Levelling

                                                                                  

                                           Levelling

The Levellers, such as John Lilburne (1615-1657), Richard Overton (1631-1664), and William Walwyn (c. 1600-1681), were a group of radical libertarian activists and pamphleteers who were active during the English Revolution. They advocated individual liberty, property rights, constitutionally limited government, religious toleration, and free trade at a time when virtually none of these things existed in England. For their troubles, several of them were repeatedly imprisoned and their publications censored.

Richard Rumbold, a Leveller writing in 1685 before his execution in Edinburgh:


I am sure that there was no man born marked by God above another; for none comes into this world with a saddle on his back, neither any booted and spurred to ride him.