The Levellers
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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The Crosstwires Podcast Festival is back, bigger and better this year, in Sheffield. From Thursday 2nd to Sunday 5th July 2026, BBC Sounds and Radio 4 Fringe are treating podcast listeners to an exciting line-up of shows all for free, including In Our Time. We'll be recording at the Montgomery Theatre on 4th July with a special edition of In Our Time on Casablanca. That's Bogart and Bergman and much more. Visit crossedwires.live slash fringe for the full list of programmes and how to get free tickets. This is In Our Time from BBC Radio 4. I hope you enjoy the programme. Hello. For really I think that the poorest he that is in England hath a life to live as the greatest he. That simple idea of equality was what one group of political radicals were calling for during arguably the bloodiest period of English history, the Civil War.
They became known as the Levellers, a group who pushed for a new constitution, an extended franchise, popular sovereignty and religious toleration. The Levellers printed pamphlets, signed petitions and took to the streets in their thousands. Though the movement itself may have been short-lived, the arguments that the Levellers made have inspired and challenged generations since. With me to discuss the Levellers are Theresa Bejan, Professor of Political Theory and Fellow of Oriel College, University of Oxford, Ted Vallance, Professor of History at the University of Roehampton, and Clare Jackson, Honorary Professor of Early Modern History at the University of Cambridge and Fellow of Trinity Hall.
Clare Jackson, the Levellers emerged during the mid-1640s. Can you set the scene for us? What was England like at this time?
So I think the moment we'll be talking about most today, when the level of ideas, the movement, the voices are heard most prominently, are the years 1645 to 1647. And this is the point at which, militarily, the English Parliament has been victorious in the First Civil War. Parliament had been fighting the king, Charles I, since 1642, but... As we know, as much today as in the 17th century, wars aren't decided permanently on the battlefield. There needs to be truces, ceasefires and some kind of peace settlement. In terms of why Parliament and King had gone to war, Charles I had acceded to the thrones of Scotland, England and Ireland in 1625. He was a deeply authoritarian monarch, believed very strongly in the divine right of kings, did not really believe in the right of others to counsel him.
And also had a specific vision of the church, the National Church, the Church of England, that many people found unacceptably popish. And Charles found it very difficult to work with the English Parliament. He had embarked on a controversial decade-long period of personal rule through the 1630s. Actually, opposition to Charles didn't emerge first in England. It emerged first in Scotland in the late 1630s. That's where arms had first been taken up against Charles and it had necessitated him calling the English Parliament in 1640, 1641. There was then an Irish rebellion and finally King and Parliament went to war in England in 1642. And that is, as you said, a really bloody traumatic war. I think somehow in our national consciousness, it probably doesn't have the...
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–18:43
2
What historical context led to the rise of the Levellers in 1645–1647?
18:43–33:34
3
Where did the name 'Levellers' come from and what did it mean contemporarily?
33:34–39:17
4
Who was John Lilburne and why did he become 'Freeborn John'?
39:17–48:51
5
How did Leveller thinkers define natural equality and freeborn rights?
48:51–58:21