Levellers were English radicals who sought democracy and religious freedom around the time of the English Civil War of the 1640’s. Their enemies called them Levellers because they wished to level, or abolish, the powers of the government. The Levellers wanted the government to be run by the people who lived under it.
Numerous papers and pamphlets—most notably by John Lilburne, Richard Overton, and William Walwyn—popularized the Levellers’ ideas. The group’s series of Agreements of the People (1647-1649) set forth their platform. The Levellers attracted support from soldiers who fought in the parliamentary army during the Civil War, as well as from craftworkers, farmers, and people in religious sects. The Levellers disbanded after a series of unsuccessful mutinies against the Commonwealth government of 1649, which did not share their beliefs on religious tolerance and other issues.
