John Lilburne - Putney Debates

Putney Debates

Lilburne was imprisoned from July to October 1645 for denouncing Members of Parliament who lived in comfort while the common soldiers fought and died for the Parliamentary cause. It was while he was incarcerated that he wrote his tract, England's Birthright Justified.

In July 1646, he was imprisoned in the Tower of London for denouncing his former commander the Earl of Manchester as a traitor and Royalist sympathiser. It was the campaign to free him from prison which spawned the political party called the Levellers. Lilburne called them "Levellers so-called" because he viewed himself as an agitator for freeborn rights.

The Levellers had a strong following in the New Model Army with whom his work was influential. When the Army held the Putney Debates between 28 October and 11 November 1647, the debate centred upon a pamphlet influenced by the writings of John Lilburne called An Agreement of the People for a firm and present peace upon grounds of common right. The events of 1647, where rank and file soldiers organised themselves, under the leadership of the Agitators have been compared to the organisation of Soldiers Soviets during the Russian Revolution of 1917.