Now I know that south east London is a long way from Chorlton-cum-Hardy but the blog Transpontine featured a nice piece on The Fifth Monarchists, 17th century London religious radicals.
http://transpont.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/history-corner-fifth-monarchists-17th.html.
Reading the discussions there is something very modern about the position of Colonel Rainsborough who argued that “... the poorest he that is in England hath a life to live, as the greatest he; and therefore truly, Sir, I think it's clear, that every man that is to live under a government ought first by his own consent to put himself under that government; and I do think that the poorest man in England is not bound in a strict sense to that government that he hath not had a voice to put himself under...”
And this in turn reminded me of the Forces Parliaments which took place in the British Army in India and Egypt during the Second World War. The Cairo Forces Parliament met in February 1944 and voted for the nationalization of the banks, land, mines and transport.
In their way it replicated those debates three hundred years earlier where the men who were fighting debated the future they wanted.
But unlike the Forces Parliament which saw much of what they voted for come to reality after the election of the Labour Government in 1945 the expectations of many of the 17th century progressives, and visionaries came to nought in the face of Royal repression which Transpontine chronicles.
*http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/the-not-so-soft-and-gentle-touch-of.html
Picture; Thomas Venner from Transpontine
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