Debates
The radicals wanted a constitution based upon manhood suffrage ("one man, one vote"), biennial Parliaments and a reorganisation of parliamentary constituencies. Authority was to be vested in the House of Commons rather than the King and Lords. Certain "native rights" were declared sacrosanct for all Englishmen: freedom of conscience, freedom from impressment into the armed forces and equality before the law.
The Putney Debates came about as a result of the publication of the Case of the Armie. According to the author of a book called A Cal to all the Soldiers of the Armie (a work usually ascribed to John Wildman), Ireton was so incensed by the Case of the Armie that the New Agents were invited to debate the Case of the Armie before the General Council of the Army. Fairfax was unwell and could not be present, so Cromwell sat in the chair. Cromwell flatly refused to accept any compromise in which the King was overthrown, while Henry Ireton (son-in-law of Oliver Cromwell) pressed the case that his own The Heads of the Proposals covered all of the concerns raised by the New Agents in The Case of the Armie. The New Agents accepted the meeting, sending Robert Everard (identified on the first day of the Putney Debates as 'Buff Coat') and another New Agent from Col. Whalley's Regiment only identified as 'Bedfordshire Man' (this was possibly Trooper Matthew Weale, a signatory of the Case of the Armie and the Agreement of the People). Other members of the Army present were Colonel Thomas Rainsborough (MP for Droitwich), his brother Major William Rainsborough, and the Agitators Edward Sexby and William Allen. The New Agents also brought John Wildman and Maximillian Petty, two civilian advisors who had been involved with Army affairs since at least July 1647.
The debates opened on 28 October and were transcribed by secretary William Clarke and a team of stenographers. From 2 November however, all recording ceased. The debates were not reported and Clarke's minutes were not published at the time. They were lost until 1890 when they were rediscovered at the library of Worcester College, Oxford, and subsequently published as part of the Clarke Papers.
Cromwell and Ireton's main complaint about the Agreement was that it included terms for near universal male suffrage, which Ireton considered to be anarchy. Instead they suggested suffrage should be limited only to landholders. The Agitators, on the other hand, felt they deserved the rights in payment for their service during the war. Thus Thomas Rainsborough argued:
| “ | For really I think that the poorest hee that is in England hath a life to live, as the greatest hee; and therefore truly, Sr, I think itt clear, that every Man that is to live under a Government ought first by his own Consent to put himself under that Government; and I do think that the poorest man in England is not at all bound in a strict sense to that Government that he hath not had a voice to put Himself under. | ” |
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—Putney Debates record book 1647, Worcester College, Oxford, MS 65. Spelling and capitalisation as in the original manuscript. |
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And Ireton, for the Grandees:
| “ | no man hath a right to an interest or share in the disposing of the affairs of the kingdom... that hath not a permanent fixed interest in this kingdom. | ” |
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