부산대학교 도서관

This chapter discusses the attacks on the Diggers and their relations with the local community. The first attack on them was recorded when the ‘divers of the diggers’ were taken to the village of Walton and locked in the church, before being freed by a justice of the peace. On the second occasion more than a hundred people forced the Diggers off the hill and took them first to Walton and then Kingston. A mistaken belief that the Diggers enjoyed the protection of the army saved them from further violence during the first few days. The Diggers returned to the hill in greater numbers after the initial wave of attacks, and were subjected to further assaults in the succeeding weeks and months. The Diggers identified strongly with the profound and unexpected political changes that were taking place around them, and they were inspired to act.
This is a full-length modern study of the Diggers or ‘True Levellers’, who were among the most remarkable of the radical groups to emerge during the English Revolution of 1640–60. Acting at a time of unparalleled political change and heightened millenarian expectation, the Diggers believed that the establishment of an egalitarian, property-less society was imminent. This book establishes the local origins of the Digger movement and sets out to examine pre-Civil War social relations and social tensions in the parish of Cobham—from where significant numbers of the Diggers came—and the impact of civil war in the local community. The book provides a detailed account of the Surrey Digger settlements and of local reactions to the Diggers, and it explores the spread of Digger activities beyond Surrey. In chapters on the writings and career of Gerrard Winstanley, the book seeks to offer a reinterpretation of one of the major thinkers of the English Revolution.