Note 598 — Chapter I · THE AGRARIAN PROBLEM AND THE STATE

A reference to the Levellers occurs in connection with the Midland Revolt of 1607, Lodge, Illustrations, iii. 320: “You cannot but have hearde what courses have been taken in Leicestershire and Warwickshire by the two Lord Lieutenants there, and by the gentlemen ... and lastlie howe Sir Anth. Mildmay and Sir Edward Montacute repaired to Newton ... where one thousand of these fellowes who term themselves levellers were busily digging, but weare furnished with many half-pikes, pyked staves, long bills, and bowes and arrows and stones ... there were slaine some 40 or 50 of them and a verie great number hurt" (January 11, 1607, the Earl of Shrewsbury to Sir John Manners, Sir Francis Leake, and Sir John Harper). The name Diggers seems to have cropped up about the same time, v. Wit and Wisdom, edited by Halliwell for New Shakespeare Society, pp. 140–141, for a petition from “the Diggers of Warwickshire to all other diggers,” and signed “poore Delvers and Day Labourers for ye good of ye commonwealth till death" (quoted by Gay, Trans. Royal Hist. Soc., New Series, vol. xviii.)