought to be our consideration and yours, saving that in this you have the advantage of us – you that are the soldiers you have not, but you that are not soldiers – you reckon yourselves at a loose and at a liberty, as men that have no obligation upon you. Perhaps we conceive we have; and therefore this is that I may say, both to those that come with you, and to my fellow officers and all others that hear me: that it concerns us as we would approve ourselves before God, and before men that are able to judge of us, if we do not make good our engagements, if we do not make good that that the world expects we should make good. I do not speak to determine what that is; but if I be not much mistaken, we have in the time of our danger issued out declarations; we have been required by the Parliament, because our declarations were general, to declare particularly what we meant. And (having done that) how far that obliges or not obliges us, that is by us to be considered – if we mean honestly and sincerely and to approve ourselves to God as honest men. And therefore, having heard this paper read, this remains to us: that we again review what we have engaged in, and what we have that lies upon us. He that departs from that that is a real engagement and a real tie upon him, I think he transgresses without faith; for faith will bear up men in every honest obligation, and God does expect from men the performance of every honest obligation. And therefore I have no more to say but this: we having received your paper, we shall amongst ourselves consider what to do; and before we take this into consideration, it is fit for us to consider how far we are obliged, and how far we are free; and I hope we shall prove ourselves honest men where we are free to tender anything to the good of the public. And this is that I thought good to offer to you upon this paper.
John Wildman: Being yesterday at a meeting where divers country gentlemen and soldiers and others were, and amongst the rest the agents of the five regiments, and having weighed their papers, I must freely confess I did declare my agreement with them. Upon that, they were pleased to declare their sense in most particulars of their proceedings, to me, and desired me that I would be their mouth, and in their names represent their sense unto you. And upon that ground I shall speak something in answer to that which your Honour last spoke.
I shall not reply anything at present, till it come to be further debated, either concerning the consequences of what is propounded, or the contents of this paper; but I conceive the chief weight of your Honour’s speech lay in this: that you were first to consider what obligations lay upon you, and how far you were engaged, before you could consider what was just in this paper now propounded; adding that God would protect men in keeping honest promises. To that I must only offer this. That, according to the best knowledge I have of their apprehensions, they do apprehend that whatever obligation is past must afterwards be considered when it is urged whether the engagement were honest and just or no; and if it were not just it does not oblige the persons, if it be an oath itself. But if, while there is not so clear a light, any person passes an engagement, it is judged by them (and I so judge it) to be an act of honesty for that man to recede from his former judgement, and to abhor it. And therefore I conceive the first thing is to consider the honesty of what is offered; otherwise it cannot be considered of any obligation that does prepossess. By the consideration of the justice of what is offered, that obligation shall appear whether it was just or no. If it were not just, I cannot but be confident of the searings of your consciences. And I conceive this to be their sense; and upon this account, upon a more serious review of all declarations past, they see no obligations which are just, that they contradict by proceeding in this way.
Commissary-General Henry Ireton: Sure this gentleman has not been acquainted with our engagements. For he that will cry out of breach of engagement in slight and trivial things and things necessitated to, I can hardly think that man that is so tender of an engagement as to frame, or at least concur with, this book, ‘The case of the army’, in their insisting upon every punctilio of the army’s engagement, can be of that principle that no engagement is binding further than that he thinks it just or no. For he hints that, if he that makes an engagement (be it what it will be) have further light that this engagement was not good or honest, then he is free from it. Truly, if the sense were put thus, that a man finds he has entered into an engagement and thinks that it was not a just engagement, I confess something might be said that such a man might declare himself for his part ready to suffer some penalty upon his person or upon his party. The question is, whether it be an engagement to another party. Now if a man venture into an engagement from himself to another, and find that engagement not just and honest, he must apply himself to the other party and say: ‘I cannot actively perform it; I will make you amends as near as I can.’ Upon the same ground men are not obliged to be obedient to any authority that is set up, though it were this authority that is proposed here – I am not engaged to be so actively to that authority. Yet if I have engaged that they shall bind me by law, though afterwards I find they do require me to a thing that is not just or honest, I am bound so far to my engagement that I must submit and suffer, though I cannot act and do that which their laws do impose upon me. If that caution were put in where a performance of an engagement might be expected from another, and he could not do it because he thought it was not honest to be performed, if such a thing were put into the case, it is possible there might be some reason for it. But to take it as it is delivered in general, that we are free to break, if it subsequently appear unjust, whatever engagement we have entered into, though it be a promise of something to another party, wherein that other party is concerned, wherein he has a benefit if we make it good, wherein he has a prejudice if we make it not good: this is a principle that will take away all commonwealths, and will take away the fruit of this very engagement if it were entered into; and men of this principle would think themselves as little as may be obliged by any law if in their apprehensions it be not a good law. I think they would think themselves as little obliged to think of standing to that authority that is proposed in this ‘Agreement’. […]
Colonel Thomas Rainborough:6 […] I shall speak my mind, that, whoever he be that has done this, he has done it with much respect to the good of his country. It is said, there are many plausible things in it. Truly, many things have engaged me, which, if I had not known they should have been nothing but good, I would not have engaged in. It has been said, that if a man be engaged he must perform his engagements. I am wholly confident that every honest man is bound in duty to God and his conscience, let him be engaged in what he will, to decline it when he sees it to be evil: he is engaged, and as clearly convinced, to discharge his duty to God as ever he was for it. And that I shall make good out of the scripture, and clear it by that, if that be anything.
There are two further objections are made against it: the one is division. Truly I think we are utterly undone if we divide, but I hope that honest things have carried us on thus long, and will keep us together, and I hope that we shall not divide. Another thing is difficulties. Oh, unhappy men are we that ever began this war! If ever we had looked upon difficulties, I do not know that ever we should have looked an enemy in the face. Truly, I think the Parliament were very indiscreet to contest with the king if they did not consider first that they should go through difficulties; and I think there was no man that entered into this war, that did not engage to go through difficulties. And I shall humbly offer unto you – it may be the last time I shall offer, it may be so, but I shall discharge my conscience in it – it is this. That truly I think, let the difficulties be round about you – have you death before you, the sea on each side of you and behind you – and are you convinced that the thing is just, I think you are bound in conscience to carry it on; and I think at the last day it can never be answered to God, that you did not do it. For I think it is a poor service to God and the kingdom, to take their pay and to decline the work. I hear it said that it’s a huge alteration, it’s a bringing in of new laws, and that this kingdom has been under this government ever since it was a kingdom. If writings be true there have been many scufflings between the honest men of England and those that have tyrannised over them; and if it be true what I have read, there is none of those just and equitable laws that the people of England are born to, but are entrenchments on the once enjoyed privileges of their rulers altogether. But even if they were those which the people have been always under, if the people find that they are not suitable to free men as they are, I know no reason that should deter me, either in what I must answer before God or the world, from endeavouring by all means to gain anything that might be of more advantage to them than the government under which they live. I do not press that you should go on with this thing, for I think that every man that would speak to it will be less able till he has some time to consider it. I do make it my motion: that two or three days’ time may be set for every man to consider, and that all that is to be considered is the justness of the thing – and if that be considered then all things are – so that there may be nothing to deter us from it, but that we may do that which is just to the people. […]
[In spite of Rainborough’s motion, the issue of engagements – and the circumstances under which it was lawful to break them – thereafter dominated the day’s debate. Eventually, a committee was appointed to examine the ‘Agreement’ in the light of the army’s previous engagements.]
Putney, 29 October 1647.
[The second day’s debate – deservedly the most famous – took place in the quartermaster-general’s quarters following a morning prayer meeting. After the arrival of the agents and civilians, the ‘Agreement’ was read to the assembled audience, followed by the first article by itself.]
[…] Ireton: The exception that lies in it is this: it is said, they are to be distributed ‘according to the number of the inhabitants’, ‘The people of England’, etc. And this does make me think that the meaning is, that every man that is an inhabitant is to be equally considered, and to have an equal voice in the election of those representers, the persons that are for the general representative. And if that be the meaning, then I have something to say against it. But if it be only that those people that by the civil constitution of this kingdom, which is original and fundamental, and beyond which I am sure no memory of record does go —
Commissary Nicholas Cowling,7 interrupting: Not before the Conquest.
Ireton: But before the Conquest it was so. If it be intended that those that by that constitution that was before the Conquest, that has been beyond memory, such persons that have been before under that constitution the electors, should be still the electors, I have no more to say against it. […]
Ireton asked: Whether those men whose hands are to the ‘Agreement’, or those that brought it, do know so much of the matter as to know whether they mean that all that had a former right of election are to be electors, or that those that had no right before are to come in.
Cowling: In the time before the Conquest, and since the Conquest, the greatest part of the kingdom was in vassalage.
Maximilian Petty: We judge that all inhabitants that have not lost their birthright should have an equal voice in elections.
Rainborough: I desired that those that had engaged in it might be included. For really I think that the poorest he that is in England has a life to live, as the greatest he; and therefore truly, sir, I think it’s clear, that every man that is to live under a government ought first by his own consent to put himself under that government; and I do think that the poorest man in England is not at all bound in a strict sense to that government that he has not had a voice to put himself under; and I am confident that, when I have heard the reasons against it, something will be said to answer those reasons, in so much that I should doubt whether he was an Englishman or no, that should doubt of these things.
Ireton: That’s the meaning of this, ‘according to the number of the inhabitants’?
Give me leave to tell you, that if you make this the 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. This, I perceive, is pressed as that which is so essential and due: the right of the people of this kingdom, and as they are the people of this kingdom, distinct and divided from other people, and that we must for this right lay aside all other considerations. This is so just, this is so due, this is so right to them; and that those that they do thus choose must have such a power of binding all, and loosing all, according to those limitations. This is pressed as so due, and so just, as it is argued, that it is an engagement paramount to all others, and you must for it lay aside all others; if you have engaged any otherwise, you must break it. We must so look upon these as thus held out to us; so it was held out by the gentleman that brought it yesterday.
For my part, I think it is no right at all. I think that no person has a right to an interest or share in the 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 has a right to this, that has not a permanent fixed interest in this kingdom, and those persons together are properly the represented of this kingdom, and consequently are also to make up the representers of this kingdom, who taken together do comprehend whatsoever is of real or permanent interest in the kingdom.8 And I am sure otherwise I cannot tell what any man can say why a foreigner coming in amongst us – or as many as will coming in amongst us, or by force or otherwise settling themselves here, or at least by our permission having a being here – why they should not as well lay claim to it as any other.
We talk of birthright: truly by birthright there is thus much claim. Men may justly have by birthright, by their very being born in England, that we should not seclude them out of England, that we should not refuse to give them air and place and ground, and the freedom of the highways and other things, to live amongst us – not any man that is born here, though by his birth there come nothing at all (that is part of the permanent interest of this kingdom) to him. That I think is due to a man by birth. But that by a man’s being born here he shall have a share in that power that shall dispose of the lands here, and of all things here, I do not think it a sufficient ground.
I am sure if we look upon that which is the utmost (within any man’s view) of what was originally the constitution of this kingdom, upon that which is most radical and fundamental, and which if you take away, there is no man has any land, any goods, or any civil interest, that is this: that those that choose the representers for the making of laws by which this state and kingdom are to be governed, are the persons who, taken together, do comprehend the local interest of this kingdom; that is, the persons in whom all land lies, and those in corporations in whom all trading lies. This is the most fundamental constitution of this kingdom and that which if you do not allow, you allow none at all. This constitution has limited and determined it that only those shall have voices in elections. It is true, as was said by a gentleman near me, the meanest man in England ought to have a voice in the election of the government he lives under – but only if he has some local interest. I say this: that those that have the meanest local interest, that man that has but forty shillings a year, he has as great a voice in the election of a knight for the shire as he that has ten thousand a year, or more if he had never so much; and therefore there is that regard had to it. But this local interest, still the constitution of this government has had an eye to (and what other government has not an eye to this?). It does not relate to the interest of the kingdom if it do not lay the foundation of the power that’s given to the representers in those who have a permanent and a local interest in the kingdom, and who taken all together do comprehend the whole interest of the kingdom.
There is all the reason and justice that can be, in this: if I will come to live in a kingdom, being a foreigner to it, or live in a kingdom, having no permanent interest in it, and if I will desire as a stranger, or claim as one freeborn here, the air, the free passage of highways, the protection of laws, and all such things – if I will either desire them or claim them, then I (if I have no permanent interest in that kingdom) must submit to those laws and those rules which they shall choose, who, taken together, do comprehend the whole interest of the kingdom. And if we shall go to take away this, we shall plainly go to take away all property and interest that any man has either in land by inheritance, or in estate by possession, or anything else – I say, if you take away this fundamental part of the civil constitution.
Rainborough: Truly, sir, I am of the same opinion I was, and am resolved to keep it till I know reason why I should not. I confess my memory is bad, and therefore I am fain to make use of my pen. I remember that, in a former speech which this gentleman brought before this meeting, he was saying that in some cases he should not value whether there were a king or no king, whether Lords or no Lords, whether a property or no property. For my part I differ in that. I do very much care whether there be a king or no king, Lords or no Lords, property or no property; and I think, if we do not all take care, we shall all have none of these very shortly.
But as to this present business, I do hear nothing at all that can convince me why any man that is born in England ought not to have his voice in election of burgesses. It is said that if a man have not a permanent interest, he can have no claim; and that we must be no freer than the laws will let us be, and that there is no law in any chronicle will let us be freer than that we now enjoy. Something was said to this yesterday. I do think that the main cause why Almighty God gave men reason, it was that they should make use of that reason, and that they should improve it for that end and purpose that God gave it them. And truly, I think that half a loaf is better than none if a man be hungry. This gift of reason without other property may seem a small thing, yet I think there is nothing that God has given a man that anyone else can take from him. And therefore I say, that either it must be the law of God or the law of man that must prohibit the meanest man in the kingdom to have this benefit as well as the greatest. I do not find anything in the law of God, that a lord shall choose twenty burgesses, and a gentleman but two, or a poor man shall choose none: I find no such thing in the law of nature, nor in the law of nations. But I do find that all Englishmen must be subject to English laws, and I do verily believe that there is no man but will say that the foundation of all law lies in the people, and if it lie in the people, I am to seek for this exemption.
And truly I have thought something else: in what a miserable distressed condition would many a man that has fought for the Parliament in this quarrel be! I will be bound to say that many a man whose zeal and affection to God and this kingdom has carried him forth in this cause, has so spent his estate that, in the way the state and the army are going, he shall not hold up his head, if when his estate is lost, and not worth forty shillings a year, a man shall not have any interest. And there are many other ways by which the estates men have (if that be the rule which God in his providence does use) do fall to decay. A man, when he has an estate, has an interest in making laws, but when he has none, he has no power in it; so that a man cannot lose that which he has for the maintenance of his family but he must also lose that which God and nature has given him! And therefore I do think, and am still of the same opinion, that every man born in England cannot, ought not, neither by the law of God nor the law of nature, to be exempted from the choice of those who are to make laws for him to live under, and for him, for all I know, to lose his life under. And therefore I think there can be no great stick in this.
Truly I think that there is not this day reigning in England a greater fruit or effect of tyranny than this very thing would produce. Truly I know nothing free but only the knight of the shire, nor do I know anything in a Parliamentary way that is clear from the height and fullness of tyranny, but only that. As for this of corporations which you also mentioned, it is as contrary to freedom as may be. For, sir, what is it? The king he grants a patent under the Broad-Seal of England to such a corporation to send burgesses, he grants to such a city to send burgesses. When a poor base corporation from the king’s grant shall send two burgesses, when five hundred men of estate shall not send one, when those that are to make their laws are called by the king, or cannot act but by such a call, truly I think that the people of England have little freedom.
Ireton: I think there was nothing that I said to give you occasion to think that I did contend for this, that such a corporation as that should have the electing of a man to the Parliament. I think I agreed to this matter, that all should be equally distributed.9 But the question is, whether it should be distributed to all persons, or whether the same persons that are the electors now should be the electors still, and it be equally distributed amongst them. I do not see anybody else that makes this objection; and if nobody else be sensible of it I shall soon have done. Only I shall a little crave your leave to represent the consequences of it, and clear myself from one thing that was misrepresented by the gentleman that sat next me. I think, if the gentleman remember himself, he cannot but remember that what I said was to this effect: that if I saw the hand of God leading so far as to destroy king, and destroy Lords, and destroy property, and leave no such thing at all amongst us, I should acquiesce in it; and so I did not care, if no king, no Lords, or no property should be, in comparison of the tender care that I have of the honour of God, and of the people of God, whose good name is so much concerned in this army. This I did deliver so, and not absolutely.
All the main thing that I speak for, is because I would have an eye to property. I hope we do not come to contend for victory, but let every man consider with himself that he do not go that way to take away all property. For here is the case of the most fundamental part of the constitution of the kingdom, which if you take away, you take away all by that. Here men of this and this quality are determined to be the electors of men to the Parliament, and they are all those who have any permanent interest in the kingdom, and who, taken together, do comprehend the whole permanent, local interest of the kingdom. I mean by permanent and local, that it is not able to be removed anywhere else. As for instance, he that has a freehold, and that freehold cannot be removed out of the kingdom; and so there’s a freeman of a corporation, a place which has the privilege of a market and trading, which if you should allow to all places equally, I do not see how you could preserve any peace in the kingdom, and that is the reason why in the constitution we have but some few market towns. Now those people that have freeholds and those that are the freemen of corporations, were looked upon by the former constitution to comprehend the permanent interest of the kingdom. For first, he that has his livelihood by his trade, and by his freedom of trading in such a corporation, which he cannot exercise in another, he is tied to that place, for his livelihood depends upon it. And secondly, that man has an interest, has a permanent interest there, upon which he may live, and live a freeman without dependence. These things the constitution of this kingdom has looked at.
Now I wish we may all consider of what right you will challenge that all the people should have right to elections. Is it by the right of nature? If you will hold forth that as your ground, then I think you must deny all property too, and this is my reason. For thus: by that same right of nature (whatever it be) that you pretend, by which you can say, one man has an equal right with another to the choosing of him that shall govern him, by the same right of nature, he has the same equal right in any goods he sees – meat, drink, clothes – to take and use them for his sustenance. He has a freedom to the land, to take the ground, to exercise it, till it; he has the same freedom to anything that anyone does account himself to have any propriety in. Why now I say then, if you, against the most fundamental part of the civil constitution (which I have now declared), will plead the law of nature, that a man should(paramount to this, and contrary to this) have a power of choosing those men that shall determine what shall be law in this state, though he himself have no permanent interest in the state, but whatever interest he has he may carry about with him, if this be allowed because by the right of nature we are free, we are equal, one man must have as much voice as another, then show me what step or difference there is, why I may not by the same right take your property, though not of necessity to sustain nature. It is for my better being, and the better settlement of the kingdom? Possibly not for it, neither: possibly I may not have so real a regard to the peace of the kingdom as that man who has a permanent interest in it. He that is here today, and gone tomorrow, I do not see that he has such a permanent interest. Since you cannot plead to it by anything but the law of nature, or for anything but for the end of better being, and since that better being is not certain, and what is more, destructive to another; upon these grounds, if you do, paramount to all constitutions, hold up this law of nature, I would fain have any man show me their bounds, where you will end, and why you should not take away all property?
Rainborough: I shall now be a little more free and open with you than I was before. I wish we were all true-hearted, and that we did all carry ourselves with integrity. If I did mistrust you I would not use such asseverations. I think it does go on mistrust, and things are thought too readily matters of reflection, that were never intended. For my part, as I think, you forgot something that was in my speech, and you do not only yourselves believe that some men are inclining to anarchy, but you would make all men believe that. And, sir, to say because a man pleads that every man has a voice by right of nature, that therefore it destroys by the same argument all property, this is to forget the law of God. That there’s a property, the law of God says it; else why has God made that law, ‘Thou shall not steal’? I am a poor man, therefore I must be oppressed: if I have no interest in the kingdom, I must suffer by all their laws, be they right or wrong. Thus: a gentleman lives in a county and has three or four lordships, as some men have (God knows how they got them); and when a Parliament is called he must be a Parliament-man; and it may be he sees some poor men, they live near this man, he can crush them – I have known an invasion to make sure he has turned the poor men out of doors; and I would fain know whether the potency of rich men do not this, and so keep them under the greatest tyranny that was ever thought of in the world. And therefore I think that to that it is fully answered: God has set down that thing as to propriety with this law of his, ‘Thou shall not steal’. And for my part I am against any such thought, and, as for yourselves, I wish you would not make the world believe that we are for anarchy.
Cromwell: I know nothing but this, that they that are the most yielding have the greatest wisdom. But really, sir, this is not right as it should be. No man says that you have a mind to anarchy, but that the consequence of this rule tends to anarchy, must end in anarchy; for where is there any bound or limit set if you take away this limit, that men that have no interest but the interest of breathing shall have no voice in elections? Therefore I am confident on it, we should not be so hot one with another.
Rainborough: I know that some particular men we debate with believe we are for anarchy.
Ireton: I profess I must clear myself as to that point. I would not desire, I cannot allow myself, to lay the least scandal upon anybody. And truly, for that gentleman that did take so much offence, I do not know why he should take it so. We speak to the paper – not to persons – and to the matter of the paper. And I hope that no man is so much engaged to the matter of the paper: I hope that our persons, and our hearts and judgements, are not so pinned to papers but that we are ready to hear what good or ill consequence will flow from it.
I have, with as much plainness and clearness of reason as I could, showed you how I did conceive the doing of this that the paper advocates takes away that which is the most original, the most fundamental civil constitution of this kingdom, and which is, above all, that constitution by which I have any property. If you will take away that and set up, as a thing paramount, whatever a man may claim by the law of nature, though it be not a thing of necessity to him for the sustenance of nature, if you do make this your rule, I desire clearly to understand where then remains property.
Now then, I would misrepresent nothing the answer which had anything of matter in it, the great and main answer upon which that which has been said against this objection rests, seemed to be that it will not make a breach of property, for this reason: that there is a law, ‘Thou shall not steal’. But the same law says, ‘Honour thy father and thy mother’, and that law does likewise hold out that it does extend to all that (in that place where we are in) are our governors; so that by that there is a forbidding of breaking a civil law when we may live quietly under it, and that by a divine law. Again it is said – indeed was said before – that there is no law, no divine law, that tells us that such a corporation must have the election of burgesses, such a shire of knights, or the like. Divine law extends not to particular things. And so, on the other side, if a man were to demonstrate his right to property by divine law, it would be very remote. Our right to property descends from other things, as also does our right of sending burgesses. That divine law does not determine particulars but generals in relation to man and man, and to property, and all things else; and we should be as far to seek if we should go to prove a property in a thing by divine law, as to prove that I have an interest in choosing burgesses of the Parliament by divine law. And truly, under favour, I refer it to all, whether there be anything of solution to that objection that I made, if it be understood – I submit it to any man’s judgement.
Rainborough: 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 that is a property, to a lord, to a gentleman, to any man more than another in the kingdom of England. If it be a property, it is a property by a law, and I think that 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 tyrannical law under heaven. And I would fain know what we have fought for: for our laws and liberties? 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! With respect to the divine law which says, ‘Honour thy father and thy mother’, the great dispute is, who is a right father and a right mother? I am bound to know who is my father and mother; and – I take it in the same sense you do – I would have a distinction, a character whereby God commands me to honour them. And for my part I look upon the people of England so, that wherein they have not voices in the choosing of their governors – their civil fathers and mothers – they are not bound to that commandment.
Petty: I desire to add one word concerning the word ‘property’. It is for something that anarchy is so much talked of. For my own part I cannot believe in the least that it can be clearly derived from that paper. ’Tis true, that somewhat may be derived in the paper against the king, the power of the king, and somewhat against the power of the Lords; and the truth is when I shall see God going about to throw down king and Lords and property, then I shall be contented. But I hope that they may live to see the power of the king and the Lords thrown down, that yet may live to see property preserved. And for this of changing the representative of the nation, of changing those that choose the representative, making of them more full, taking more into the number than formerly, I had verily thought we had all agreed in it that more should have chosen – all that had desired a more equal representation than we now have. For now those only choose who have forty shillings freehold. A man may have a lease for one hundred pounds a year, a man may have a lease for three lives, but he has no voice. But as for this argument, that it destroys all right to property that every Englishman that is an inhabitant of England should choose and have a voice in the representatives, I suppose it is, on the contrary, the only means to preserve all property. For I judge every man is naturally free; and I judge the reason why men chose representatives when they were in so great numbers that every man could not give his voice directly, was that they who were chosen might preserve property for all; and therefore men agreed to come into some form of government that they might preserve property, and I would fain know, if we were to begin a government, whether you would say, ‘You have not forty shillings a year, therefore you shall not have a voice.’ Whereas before there was a government every man had such a voice, and afterwards, and for this very cause, they did choose representatives, and put themselves into forms of government that they may preserve property, and therefore it is not to destroy it, to give every man a voice.
Ireton: I think we shall not be so apt to come to a right understanding in this business, if one man, and another man, and another man do speak their several thoughts and conceptions to the same purpose, as if we do consider where the objection lies, and what the answer is which is made to it; and therefore I desire we may do so. To that which this gentleman spoke last, the main thing that he seemed to answer was this: that he would make it appear that the going about to establish this government, or such a government, is not a destruction of property, nor does not tend to the destruction of property, because the people’s falling into a government is for the preservation of property. What weight there is in it lies in this: since there is a falling into a government, and government is to preserve property, therefore this cannot be against property. The objection does not lie in that, the making of the representation more equal, but in the introducing of men into an equality of interest in this government, who have no property in this kingdom, or who have no local permanent interest in it. For if I had said that I would not wish at all that we should have any enlargement of the bounds of those that are to be the electors, then you might have excepted against it. But what I said was that I would not go to enlarge it beyond all bounds, so that upon the same ground you may admit of so many men from foreign states as would outvote you: the objection lies still in this. I do not mean that I would have it restrained to that proportion that now obtains, but to restrain it still to men who have a local, a permanent interest in the kingdom, who have such an interest that they may live upon it as free men, and who have such an interest as is fixed upon a place, and is not the same equally everywhere. If a man be an inhabitant upon a rack rent for a year, for two years, or twenty years, you cannot think that man has any fixed permanent interest. That man, if he pay the rent that his land is worth, and has no advantage but what he has by his land, is as good a man, may have as much interest, in another kingdom as here. I do not speak of not enlarging this representation at all, but of keeping this to the most fundamental constitution in this kingdom: that is, that no person that has not a local and permanent interest in the kingdom should have an equal dependence in election with those that have. But if you go beyond this law, if you admit any man that has a breath and being, I did show you how this will destroy property. It may come to destroy property thus. You may have such men chosen, or at least the major part of them, as have no local and permanent interest. Why may not those men vote against all property? Again you may admit strangers by this rule, if you admit them once to inhabit, and those that have interest in the land may be voted out of their land. It may destroy property that way. But here is the rule that you go by. You infer this to be the right of the people, of every inhabitant, because man has such a right in nature, though it be not of necessity for the preserving of his being; and therefore you are to overthrow the most fundamental constitution for this. By the same rule, show me why you will not, by the same right of nature, make use of anything that any man has, though it be not for the necessary sustenance of men. Show me what you will stop at, wherein you will fence any man in a property by this rule.
Rainborough: I desire to know how this comes to be a property in some men, and not in others.
Colonel Nathaniel Rich:10 I confess there is weight in that objection that the commissary-general last insisted upon; for you have five to one in this kingdom that have no permanent interest. Some men have ten, some twenty servants, some more, some less; if the master and servant shall be equal electors, then clearly those that have no interest in the kingdom will make it their interest to choose those that have no interest. It may happen, that the majority may by law, not in a confusion, destroy property; there may be a law enacted, that there shall be an equality of goods and estate. I think that either of the extremes may be urged to inconveniency; that is, that men that have no interest as to estate should have no interest as to election and that they should have an equal interest. But there may be a more equitable division and distribution than that he that has nothing should have an equal voice; and certainly there may be some other way thought of, that there may be a representative of the poor as well as the rich, and not to exclude all. I remember there were many workings and revolutions, as we have heard, in the Roman Senate; and there was never a confusion that did appear (and that indeed was come to) till the state came to know this kind of distribution of election. That is how the people’s voices were bought and sold, and that by the poor; and thence it came that he that was the richest man, and a man of some considerable power among the soldiers, and one they resolved on, made himself a perpetual dictator. And if we strain too far to avoid monarchy in kings let us take heed that we do not call for emperors to deliver us from more than one tyrant.
Rainborough: I should not have spoken again. I think it is a fine gilded pill. But there is much danger, and it may seem to some that there is some kind of remedy possible. I think that we are better as we are if it can be really proved that the poor shall choose many and still the people be in the same case, be over-voted still. But of this, and much else, I am unsatisfied, and therefore truly, sir, I should desire to go close to the business; and the first thing that I am unsatisfied in is how it comes about that there is such a propriety in some freeborn Englishmen, and not in others.
Cowling: Whether the younger son have not as much right to the inheritance as the eldest?11
Ireton: Will you decide it by the light of nature?
Cowling: Why election was given only to those with freeholds of forty shillings a year (which was then worth more than forty pounds a year now), the reason was: that the Commons of England were overpowered by the Lords, who had abundance of vassals, but that still they might make their laws good against encroaching prerogatives by this means; therefore they did exclude all slaves. Now the case is not so: all slaves have bought their freedoms, and they are more free that in the commonwealth are more beneficial. Yet there are men of substance in the country with no voice in elections. There is a tanner in Staines worth three thousand pounds, and another in Reading worth three horseskins: the second has a voice; the first, none.
Ireton: In the beginning of your speech you seem to acknowledge that by law, by civil constitution, the propriety of having voices in election was fixed in certain persons. So then your exception of your argument does not prove that by civil constitution they have no such propriety, but your argument does acknowledge that by civil constitution they have such propriety. You argue against this law only that this law is not good.
Wildman: Unless I be very much mistaken we are very much deviated from the first question. Instead of following the first proposition to inquire what is just, I conceive we look to prophecies, and look to what may be the event, and judge of the justness of a thing by the consequence. I desire we may recall ourselves to the question whether it be right or no. I conceive all that has been said against it will be reduced to this question of consequences, and to another reason, that it is against a fundamental law: that every person choosing ought to have a permanent interest, because it is not fit that those should choose Parliaments that have no lands to be disposed of by Parliament.
Ireton: If you will take it by the way, it is not fit that the representees should choose as the representers, or the persons who shall make the law in the kingdom, those who have not a permanent fixed interest in the kingdom. The reason is the same in the two cases.
Wildman: Sir, I do so take it; and I conceive that that is brought in for the same reason: that foreigners might otherwise not only come to have a voice in our elections as well as the native inhabitants, but to be elected.
Ireton: That is upon supposition that these foreigners should be all inhabitants.
Wildman: I shall begin with the last first. The case is different with the native inhabitant and the foreigner. If a foreigner shall be admitted to be an inhabitant in the nation, so he will submit to that form of government as the natives do, he has the same right as the natives but in this particular. Our case is to be considered thus: that we have been under slavery; that’s 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 because those that were our lords, and made us their vassals, would suffer nothing else to be chronicled. We are now engaged for our freedom. That’s the end of Parliaments: not to constitute what is already established, but to act according to the just rules of government. Every person in England has as clear a right to elect his representative as the greatest person in England. I conceive that’s the undeniable maxim of government: that all government is in the free consent of the people. If so, then upon that account there is no person that is under a just government, or has justly his own, unless he by his own free consent be put under that government. This he cannot be unless he be consenting to it, and therefore, according to this maxim, there is never a person in England but ought to have a voice in elections. If this, as that gentleman says, be true, there are no laws that in this strictness and rigour of justice any man is bound to, that are not made by those whom he does consent to. And therefore I should humbly move, that if the question be stated – which would soonest bring things to an issue – it might rather be thus: whether any person can justly be bound by law, who does not give his consent that such persons shall make laws for him?
Ireton: Let the question be so: whether a man can be bound to any law that he does not consent to? And I shall tell you, that he may and ought to be bound to a law that he does not give a consent to, nor does not choose any to consent to; and I will make it clear. If a foreigner come within this kingdom, if that stranger will have liberty to dwell here who has no local interest here, he, as a man, it’s true, has air, the passage of highways, the protection of laws, and all that by nature; we must not expel him our coasts, give him no being amongst us, nor kill him because he comes upon our land, comes up our stream, arrives at our shore. It is a piece of hospitality, of humanity, to receive that man amongst us. But if that man be received to a being amongst us, I think that man may very well be content to submit himself to the law of the land; that is, the law that is made by those people that have a property, a fixed property, in the land. I think, if any man will receive protection from this people though neither he nor his ancestors, not any betwixt him and Adam, did ever give concurrence to this constitution, I think this man ought to be subject to those laws, and to be bound by those laws, so long as he continues amongst them. That is my opinion. A man ought to be subject to a law, that did not give his consent, but with this reservation: that if this man do think himself unsatisfied to be subject to this law he may go into another kingdom. And so the same reason does extend, in my understanding, to that man that has no permanent interest in the kingdom. If he has money, his money is as good in another place as here; he has nothing that does locally fix him to this kingdom. If that man will live in this kingdom, or trade amongst us, that man ought to subject himself to the law made by the people who have the interest of this kingdom in them. And yet I do acknowledge that which you take to be so general a maxim, that in every kingdom, within every land, the original of power of making laws, of determining what shall be law in the land, does lie in the people, but by the people is meant those that are possessed of the permanent interest in the land. But whoever is extraneous to this, that is, as good a man in another land, that man ought to give such a respect to the property of men that live in the land. They do not determine that I shall live in this land. Why should I have any interest in determining what shall be the law of this land?
Major William Rainborough:12 I think if it can be made to appear that it is a just and reasonable thing, and that it is for the preservation of all the native freeborn men, that they should have an equal voice in election, I think it ought to be made good unto them. And the reason is, that the chief end of this government is to preserve persons as well as estates, and if any law shall take hold of my person it is more dear than my estate.
Thomas Rainborough: I do very well remember that the gentleman in the window13 said that, if it were so, there were no propriety to be had, because five parts of the nation, the poor people, are now excluded and would then come in. So one on the other side said that, if it were otherwise, then rich men only shall be chosen. Then, I say, the one part shall make hewers of wood and drawers of water of the other five, and so the greatest part of the nation be enslaved. Truly I think we are still where we were; and I do not hear any argument given but only that it is the present law of the kingdom. I say still, what shall become of those many men that have laid out themselves for the Parliament of England in this present war, that have ruined themselves by fighting, by hazarding all they had? They are Englishmen. They have now nothing to say for themselves.
Rich: I should be very sorry to speak anything here that should give offence, or that may occasion personal reflections that we spoke against just now.14 I did not urge anything so far as was represented, and I did not at all urge that there should be a consideration had of rich men, and that a man that is poor shall be without consideration, or that he deserves to be made poorer and not to live in independence at all. But all that I urged was this: that I think it worthy consideration, whether they should have an equality in their interest. However, I think we have been a great while upon this point, and if we be as long upon all the rest, it were well if there were no greater difference than this.
Hugh Peter:15 I think that this matter of the franchise may be easily agreed on, that is, there may be a way thought of. I think you would do well to sit up all night if thereby you could effect it, but I think that three or four might be thought of in this company to form a committee. You will be forced only to put characters upon electors or elected; therefore I do suppose that if there be any here that can make up a representative to your mind, the thing is gained. But I would fain know whether that will answer the work of your meeting. The question is, whether you can state any one question for removing the present danger of the kingdom, whether any one question or no will dispatch the work.
Sir, I desire, if it be possible, that some question may be stated to finish the present work, to cement us in the points wherein lies the distance; and if the thoughts be of the commonwealth and the people’s freedom, I think that’s soon cured. I desire that all manner of plainness may be used, that we may not go on with the lapwing and carry one another off the nest. There is something else that must cement us where the awkwardness of our spirits lies.
Thomas Rainborough: For my part, I think we cannot engage one way or other in the army if we do not think of the people’s liberties. If we can agree where the liberty and freedom of the people lies, that will do all.
Ireton: I cannot consent so far. As I said before, when I see the hand of God destroying king, and Lords, and Commons too, or any foundation of human constitution, when I see God has done it, I shall, I hope, comfortably acquiesce in it. But first, I cannot give my consent to it, because it is not good. And secondly, as I desire that this army should have regard to engagements wherever they are lawful, so I would have them have regard to this as well: that they should not bring that scandal upon the name of God and the Saints, that those that call themselves by that name, those whom God has owned and appeared with, that we should represent ourselves to the world as men so far from being of that peaceable spirit which is suitable to the Gospel, as we should have bought peace of the world upon such terms – as we would not have peace in the world but upon such terms – as should destroy all property. If the principle upon which you move this alteration, or the ground upon which you press that we should make this alteration, do destroy all kind of property or whatsoever a man has by human constitution, I cannot consent to it. The law of God does not give me property, nor the law of nature, but property is of human constitution. I have a property and this I shall enjoy. Constitution founds property. If either the thing itself that you press or the consequence of that you press do destroy property, though I shall acquiesce in having no property, yet I cannot give my heart or hand to it; because it is a thing evil in itself and scandalous to the world, and I desire this army may be free from both.
Sexby: I see that though liberty were our end, there is a degeneration from it. We have engaged in this kingdom and ventured our lives, and it was all for this: to recover our birthrights and privileges as Englishmen; and by the arguments urged there is none. There are many thousands of us soldiers that have ventured our lives; we have had little propriety in the kingdom as to our estates, yet we have had a birthright. But it seems now, except a man has a fixed estate in this kingdom, he has 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 condition, that have as good a condition as I have; it may be little estate they have at present, and yet they have as much a birthright as those too 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. Whatsoever may come in the way, and whatsoever may be thought, I will give it to none. If this thing be denied the poor, that with so much pressing after they have sought, it will be the greatest scandal. There was one thing spoken to this effect: that if the poor and those in low condition were given their birthright it would be the destruction of this kingdom. I think this was but a distrust of providence. I do think the poor and meaner of this kingdom – I speak as in relation to the condition of soldiers, in which we are – have been the means of the preservation of this kingdom. I say, in their stations, and really I think to their utmost possibility; and their lives have not been held dear for purchasing the good of the kingdom. And now they demand the birthright for which they fought. Those that act to this end are as free from anarchy or confusion as those that oppose it, and they have the law of God and the law of their conscience with them. But truly I shall only sum up in this: I desire that we may not spend so much time upon these things. We must be plain. When men come to understand these things, they will not lose that which they have contended for. That which I shall beseech you is to come to a determination of this question.
Ireton: I am very sorry we are come to this point, that from reasoning one to another we should come to express our resolutions. I profess for my part, what I see is good for the kingdom, and becoming a Christian to contend for, I hope through God I shall have strength and resolution to do my part towards it. And yet I will profess direct contrary in some kind to what that gentleman said. For my part, rather than I will make a disturbance to a good constitution of a kingdom wherein I may live in godliness and honesty, and peace and quietness, I will part with a great deal of my birthright. I will part with my own property rather than I will be the man that shall make a disturbance in the kingdom for my property; and therefore if all the people in this kingdom, or the representatives of them all together, should meet and should give away my property I would submit to it, I would give it away. But that gentleman, and I think every Christian, ought to bear that spirit, to carry that in him, that he will not make a public disturbance upon a private prejudice.
Now let us consider where our difference lies. We all agree that you should have a representative to govern, and this representative to be as equal as you can make it. But the question is, whether this distribution can be made to all persons equally, or whether only amongst those equals that have the interest of England in them? That which I have declared is my opinion still. I think we ought to keep to that constitution which we have now, both because it is a civil constitution (it is the most fundamental constitution that we have) and because there is so much justice and reason and prudence in it – as I dare confidently undertake to demonstrate – that there are many more evils that will follow in case you do alter it than there can be in the standing of it. But I say but this in the general: that I do wish that they that talk of birthrights – we any of us when we talk of birthrights – would consider what really our birthright is. If a man mean by birthright, whatsoever I can challenge by the law of nature (suppose there were no constitution at all, no civil law and no civil constitution), and that that I am to contend for against constitution, then you leave no property, nor no foundation for any man to enjoy anything. But if you call that your birthright which is the most fundamental part of your constitution, then let him perish that goes about to hinder you or any man of the least part of your birthright, or will desire to do it. But if you will lay aside the most fundamental constitution (which is as good, for all you can discern, as anything you can propose) at least it is a constitution, and I will give you consequence for consequence of good upon that constitution as you can give upon your birthright without it; and if you merely upon pretence of a birthright – of the right of nature, which is only true as for your being, and not for your better being – if you will upon that ground pretend that this constitution, the most fundamental constitution, the thing that has reason and equity in it, shall not stand in your way, it is the same principle to me, say I, as if but for your better satisfaction you shall take hold of anything that another man calls his own.
Thomas Rainborough: Sir, I see that it is impossible to have liberty but all property must be taken away. If it be laid down for a rule, and if you will say it, it must be so. But I would fain know what the soldier has fought for all this while? He has 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. When these gentlemen fall out among themselves they shall press the poor scrubs to come and kill one another for them.16
Ireton: I confess I see so much right in the business that I am not easily satisfied with flourishes. If you will not lay the stress of the business upon the consideration of reason, or right relating to anything of human constitution, or anything of that nature, but will put it upon consequences, I will show you greater ill consequences; I see enough to say that, to my apprehensions, I can show you greater ill consequences to follow upon that alteration which you would have, by extending voices to all that have a being in this kingdom, than any that can come by this present constitution, a great deal. That that you urge of the present constitution is a particular ill consequence. This that I object against your proposal is a general ill consequence, and this is as great as that or any ill consequence else whatsoever, though I think you will see that the validity of that argument must be that for one ill that lies upon that which now is, I can show you a thousand upon this that you propose.
Give me leave to say but this one word. I will tell you what the soldier of the kingdom has fought for. First, the danger that we stood in was that one man’s will must be a law. The people of the kingdom must have this right at least, that they should not be concluded but by the representative of those that had the interest of the kingdom. Some men fought in this, because they were immediately concerned and engaged in it; other men who had no other interest in the kingdom but this, that they should have the benefit of those laws made by the representative, yet fought that they should have the benefit of this representative. They thought it was better to be concluded by the common consent of those that were fixed men, and settled men, that had the interest of this kingdom in them. ‘And from that way,’ said they, ‘I shall know a law and have a certainty.’ Every man that was born in the country, that is a denizen17 in it, that has a freedom, he was capable of trading to get money, to get estates by; and therefore this man, I think, had a great deal of reason to build up such a foundation of interest to himself; that is, that the will of one man should not be a law, but that the law of this kingdom should be by a choice of persons to represent, and that choice to be made by, the generality of the kingdom. Here was a right that induced men to fight, and those men that had this interest, though this be not the utmost interest that other men have, yet they had some interest.
Now tell me why we should go to plead whatsoever we can challenge by the right of nature against whatsoever any man can challenge by constitution. I do not see where that man will stop, as to point of property, so that he shall not use against other property that right he has claimed by the law of nature against that constitution. I desire any man to show me where there is a difference. I have been answered, ‘Now we see liberty cannot stand without destroying property.’ Liberty may be had and property not be destroyed. First, the liberty of all those that have the permanent interest in the kingdom, that is provided for by the constitution. And secondly, by an appeal to the law of nature liberty cannot be provided for in a general sense, if property be preserved. For if property be preserved by acknowledging a natural right in the possessor, so that I am not to meddle with such a man’s estate, his meat, his drink, his apparel, or other goods, then the right of nature destroys liberty. By the right of nature I am to have sustenance rather than perish; yet property destroys it for a man to have this by the right of nature, even suppose there be no human constitution.
Peter: I do say still, under favour, there is a way to cure all this debate. I will mind you of one thing: that upon the will of one man abusing us, we reached agreement, and if the safety of the army be in danger so we may again. I hope, it is not denied by any man that any wise, discreet man that has preserved England is worthy of a voice in the government of it. So that, I profess to you, for my part I am clear the point of election should be amended in that sense. I think, they will desire no more liberty. If there were time to dispute it, I think they would be satisfied, and all will be satisfied.
Cromwell: I confess I was most dissatisfied with that I heard Mr Sexby speak, of any man here, because it did savour so much of will. But I desire that all of us may decline that, and if we meet here really to agree to that which is for the safety of the kingdom, let us not spend so much time in such debates as these are, but let us apply ourselves to such things as are conclusive, and that shall be this. Everybody here would be willing that the representative might be mended, that is, that it might be made better than it is. Perhaps it may be offered in ‘The heads of the proposals’ too lamely. If the thing there insisted upon be too limited, why perhaps there are a very considerable part of copyholders by inheritance that ought to have a voice; and there may be somewhat in that paper too that reflects upon the generality of the people in denying them a voice. I know our debates are endless if we think to bring it to an issue this way. If we may but resolve upon a committee, things may be done. If I cannot be satisfied to go so far as these gentlemen that bring the ‘Agreement’, I say it again and I profess it, I shall freely and willingly withdraw myself, and I hope to do it in such a manner that the army shall see that I shall by my withdrawing satisfy the interest of the army, the public interest of the kingdom, and those ends these men aim at. And I think if you do bring this to a result it were well.
Thomas Rainborough: If these men must be advanced, and other men set under foot, I am not satisfied. If their rules must be observed, and other men, that are not in authority, be silenced, I do not know how this can stand together with the idea of a free debate. I wonder how that should be thought wilfulness in one man that is reason in another; for I confess I have not heard anything that does satisfy me, and though I have not so much wisdom, or so many notions in my head, I have so many apprehensions that I could tell a hundred such of the ruin of the people. I am not at all against a committee’s meeting; and as you say – and I think every Christian ought to do the same – for my part I shall be ready, if I see the way that I am going, and the thing that I would insist on, will destroy the kingdom, I shall withdraw from it as soon as any. And therefore, till I see that, I shall use all the means I can, and I think it is no fault in any man to refuse to sell that which is his birthright.
Sexby: I desire to speak a few words. I am sorry that my zeal to what I apprehend is good should be so ill resented. I am not sorry to see that which I apprehend is truth disputed, but I am sorry the Lord has darkened some so much as not to see it, and that is in short this. Do you not think it were a sad and miserable condition, that we have fought all this time for nothing? All here, both great and small, do think that we fought for something. I confess, many of us fought for those ends which, we since saw, were not those which caused us to go through difficulties and straits and to venture all in the ship with you; it had been good in you to have advertised us of it, and I believe you would have had fewer under your command to have commanded. But if this be the business, that an estate does make men capable – it is no matter which way they get it, they are capable – to choose those that shall represent them, I think there are many that have not estates that in honesty have as much right in the freedom of their choice as any that have great estates. Truly, sir, as for your putting off this question and coming to some other, I dare say, and I dare appeal to all of them, that they cannot settle upon any other until this be done. It was the ground that we took up arms on, and it is the ground which we shall maintain. Concerning my making rents and divisions in this way: as a particular individual, if I were but so, I could lie down and be trodden there; but truly I am sent by a regiment, and if I should not speak, guilt shall lie upon me, and I should think I were a covenant-breaker. I do not know how we have been answered in our arguments, and as for our engagements, I conceive we shall not accomplish them to the kingdom when we deny them to ourselves. I shall be loath to make a rent and division, but, for my own part, unless I see this put to a question, I despair of an issue. […]
Ireton: I should not speak again, but reflections do necessitate it, do call upon us to vindicate ourselves. As if we, who have led men into engagements and services, had divided from them because we did not concur with them! I will ask that gentleman that spoke (whom I love in my heart): whether when they drew out to serve the Parliament in the beginning, whether then they engaged with the army at Newmarket, whether then they thought of any more interest or right in the kingdom than this; whether they did think that they should have as great interest in Parliament-men as freeholders had, or whether from the beginning we did not engage for the liberty of Parliaments, and that we should be concluded by the laws that such did make. Unless somebody did make you believe before now that you should have an equal interest in the kingdom, unless somebody did make that to be believed, there is no reason to blame men for leading you so far as they have done; and if any man was far enough from such an apprehension, that man has not been deceived.
And truly, I shall say but this word more for myself in this business, because the whole objection seems to be pressed to me, and maintained against me. I will not arrogate that I was the first man that put the army upon the thought either of successive Parliaments or more equal Parliaments; yet there are some here that know who they were that put us upon that foundation of liberty of putting a period to this Parliament, in order that we might have successive Parliaments, and that there might be a more equal distribution of elections. There are many here that know who were the first movers of that business in the army. I shall not arrogate that to myself, but I can argue this with a clear conscience: that no man has prosecuted that with more earnestness, and will stand to that interest more than I do, of having Parliaments successive and not perpetual, and the distribution of elections more equal. But, notwithstanding, my opinion stands good, that it ought to be a distribution amongst the fixed and settled people of this nation; it’s more prudent and safe, and more upon this ground of right for it to be so. Now it is the fundamental constitution of this kingdom; and that which you take away you take away for matter of wilfulness. Notwithstanding, as for this universal conclusion, that all inhabitants shall have voices, as it stands in the ‘Agreement’, I must declare that though I cannot yet be satisfied, yet for my part I shall acquiesce; I will not make a distraction in this army. Though I have a property in being one of those that should be an elector, though I have an interest in the birthright, yet I will rather lose that birthright and that interest than I will make it my business to oppose them, if I see but the generality of those whom I have reason to think honest men and conscientious men and godly men, to carry themselves another way. I will not oppose, though I be not satisfied to join with them. And I desire to say this: I am agreed with you if you insist upon a more equal distribution of elections; I will agree with you, not only to dispute for it, but to fight for it and contend for it. Thus far I shall agree with you. On the other hand, to those who differ in their terms and say, ‘I will not agree with you except you go farther,’ I make answer, ‘Thus far I can go with you: I will go with you as far as I can.’ If you will appoint a committee of some few to consider of that, so as you preserve the equitable part of that constitution that now is, securing a voice to those who are like to be freemen, men not given up to the wills of others, and thereby keeping to the latitude which is the equity of constitutions, I will go with you as far as I can. And where I cannot I will sit down, I will not make any disturbance among you.
Thomas Rainborough: If I do speak my soul and conscience I do think that there is not an objection made but that it has been answered; but the speeches are so long. I am sorry for some passion and some reflections, and I could wish where it is most taken amiss the cause had not been given. It is a fundamental of the constitution of the kingdom, that there be Parliamentary boroughs; I would fain know whether the choice of burgesses in corporations should not be altered.
But the end wherefore I speak is only this: you think we shall be worse than we are, if we come to a conclusion by a sudden vote. If it be put to the question we shall at least all know one another’s mind. If it be determined, and the common resolutions known, we shall take such a course as to put it in execution. This gentleman says, if he cannot go he will sit still. He thinks he has a full liberty to do so; we think we have not. There is a great deal of difference between us two. If a man has all he does desire, he may wish to sit still; but if I think I have nothing at all of what I fought for, I do not think the argument holds that I must desist as well as he.
Petty: The rich would very unwillingly be concluded by the poor. And there is as much reason that the rich should conclude the poor as the poor the rich – and indeed that is no reason at all. There should be an equal share in both. I understood your engagement was that you would use all your endeavours for the liberties of the people, that they should be secured. If there is such a constitution that the people are not free, that constitution should be annulled. That constitution which is now set up is a constitution of forty shillings a year, but this constitution does not make the people free.
Cromwell: Here’s the mistake: you make the whole question to be whether that’s the better constitution in that paper, or that which now is. But if you will go upon such a ground as that, although a better constitution was really offered for the removing of the worse, yet some gentlemen are resolved to stick to the worse and there might be a great deal of prejudice upon such an apprehension. I think you are by this time satisfied that it is a clear mistake; for it is a dispute whether or no this proposed constitution be better, whether it be not destructive to the kingdom. […]
Captain John Clarke:18 I presume that the great stick here is this: that if everyone shall have his natural propriety of election it does bereave the kingdom of its principal fundamental constitution, that it now has. I presume that all people, and all nations whatsoever, have a liberty and power to alter and change their constitutions if they find them to be weak and infirm. Now if the people of England shall find this weakness in their constitution, they may change it if they please. Another thing is this: it is feared that if the light of nature be only followed in this, it may destroy the propriety which every man can call his own. But it will not, and the reason is this, because this principle and light of nature does give all men their own – as, for example, the clothes upon my back because they are not another man’s. Finally, if every man has this propriety of election to choose those who shall make the laws, you fear it may beget inconveniencies. I do not conceive that anything may be so nicely and precisely done but that it may admit of inconveniency. If it be that there is inconveniency in that form of the constitution wherein it is now, there may some of those inconveniencies rise from the changes, that are apprehended from them. For my part I know nothing of fatal consequence in the relation of men but the want of love in it, and then, if difference arises, the sword must decide it.
I too shall desire that before the question be stated it may be moderated as for foreigners. […]
Ireton: I have declared that you will alter that constitution from a better to a worse, from a just to a thing that is less just in my apprehension; and I will not repeat the reasons of that, but refer to what I have declared before. To me, if there were nothing but this, that there is a constitution, and that constitution which is the very last constitution, which if you take away you leave nothing of constitution, and consequently nothing of right or property, it would be enough. I would not go to alter this, though a man could propound that which in some respects might be better, unless it could be demonstrated to me that this were unlawful, or that this were destructive. Truly, therefore, I say for my part, to go on a sudden to make such a limitation as that to inhabitants in general, is to make no limitation at all. If you do extend the latitude of the constitution so far that any man shall have a voice in election who has not that interest in this kingdom that is permanent and fixed, who has not that interest upon which he may have his freedom in this kingdom without dependence, you will put it into the hands of men to choose, not of men desirous to preserve their liberty, but of men who will give it away.
I am confident, our discontent and dissatisfaction if ever they do well, they do in this. If there be anything at all that is a foundation of liberty it is this, that those who shall choose the lawmakers shall be men freed from dependence upon others. I have a thing put into my heart which I cannot but speak. I profess I am afraid that if we, from such apprehensions as these are of an imaginable right of nature opposite to constitution, if we will contend and hazard the breaking of peace upon this business of that enlargement, I think if we, from imaginations and conceits, will go about to hazard the peace of the kingdom, to alter the constitution in such a point, I am afraid we shall find the hand of God will follow it and we shall see that that liberty which we so much talk of, and have so much contended for, shall be nothing at all by this our contending for it, by our putting it into the hands of those men that will give it away when they have it.
Cromwell: If we should go about to alter these things, I do not think that we are bound to fight for every particular proposition. Servants, while servants, are not included. Then you agree that he that receives alms is to be excluded?
Lieutenant-Colonel Thomas Read:19 I suppose it’s concluded by all, that the choosing of representatives is a privilege; now I see no reason why any man that is a native ought to be excluded that privilege, unless from voluntary servitude.
Petty: I conceive the reason why we would exclude apprentices, or servants, or those that take alms, is because they depend upon the will of other men and should be afraid to displease them. For servants and apprentices, they are included in their masters, and so for those that receive alms from door to door; but if there be any general way taken for those that are not so bound to the will of other men, it would be well. […]
Thomas Rainborough moved: That the army might be called to a rendezvous, and things settled as promised in its printed engagements.
Ireton: We are called back to engagements. I think the engagements we have made and published, and all the engagements of all sorts, have been better kept by those that did not so much cry out for it than by those that do, and – if you will have it in plain terms – better kept than by those that have brought this paper. Give me leave to tell you, in that one point, in the engagement of the army not to divide, I am sure that he that understands the engagement of the army not to divide or disband as meaning that we are not to divide for quarters, for the ease of the country, or the satisfaction of service, he that does understand it in that sense, I am not capable of his understanding. There was another sense in it, and that is, that we should not suffer ourselves to be torn into pieces. Such a dividing as that is really a disbanding, and for my part I do not know what disbanding is if not that dividing. I say that the subscribers of this paper, the authors of that book that is called ‘The case of the army’, I say that they have gone the way of disbanding. Disbanding of an army is not parting in a place, for if that be so, did we not at that night disband to several quarters? Did we not then send several regiments: Colonel Scroope’s regiment into the West, we know where it was first; Colonel Horton’s regiment into Wales for preventing of insurrection there; Colonel Lambert’s and Colonel Lilburne’s regiments then sent down for strengthening such a place as York? And yet the authors of that paper and the subscribers of it – for I cannot think the authors and subscribers all one – know, and well they may know it, that there is not one part of the army is divided in body farther than the outcries of the authors of it are in spirit.[…]
An unnamed agitator: Whereas you say the agents did it, it was the soldiers did put the agents upon these meetings. It was the dissatisfactions that were in the army which provoked, which occasioned, those meetings, which you suppose tends so much to dividing; and the reasons of such dissatisfactions are because those whom they had to trust to act for them were not true to them.
If this be all the effect of your meetings to agree upon the ‘Agreement’, there is but one thing in this that has not been insisted upon and propounded by the army heretofore, in ‘The heads of the proposals’, and all along. Here the franchise is put according to the number of inhabitants; there according to the taxes. This says a period to be put to the Parliament at such a day, the last of September; the other says a period within a year at most. The ‘Agreement’ says that the representers have the power of making law, and determining what is law, without the consent of another. ’Tis true the ‘Proposals’ said not that but would restore the consent of the king. And for my part, if any man will put that to the question whether we shall concur with it, I am in the same mind still, especially if by your franchise you put it in any other hands than of those that are freemen. But even if you shall put the question with that limitation to freemen that have been all along acknowledged by the Parliament, till we can acquit ourselves justly from any engagement (old or new) that we stand in, to preserve the person of the king, the persons of lords, and their rights, so far as they are consistent with the common right and the safety of the kingdom, till that be done, I think there is reason that that exception in their favour should continue, but with the proviso which has been all along – that is, where the safety of the kingdom is concerned. This the ‘Proposals’ seem to hold out.
I would hold to positive constitution where I see things would not do real mischief. I would neither be thought to be a wrong-doer or disturber; so long as I can with safety continue a constitution I will do it. And therefore where I find that the safety of the kingdom is not concerned, I would not for every trifling cause make that this shall be a law, though neither the Lords, who have a claim to it, nor the king, who has a claim to it, will consent. But where this safety is concerned I think that particular rights cannot stand. Upon the whole matter let men but consider whether those that have thus gone away to divide from the army will not destroy the constitution upon a fancied right and advantage of the people. Admit that this ‘Agreement of the people’ be the advantage, it may be. Shall we then agree to that without any limitation? I do agree that the king is bound by his oath at his coronation to agree to the law that the Commons shall choose without Lords or anybody else. But if I can agree any further, that if the king do not confirm with his authority the laws that the people shall choose those laws require not his authority, we know what will follow.
Petty: I had the happiness sometimes to be at the debate of the ‘Proposals’, and my opinion was then as it is now, against the king’s vote and the Lords’. But I did not then so definitely desire the abolition of these votes as I do now desire it; for since that time it has pleased God to raise a company of men that do stand up for the power of the House of Commons, which is the representative of the people, and deny the negative voice of king and Lords. For my part I was much unknown to any of them, but I heard their principles; and hearing their principles I cannot but join with them in my judgement, for I think it is reasonable that all laws are made by the people’s consent alone. Whereas you seem to make the king and Lords so light a thing as that it may be without prejudice to keep them, though to the destruction of the kingdom to throw them out; for my part I cannot but think that both the power of king and Lords was ever a branch of tyranny. And if ever a people shall free themselves from tyranny, certainly it is after seven years’ war and fighting for their liberty. For my part I think that if the constitution of this kingdom shall be established as formerly, it might rivet tyranny into this kingdom more strongly than before. For when the people shall hear that for seven years together the people were plundered, and that after they had overcome the king and kept the king under restraint, at last the king comes in again, then it will rivet the king’s interest; and so when any men shall endeavour to free themselves from tyranny we may do them mischief and no good. I think it’s most just and equal, since a number of men have declared against it, that they should be encouraged in it, and not discouraged. And I find by the council that their thoughts are the same against the king and Lords, and if so be that a power may be raised to do that, it would do well.
Wildman: Truly, sir, I being desired by the agents yesterday to appear at council or committees either, at that time in their behalf, I suppose I may be bold to make known what I know of their sense, and a little to vindicate them in their way of proceeding, and to show the necessity of this way of proceeding that they have entered upon.
Truly, sir, as to breaking of engagements, the agents do declare their principle, that whenever any engagement cannot be kept justly they must break that engagement. Now though it’s urged they ought to condescend to what the General Council do resolve, I conceive it’s true only so long as it is for their safety. I conceive it’s just and righteous for them to stand up for some more speedy vigorous actings. I conceive it’s no more than what the army did when the Parliament did not only delay deliverance, but opposed it. And I conceive this way of their appearing has not been in the least way anything tending to division, since they proceed to clear the rights of the people; and so long as they proceed upon those righteous principles for which we first engaged, I suppose it cannot be laid to their charge that they are dividers. And though it be declared that they ought to stand only as soldiers and not as Englishmen, yet the malice of the enemies would have bereaved you of your liberties as Englishmen, and therefore as Englishmen they are deeply concerned to regard the due observation of their rights, and have the same right to declare their apprehensions as I, or any commoner, have right to propound to the kingdom my conceptions of what is fit for the good of the kingdom.
Whereas it is objected, ‘How will it appear that their proceedings shall tend for the good of the kingdom?’, that matter is different from the point of justice they would propound. Whereas it was said before, it was propounded in the council, that there must be an end to the present Parliament and an equality as to elections, I find it to be their minds also; but when they came there, they found many aversions from matters that they ought to stand to as soldiers and as Englishmen, and therefore, I find, it was discovered that there was a difference concerning the matter of the thing, and I conceive it to be a very vast difference in the whole matter of the ‘Proposals’. By it the foundation of slavery was riveted more strongly than before, as where the militia is instated in the king and Lords, and not in the Commons, and there too is a foundation of a future quarrel constantly laid. However, the main thing was that the right of the militia was acknowledged to be in the king, as they found in the ‘Proposals’ propounded, before any redress of any one of the people’s grievances or any one of their burdens; and the king was so to be brought in as with a negative voice, whereby the people and army that have fought against him when he had propounded such things, would be at his mercy. And finding this, they perceived they were, as they thought, in a sad case; for they thought, he coming in thus with a negative voice, the Parliament are but as so many ciphers, so many round O’s, for if the king would not do it, he might choose, Sic volo, sicjubeo, etc.,20 and so the corrupt party of the kingdom must be so settled in the king. The godly people are turned over and trampled upon already in the most places of the kingdom. I speak but the words of the agents, and I find this to be their thoughts.
But whereas it is said, ‘How will this ‘Agreement’ provide for anything for that purpose?’, I shall say that this paper does lay down the foundations of freedom for all manner of people. It does lay the foundations of soldiers’ freedom, whereas they found a great uncertainty in the ‘Proposals’, which implied that they should go to the king for an Act of Indemnity, and thus the king might command his judges to hang them up for what they did in the wars, because, the present constitution being left as it was, nothing was law but what the king signed, and not any ordinance of Parliament without his consent. And considering this, they thought it should be by an agreement with the people, whereby a rule between the Parliament and the people might be set, that so they might be destroyed neither by the king’s prerogative nor Parliament’s privileges (including those of the Lords, for they are not bound to be subject to the laws as other men, and that is why men cannot recover their estates). They thought there must be a necessity of a rule between the Parliament and the people, so that the Parliament should know what they were entrusted with, and what they were not; and that there might be no doubt of the Parliament’s power, to lay foundations of future quarrels. The Parliament shall not meddle with a soldier after indemnity if it is so agreed amongst the people; whereas between a Parliament and a king the soldier may lose his indemnity. If the king were not under restraint his assent might be made to bind him. But if the present Parliament should make an Act of Indemnity, who shall say that another Parliament cannot alter this? ‘An agreement of the people’ would be necessary, that these foundations might be established, that there might be no dispute between Lords and Commons, and that, these things being settled, there should be no more disputes at all, but that the Parliament should redress the people’s grievances. Whereas now almost all are troubled with the king’s interests, if this were settled the Parliament should be free from these temptations. And besides – which for my own part I do suppose to be a truth – this very Parliament, by the king’s voice in this very Parliament, may destroy us, whereas then they shall be free from temptations and the king cannot have an influence upon them such as he now has. […]
At the General Council of the Army at Putney, 1st November 1647.
[The record of the discussions on 29 October comes to an abrupt and inconclusive end. However, on the third recorded day of the debates, the proceedings in Putney church returned to the issue of the position of the king and the Lords in any future settlement.]
[…] William Allen:21 My desire is to see things put to an issue. Men have been declaring their thoughts, and truly I would crave liberty to declare mine. The difference between us, I think, is in the interest of king and Lords, some declaring against the name and title of king and Lords, others preferring to retain them. For my part I think, clearly, according to what we have engaged we stand bound; and I think we should be looked upon as persons not fit to be called Christians, if we do not work up to them. As first, concerning the king: you say you will set up the king as far as may be consistent with, and not prejudicial to, the liberties of the kingdom; and really I am of that mind too. If the setting up of him be not consistent with them, and prejudicial to them, then down with him; but if he may be so set up – which I think he may – then set him up, and it is not our judgement only, but of all save those that set forth ‘The case of the army’.
Thomas Rainborough took occasion to take notice as if what Mr Allen spoke did reflect upon himself or some other there, as if it were asserted that they were against the name of king and Lords.
Sexby: Truly I must be bold to offer this one word unto you. Here was somewhat before spoke of the workings and actings of God within us; I shall speak a word of that. The Lord has put you into a state, or at least suffered you to run yourselves into such a one, that you know not where you are. You are in a wilderness condition. Some actings among us singly and jointly are the cause of it. Truly I would entreat you to weigh that. We find in the word of God, ‘I would heal Babylon, but she would not be healed.’ I think that we have gone about to heal Babylon when she would not. We have gone about to wash a blackamoor, to wash him white, which he will not. We are going about to set up that power which God will destroy: I think we are going about to set up the power of kings, some part of it, which God will destroy; and which will be but as a burdensome stone that whosoever shall fall upon it, it will destroy him. I think this is the reason of the straits that are in hand. I shall propose this to your Honours, to weigh the grounds, whether they be right, and then you shall be led in pleasant paths by still waters, and shall not be offended.
Cromwell: […] Truly we have heard many speaking to us; and I cannot but think that in many of those things God has spoke to us. I cannot but think that in most that have spoke there has been something of God laid forth to us; and yet there have been several contradictions in what has been spoken. But certainly God is not the author of contradictions. The contradictions are not so much in the end as in the way. I cannot see but that we all speak to the same end, and the mistakes are only in the way. The end is to deliver this nation from oppression and slavery, to accomplish that work that God has carried us on in, to establish our hopes of an end of justice and righteousness in it. We agree thus far. Further too: that we all apprehend danger from the person of the king and from the Lords; I think we may go thus far farther, that all that have spoke have agreed in this too, though the gentleman in the window22 seemed to deny it when he spoke of setting up, but he, if he would declare it, did not mean all that that word might import. I think that seems to be general among us all, that there is not any intention of any in the army, of any of us, to set up the one or the other. If it were free before us whether we should set up one or the other, I do to my best observation find an unanimity amongst us all, that we would set up neither. Thus far I find us to be agreed; and thus far as we are agreed, I think it is of God. But there are circumstances in which we differ as in relation to this. Then I must further tell you that as we do not make it our business or intention to set up the one or the other, so neither is it our intention to preserve the one or the other, with a visible danger and destruction to the people and the public interest. So that that part of difference that seems to be among us is whether there can be a preservation of them with safety to the kingdom. First of all, on the one part, there is this apprehension: that we cannot with justice and righteousness at the present destroy, or go about to destroy, or take away, or altogether lay aside, both, or all the interest they have in the public affairs of the kingdom; and those that do so apprehend would strain something in point of security, would rather leave some hazard, or at least, if they see that they may consist without any considerable hazard to the interest of the kingdom, do so far wish to preserve them. On the other hand, those who differ from this, I do take it (in the most candid apprehension) that they seem to run thus: that there is not any safety or security to the liberty of the kingdom, and to the public interest, if you do retain these at all; and therefore they think this is a consideration to them paramount to the consideration of particular obligations of justice, or matter of right or due towards king or Lords. […]
As to the dispensations of God, it was more particular in the time of the law of Moses than in the time of the law written in our hearts, that word within us, the mind of Christ; and truly when we have no other more particular impression of the power of God going forth with us, I think that this law and this word speaking within us, which truly is in every man who has the spirit of God, we are to have a regard to. […] For my part I do not know any outward evidence of what proceeds from the spirit of God more clear than this, the appearance of meekness and gentleness and mercy and patience and forbearance and love, and a desire to do good to all, and to destroy none than can be saved. And for my part I say, where I do see this, where I do see men speaking according to this law which I am sure is the law of the spirit of life I am satisfied. But I cannot but take that to be contrary to this law, which is, of the spirit of malice and envy, and things of that nature. And I think there is this radically in that heart where there is such a law as leads us against all opposition. On the other hand, I think that he that would decline the doing of justice where there is no place for mercy, and the exercise of the ways of force, for the safety of the kingdom, where there is no other way to save it, and would decline these out of the apprehensions of danger and difficulties in it, he that leads that way, on the other hand, does also truly lead us from that which is the law of the spirit of life, the law written in our hearts.
[…] I could wish that none of those whose apprehensions run that there can be no safety in a consistency with the person of the king or the Lords, or in their having the least interest in the public affairs of the kingdom, I do wish that they will take heed of that which some men are apt to be carried away by, namely apprehensions that God will destroy these persons or that power; for that they may mistake in. And though I myself do concur with them, and perhaps concur with them upon some ground that God will do so, yet let us not make those things to be our rule which we cannot so clearly know to be the mind of God. I mean in particular things let us not make those our rules: that ‘this is to be done; this is the mind of God; we must work to it.’ But at least let those to whom this is not made clear, though they do think it probable that God will destroy them, yet let them make this a rule to themselves: ‘Though God have a purpose to destroy them, and though I should find a desire to destroy them – though a Christian spirit can hardly find it for itself – yet God can do it without necessitating us to do a thing which is scandalous, or sin, or which would bring a dishonour to his name.’ And therefore those that are of that mind, let them wait upon God for such a way when the thing may be done without sin, and without scandal too. […]
Captain George Bishop:23 I shall desire to speak one word, and that briefly. After many inquiries in my spirit what’s the reason that we are distracted in counsel, and that we cannot, as formerly, preserve the kingdom from that dying condition in which it is, I find this answer, the answer which is vouchsafed to many Christians besides, amongst us. I say it not in respect of any particular persons, but I say that the reason is a compliance to preserve that man of blood,24 and those principles of tyranny, which God from heaven by his many successes given has manifestly declared against, and which, I am confident, may yet be our destruction if they be preserved. I only speak this as what is upon my spirit, because I see you are upon inquiry what God has given in to anyone, which may tend to the preservation of the kingdom.
Wildman: I observe that the work has been to inquire what has been the mind of God, and every one speaks what is given in to his spirit. I desire as much as is possible to reverence whatsoever has the spirit or image of God upon it. Whatever another man has received from the spirit, that man cannot demonstrate it to me but by some other way than merely relating to me that which he conceives to be the mind of God. In spiritual matters he must show its conformity with scripture, though indeed it is beyond the power of the reason of all the men on earth to demonstrate the scriptures to be the scriptures written by the spirit of God, and it must be the spirit of faith in a man himself that must finally make him believe whatsoever may be spoken in spiritual matters. The case is yet more difficult in civil matters; for we cannot find anything in the word of God of what is fit to be done in civil matters. But I conceive that only is of God that does appear to be like unto God – to practise justice and mercy, to be meek and peaceable. I should desire therefore that we might proceed only in that way, if it please this honourable council, to consider what is justice and what is mercy, and what is good, and I cannot but conclude that that is of God. Otherwise I cannot think that any one does speak from God when he says what he speaks is of God.
But to the matter in hand. I am clearly of opinion with that gentleman that spoke last save one,25 that it is not of God to decline the doing of justice where there is no way left of mercy; and I could much concur that it is very questionable whether there be a way left for mercy upon that person that we now insist upon. I would know whether it is demonstrable by reason or justice, that it is right to punish with death those that according to his command do make war, or those that do but hold compliance with them, and then to say that there is a way left for mercy for him who was the great actor of this, and who was the great contriver of all? But I confess because it is in civil matters I would much decline that, and rather look to what is safety, what the mind does dictate from safety. What is for the safety of the people, I know it cannot be the mind of God to go contrary to that. But for what particulars that gentleman speaks, of the differences between us, I think they are so many as not easily to be reckoned up. That which he instanced was that some did desire to preserve the person of the king and persons of the Lords, so far as it was consistent with the safety or the good of the kingdom, and other persons do conceive that the preservation of the king or Lords was inconsistent with the people’s safety, and that law to be paramount to all considerations.
Ireton: Sir, I think he did not speak of the destroying of the king and Lords – I have not heard any man charge all the Lords so as to deserve a punishment – but of a reserving to them any interest at all in the public affairs of the kingdom.
Wildman, addressing Cromwell: Then, sir, as I conceive, you were saying the difference was this: that some persons were of opinion that they stood engaged to the preservation of the power of king and Lords, while others held that the safety of the people was paramount to all considerations, and might keep them from any giving them what was their due and right.
Ireton: I think it was said that while some men did apprehend that there might be an interest given to them with safety to the kingdom, others do think that no part of their interest could be given without destruction to the kingdom.
Wildman, addressing Ireton: For the matter of stating the thing in difference, I think that the person of king and Lords are not so joined together by any; for as yourself said, none have any exception against the persons of the Lords or name of Lords. But the difference is whether we should after the old foundations of our government so as to give to king and Lords that which they could never claim before. Whereas it’s said that those that dissent to giving king and Lords a negative voice look after alteration of government, I do rather think that those that do assent do endeavour to alter the foundations of our government, and that I shall demonstrate thus. According to the king’s oath he is to grant such laws as the people shall choose, and therefore I conceive they are called laws before they come to him. They are called laws that he must confirm, and so they are laws before they come to him. To give the king a legislative power is contrary to his own oath at his coronation, and it is the like to give a power to the king by his negative voice to deny all laws. And for the Lords, seeing the foundation of all justice is the election of the people, it is unjust that they should have that power. And therefore I conceive the difference only is this: whether this power should be given to the king and Lords or no.
For the later part of that noble gentleman’s words, this may be said to them: whether this consideration may not be paramount to all engagements: to give the people what is their due right. […]
[The day’s discussion ended with a motion to return on the morrow, but the record of the remaining days of the debates is only fragmentary. On 8 November the army’s commanders, perhaps alarmed at the extent of the support for the ‘Agreement’, moved to bring the debating to an end by proposing that the agitators should return to their regiments. There apparently was no opposition to this motion, and the final meeting of a council committee at Putney took place three days later.]