The emergence of Leveller polemic: William Walwyn, collaborative authorship and radical identity, 1645–7

Abstract

This article investigates Leveller prehistory by analysing three polemical tracts of 1646–7. William Walwyn and Richard Overton arguably collaborated in the Remonstrance of Many Thousand Citizens and in the New Found Stratagem Framed in the Old Forge of Machivilisme, as well as in the Warning to All the Counties of England. Their denunciations of the dominant Presbyterian faction supported the independent alliance; but they employed distinctive language too extreme for many independents, pointing to their increasing political ambiguity. Their collaboration challenges scholarly characterizations of Walwyn’s ‘gentle’ style. The essay concludes by examining the related emergence of London, army and county radicals, some of whom would soon become Levellers.