Adventures in Middle England ……… from Leicestershire into the Cotswolds … No. 2 ..... a mutiny

 This is St John The Baptist in Burford, and it was here that three soldiers of the New Model Army were executed in 1649, following a mutiny over pay and political demands.

Burford Church, 2024

The issue of back pay was resolved, but the political demands went back to the Putney Debates which occurred two years earlier when in the middle of a bitter Civil War in which one in four died the army of Parliament sat down to discuss the future of England after the war with the King.

An Agreement of the People, 1647

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.

Now the Putney Debates and much more of the visions of the men who fought for Parliament was never taught to me.  

Part of the reason may well have been that the records of the discussions were lost until the beginning of the 20th century but I suspect the absence of this story may also be down to content.

Inside the church, 2024

In an age when history was still taught from top down the idea that there should be an alternative history where ordinary people wanted a share in how their country was run and believed that they had as much a right to that say as the rich and powerful was indeed a challenging one.

And in the case of the three soldiers who were executed it ran against the opinions and interests of the leading members of the army.

The mutineers were Levellers who had argued at Putney for a radical vision of the future including  popular sovereignty, extended suffrage, equality before the law and religious tolerance.

Private John Church, Corporal Perkins, and Cornet James Thompson, 2024

Dissatisfied with the opposition from the leading members of the army known as the Grandees, 400 troopers under the command of Captain William Thompson who were sympathetic to the Levellers set off from Banbury, where they were billeted, to speak with other regiments at Salisbury about their political demands.

The unit was engaged by loyalist forces, defeated, imprisoned in Burford Church where three of the the leaders were shot:

These were  Private John Church, Corporal Perkins, and Cornet James Thompson on  May  17th 1649.

According to the church web site “during their imprisonment,[ some of the the imprisoned  prisoners] left evidence of their time there, in particular a carving by Anthony Sedley in the lead on the font, which is dated 1649. There is also a "nine men's morris" board carved into one of the tombs in the Bartholomew Aisle”.

Walking into the church, 2024

It was by chance that as we headed through the Cotswolds last week we realized we would pass close to Burford, and so chose to break the journey, and after a fine meal at the Angel Inn headed on to the church and the rest is a collection of pictures and sense of walking through a bit of our radical history.

And ever since 1975 people gather each year to remember the Levellers, the Putney Debates and  Private John Church, Corporal Perkins, and Cornet James Thompson.** 

Location; Burford

Pictures; An Agreement of the People, 1647, and the church at Burford, 2024, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*The Levellers, Burford Church, https://www.burfordchurch.org/the-levellers

**Levellers Day, https://levellersday.wordpress.com/whats-happening-2024/