Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Dedication
- Preface
- Introduction
- Bibliographical Note
- A List of Gerrard Winstanley's Writings
- Other Digger or Near-Digger Writings
- The True Levellers' Standard Advanced
- A Declaration from the Poor oppressed People of England
- An Appeal To the House of Commons
- A Watch-Word to The City of London, and the Army
- Preface to Several Pieces gathered into one volume
- A New-year's Gift for the Parliament and Army
- Fire in the Bush
- The Law of Freedom in a Platform
- Poems from other pamphlets
- The Diggers' Song
An Appeal To the House of Commons
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 February 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Dedication
- Preface
- Introduction
- Bibliographical Note
- A List of Gerrard Winstanley's Writings
- Other Digger or Near-Digger Writings
- The True Levellers' Standard Advanced
- A Declaration from the Poor oppressed People of England
- An Appeal To the House of Commons
- A Watch-Word to The City of London, and the Army
- Preface to Several Pieces gathered into one volume
- A New-year's Gift for the Parliament and Army
- Fire in the Bush
- The Law of Freedom in a Platform
- Poems from other pamphlets
- The Diggers' Song
Summary
AN Appeal to the House of Commons, Desiring their Answer; Whether the Common-People shall have the quiet enjoyment of the Commons and Waste Lands: Or whether they shall be under the will of Lords of Manors still.
Sirs,
The cause of this our presentment before you is an appeal to you, desiring you to demonstrate to us and the whole land the equity or not equity of our cause; and that you would either cast us by just reason under the feet of those we call task-masters or lords of manors, or else to deliver us out of their tyrannical hands: in whose hands, by way of arrest, we are for the present, for a trespass to them (as they say) in digging upon the common land. The settling whereof according to equity and reason will quiet the minds of the oppressed people; it will be a keeping of our National Covenant; it will be peace to yourselves, and make England the most flourishing and strongest land in the world, and the first of nations that shall begin to give up their crown and sceptre, their dominion and government, into the hands of Jesus Christ.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Winstanley 'The Law of Freedom' and other Writings , pp. 109 - 124Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1983