ABSTRACT
England revolted against absolute monarchy a century and a half earlier than did France, under conditions very dissimilar from those that marked the epoch of the great French Revolution. The English Revolution, as it advanced, resembled the great French Revolution in outstripping the aims that were proclaimed at its commencement. During its course the various parties, and the different social classes behind them, came to the front, one after another, and played a leading part in the direction of events, and after a period of military dictatorship the English Revolution, like the French, came to a temporary conclusion in a restoration, which, again resembling the French, proved unable to restore the conditions that existed before the outbreak. In religious matters the majority of Levellers did not differ greatly from the mass of the Independents. Middle-class historians, however, have been in the habit of treating Lilburne not a whit better than they treated the editor of the Pere Duchesne.
