11 Facts About Levellers

Levellers were a political movement active during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms who were committed to popular sovereignty, extended suffrage, equality before the law and religious tolerance.

Levellers came to prominence at the end of the First English Civil War and were most influential before the start of the Second Civil War .

In contrast to the Diggers, the Levellers opposed common ownership, except in cases of mutual agreement of the property owners.

The term suggested that the "Levellers" aimed to bring all down to the lowest common level.

Levellers' agenda developed in tandem with growing dissent within the New Model Army in the wake of the First Civil War.

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The Levellers have been seen as having undemocratic tendencies by some as they excluded household servants and those dependent upon charitable handouts from suffrage as Levellers feared that poor, dependent men would simply vote as their masters wished.

Levellers tended to hold fast to a notion of "natural rights" that had been violated by the King's side in the Civil Wars .

Levellers's offence was slandering William Lenthall, the Speaker of the House of Commons, whom he accused of corresponding with Royalists.

Levellers argued that a person must have a "permanent interest of this kingdom" to be entitled to vote, and that "permanent interest" means owning property, which is where he and the Levellers disagreed.

Levellers was a Member of Parliament and a Leveller leader who had spoken at the Putney Debates.

Levellers's funeral was the occasion for a large Leveller-led demonstration in London, with thousands of mourners wearing the Levellers' ribbons of sea-green and bunches of rosemary for remembrance in their hats.