John Lilburn. "People's agreement. Biography. Pamphlets

) - an active participant in the English bourgeois revolution, lieutenant colonel of the New Model Army, leader of the Levellers.

At the outbreak of the Civil War he became captain of the Roundheads, commanded by the Earl of Essex. He took part in a number of major battles, including the famous battles of Edgehill and Marston Moor. During the war, he managed to distinguish himself: he received the rank of lieutenant colonel and led a dragoon regiment. However, in 1645, Lilburne, being an Independent, resigned, refusing to sign the Covenant establishing Presbyterianism as a compulsory religion in the army, which was one of the conditions for creating a “new model” army.

Beliefs

Lilburne was a defender of the “ancient rights and freedoms of England” and a fighter against the “consequences of the Norman Conquest,” that is, he advocated the creation of a republic and the provision of broad democratic rights and freedoms to the population.

Bibliography

Lilburn D. Pamphlets - M.: Sotsekgiz, 1937. - 119 p.
Efimov I. M. To Throw Off Every Yoke: The Tale of John Lilburn. - M.: Politizdat, 1977. - (Fiery revolutionaries). - 399 p., ill.
Barg M. A. The Great English Revolution in portraits of its leaders. M.: Mysl, 1991.

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John Lilburne, leader of the Levellers John Lilburne (eng. John Lilburne; 1614 August 29, 1657) an active participant in the English bourgeois revolution, lieutenant colonel of the New Model Army, leader of the Levellers. Coming from the gentry. As a teenager, he was given... ... Wikipedia

- (John Lilburne, 1615 57) English politician of the 17th century, belonged to the gentry. For 20 years now, L. has participated in the distribution of prohibited religious historical pamphlets and, together with other opponents of the episcopal authority, escaped from... ... Encyclopedic Dictionary F.A. Brockhaus and I.A. Ephron

John Lilburne, leader of the Levellers John Lilburne (eng. John Lilburne; 1614 August 29, 1657) active participant in English ... Wikipedia

And the parliament of the new model army left military service (despite the fact that he was offered a high command post) for political and ideological reasons (reluctance to swear allegiance to the Covenant), initially supported the Independent Party, later one of the ideologists of the radical Party of Levelers (equalizers).

John Lilburn

Date of Birth	[…]
Place of Birth	prep. Sunderland, Great Britain
Date of death	August 29(1657-08-29 )
A place of death	Eltham[d], Greenwich, Greater London, England
Rank	lieutenant colonel[d]
John Lilburn at Wikimedia Commons

Biography

Beliefs

Notes

Literature

In Russian

Barg M. A. Genesis of the ideology of true Levellers // History of socialist teachings: collection. articles in memory of academician V. P. Volgina. - M.: Nauka, 1964. - P. 149-198.
Barg M. A. The Great English Revolution in portraits of its leaders. - M.: Mysl, 1991. - 436 p.
Batser M.I. Levellers against Cromwell // New and recent history. - 2002. - No. 3.
Lilburn, John / Kiselev A. A. // Las Tunas - Clematis [Electronic resource]. - 2010. - P. 470. - (Big Russian Encyclopedia: [in 35 volumes] / chief ed. Yu. S. Osipov; 2004-2017, vol. 17). - ISBN 978-5-85270-350-7.
Lilburn D. Pamphlets. - M.: Sotsekgiz, 1937. - 119 p.
// Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron: in 86 volumes (82 volumes and 4 additional). - St. Petersburg. , 1890-1907.
Prozorova N. S.

Lilburne John (c. 1614, Greenwich, - August 29, 1657, Eltham, Kent), figure in the English bourgeois revolution of the 17th century, leader and ideologist of the Levellers.

The youngest son of a small nobleman, L. was apprenticed to a London cloth merchant in 1630. He joined one of the Puritan sects. In 1638 he was imprisoned. Released by decision of the Long Parliament in 1641. Actively participated in the 1st civil. war of 1642-1646, rising to the rank of lieutenant colonel. In 1645 he refused to recognize Covekant and resigned as a sign of protest against the policies of the Presbyterians. In a number of pamphlets he substantiated the bourgeois-democratic. ideas about people sovereignty and natural human rights. Radical petty bourgeois. democrat, L. put the task of political reforms at the forefront. He opposed the monarchy. forms of government and the existence of the House of Lords, for a republic, against all feuds, privileges, for the equality of all before the law, defended the freedom of religions. beliefs. He defended the inviolability of person and property, freedom of the press. In bourgeois conditions. Revolution, these demands were aimed at the complete destruction of the feudal-class system and the establishment of the foundations of the bourgeois-democratic. republics. Of great importance for deepening the revolution were L.'s demands for the abolition of monopolies and patents, the abolition of tithes, and the easing of the tax burden. At the same time, L. opposed the liquidation of private property. In 1646, by order of the House of Lords, L. was again thrown into prison. The “National Agreement” drawn up in 1647 by him and his associates was the program document of the Leveler party. In 1648 L. was released. He sharply criticized the position of the independents who came to power in 1649, who rejected the plans of the democrats. transformations. In March 1649, L. was arrested again and imprisoned in the Tower, but even here he did not stop fighting. In the spring of 1649, he and his supporters published the "Manifesto" and the "Agreement of the Free People of England", containing a statement of political. and socio-economic. views of L. and the Leveler party. The trial of L. (October 1649) turned into his triumph and ended in an acquittal. However, in 1652 he was expelled from England. After returning home in 1653, he was arrested again. Despite the dates. court verdict, L. was actually imprisoned almost until his death. For all his petty-bourgeois limitations, L. played a huge role in the English revolution as one of the most prominent representatives of the democratic movement.

The struggle between them was complicated by the emergence of a democratic group of Levellers, or “levelers,” whose most prominent leader was the radical petty-bourgeois democrat and passionate freedom fighter John Lilburne.

The youngest son of a small nobleman, twelve-year-old Lilburne was sent to be trained by a large London cloth merchant, on whose behalf he traveled to Holland more than once, using these trips to distribute Puritan literature printed in Holland in England.

In 1638, Lilburne was severely punished and imprisoned, where he was kept in solitary confinement, chained, and only in May 1641 was he released by decision of the Long Parliament.
Lilburne takes an active part in the civil war, and after the army reform he retires and devotes himself entirely to the political struggle, speaking on the far left flank of the parliamentary camp.

Already in 1645, he spoke out independently, with sharp criticism of the House of Lords, formulating in the pamphlet “Defense of the Natural Right of England” one of the most important provisions of the Levellers on one sovereignty. In another pamphlet of the same time, Lilburne wrote: “The highest power is in the people.” The power of parliament should be limited, the only measure for it should be the people's good. Lilburn does not allow the idea that there could be a House of Lords next to the House of Commons. The power of the lords and the king is tyrannical and must be abolished.

Arguing that all people are “by nature equal” and that “none of them has by nature any superiority or power over others,” Lilburne opposes all privileges and feudal titles.

An ardent supporter of the republican system, Lilburne also acts as a defender of personal freedoms: freedom of religious beliefs, inviolability of person and property, freedom of the press.

Along with Lilburne, his comrades Richard Overton and William Walwyn played a major role in the formation of the ideas of the democratic movement and in the ideological preparation of the Leveler party. Like Lilburne, Overton spent a long time in prison and was released only in September 1647.

In his passionate pamphlets of 1645, Overton explicitly recognized the illegitimacy of the House of Lords and royal power. Boldly and openly, Overton already in 1646 sharply criticized the Presbyterians, whose policy towards the people he called “despotic usurpation.” Overton angrily castigates the “new upstarts—Presbyterians” who threaten the freedom of the people and their natural, innate rights. Overton demanded the abolition of royal power. He asked: “Can a nation really not exist without a king?” Following Lilburne, Overton also denies the power of the lords. “Only you were elected by us, the people,” he wrote in an address to the lower house, “therefore only you have the power associated with the entire nation.” Ardently defending individual rights, Overton, like Lilburne, primarily attributes to them the right to own property. In his pamphlet “The Arrow Against All Tyrants,” Overton recognizes property as a natural and necessary institution. Even before Rousseau, Levellers believed that the destruction of property would be an even greater evil than its existence.

William Walwyn also played a major role in shaping the ideas of the Levellers. During the Civil War, he took an active part in political life, became a close associate of Lilburne and Overton, and in a number of his pamphlets he acts as a defender of freedom of conscience and a passionate propagandist of the ideas of popular sovereignty.
It is characteristic that Lilburne, Overton and Walwyn constantly referred to the Magna Carta and considered their activities as a struggle for the reconquest and return of former freedoms that were lost by their ancestors during the Norman Conquest. They are characterized by the idea of the right and duty of citizens to resist oppression, an idea that played a huge revolutionary role in the English Revolution itself, and subsequently during the American War of Liberation.

Thus, already in 1645 - 1646, during the period of formation of an independent democratic ideological movement, the future leaders of the Leveller group put forward ideas that were anti-monarchical and republican in essence, they rejected the power of the king and lords, thereby the future Levellers sought to destroy the old, feudal political superstructure . V.I. Lenin emphasized that “monarchy, class” were, along with feudal land ownership and land use, the most important elements of the feudal system.

The destruction of “monarchy, class” meant a further deepening of the revolution. In 1647, the Levellers transformed from an ideological movement into a party group. It was then that the name “levellers” appeared. The socio-economic program of Lilburn's supporters was very moderate. From the very beginning, it provided for the destruction of monopolies and patents, easing the tax burden of the “poor and middle people.” Their program also included demands such as the return of fenced land to the peasants and the transformation of copyhold into freehold, but this program did not at all provide for a radical solution to the agrarian question, that is, the destruction of noble land ownership.