John Leverett - English Civil War

English Civil War

In about 1644 Leverett went to England, where he fought in the Parliamentary cause for Oliver Cromwell in the English Civil War. He had a military command in the cavalry of Thomas Rainsborough, where he supposedly served with distinction. He returned home in 1645, but may have gone back to England in the following years. He married Robert Sedgwick's daughter Sarah in 1645. The couple had 12 children, of whom only six survived to adulthood.

Leverett's time in England brought him to a belief in the need for more religious tolerance. He would pursue the idea politically, often in the face of opposition from the conservative Puritan leadership of Massachusetts that opposed religious views that did not accord with their narrow views. He specifically opposed the Cambridge Platform describing New England church orthodoxy, and opposed punishments of nonconforming individuals when he sat as a deputy in the Massachusetts general court (the colonial legislature). John Winthrop, in writing about the 1648 synod that adopted the platform, noted that those "who came lately from England" were strongly opposed to its resolutions.