ABSTRACT
All Revolutionists, the moment they undertake the actual responsibilities of government, become in some sort conservative. Robespierre guillotined the Anarchists. The first administrative act of the Regicides was to silence the Levellers. Throughout the year 1649 England’s spokesman was ‘Freeborn John’, and her heroes were the democratic mutineers of the army. In April one of these soldiers was executed in front of St Paul’s door; his corpse was followed to the grave by a countless multitude of London’s citizens, who had strangely decked their respectable hats with the green ribbon of the Levellers. Between the outbreak of the Civil War and the end of the Protectorate, the navy had been doubled in numbers and more than doubled in fighting power. The Puritans, inspired by their aggressive nationalism, and supplied by revolutionary finance, had both the will and the means to maintain the British fleet as the greatest in the world.
