The Putney Debates by The Levellers

Author:The Levellers
Language: eng
Format: azw3, mobi, epub
Publisher: Verso Books
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

6

AN AGREEMENT OF THE

PEOPLE

October 1647

In spite of the opposition of some of the officers, the General Council invited the agents and their associates to join them in debate. This opportunity inspired a meeting of agents, soldiers and civilians to devise the ‘Agreement of the people’ — a written constitution that would gain legitimacy through a literal agreement of all the population. The dominant hand behind this revolutionary concept may well have been that of Wildman.

An agreement of the people for a firm and present peace upon grounds of common right and freedom, as it was proposed by the agents of the five regiments of horse, and since by the general approbation of the army1 offered to the joint concurrence of all the free commons of England.

The names of the regiments which have already appeared for the case of ‘The case of the army truly stated’, and for this present ‘Agreement’, viz.

1. General’s regiment }

2. Life-guard } 1. General’s regiment }

3. Lieutenant-General’s regiment } 2. Colonel Sir Hardress Waller’s regiment }

4. Commissary-General’s regiment } 3. Colonel Lambert’s regiment }

5. Colonel Whalley’s regiment } of horse 4. Colonel Rainborough’s regiment } of foot

6. Colonel Rich’s regiment } 5. Colonel Overton’s regiment }

7. Colonel Fleetwood’s regiment } 6. Colonel Lilburne’s regiment }

8. Colonel Harrison’s regiment } 7. Colonel Barkstead’s regiment }

9. Colonel Twistleton’s regiment }

Printed Anno Domini 1647.

An agreement of the people for a firm and present peace upon grounds of common right.

Having by our late labours and hazards made it appear to the world at how high a rate we value our just freedom, and God having so far owned our cause as to deliver the enemies thereof into our hands, we do now hold ourselves bound in mutual duty to each other to take the best care we can for the future to avoid both the danger of returning into a slavish condition and the chargeable remedy of another war. For as it cannot be imagined that so many of our countrymen would have opposed us in this quarrel if they had understood their own good, so may we safely promise to ourselves that when our common rights and liberties shall be cleared, their endeavours will be disappointed that seek to make themselves our masters. Since therefore our former oppressions and scarce-yet-ended troubles have been occasioned either by want of frequent national meetings in council or by rendering those meetings ineffectual, we are fully agreed and resolved to provide that hereafter our representatives be neither left to an uncertainty for the time, nor made useless to the ends for which they are intended. In order whereunto we declare:

I. That the people of England being at this day very unequally distributed by counties, cities and boroughs for the election of their deputies in Parliament, ought to be more indifferently proportioned according to the number of the inhabitants: the circumstances whereof, for number, place and manner, are to be set down before the end of this present Parliament.

II. That to prevent the many

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