The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #93475 Message #1799685
Posted By: GUEST,RTim
02-Aug-06 - 07:46 AM
Thread Name: Songs about the Diggers
Subject: RE: Songs about the Diggers
This was supposed to have been written by Winstanley.
- Regards Tim Radford
Levellers and Diggers - Gerard Winstanley
You noble Diggers all, stand up now x 2,
You noble Diggers all, stand up now,
The waste land to maintain,
seeing Cavaliers by name
Your digging does maintain,
and persons all defame
So come you Diggers all, stand up now.
Your houses they pull down, stand up now x 2,
Your houses they pull down, stand up now.
Your houses they pull down
to fright your men in town,
But the gentry must come down,
and the poor shall wear the crown.
So come you Diggers all, stand up now.
With spades & hoes & plows, stand up now x 2,
With spades & hoes & plows stand up now,
Your freedom to uphold,
seeing Cavaliers are bold
To kill you if they could,
and rights from you to hold.
So come you Diggers all, stand up now.
Their self-will is their law, stand up now, x 2
Their self-will is their law, stand up now.
Since tyranny came in they count it now no sin
To make a gaol a gin,
to serve poor men therein.
So come you Diggers all, stand up now.
The gentry are all round, stand up now, x 2,
The gentry are all round, stand up now.
The gentry are all round,
on each side they are found,
Their wisdom's so profound,
to cheat us of our ground.
So come you Diggers all, stand up now.
The lawyers they conjoin, stand up now, x 2,
The lawyers they conjoin, stand up now,
To arrest you they advise, such fury they devise,
The devil in them lies,
and hath blinded both their eyes.
So come you Diggers all, stand up now.
The clergy they come in, stand up now, x 2,
The clergy they come in, stand up now.
The clergy they come in, and say it is a sin
That we should now begin,
our freedom for to win.
So come you Diggers all, stand up now.
'Gainst lawyers & gainst Priests,
stand up now, x 2
'Gainst lawyers & gainst Priests stand up now.
For tyrants they are both
even flat against their oath,
To grant us they are loath
free meat and drink and cloth.
So come you Diggers all, stand up now.
The club is all their law, stand up now, x 2,
The club is all their law, stand up now.
The club is all their law to keep all men in awe,
But they no vision saw to maintain such a law.
So come you Diggers all, stand up now.
To conquer them by love, come in now, x 2,
To conquer them by love, come in now;
To conquer them by love, as it does you behove,
For he is King above, no power is like to love,
So come you Diggers all, stand up now.
A SHORT DIGGER HISTORY
The Diggers were a group of agrarian communists who flourished in England in 1649-50 and were led by Gerrard Winstanley and William Everard. The Diggers believed that since the English Civil War had been fought against the King and the landowners, and with Charles I executed, land should then be made available to the poor to cultivate. In April 1649 a group of about 20 men assembled at St. George's Hill, Surrey, and began to cultivate the common land. The Diggers' activities alarmed the Commonwealth government and roused the hostility of local landowners, who were rival claimants to the common lands.
On 16 April 1649 Henry Sanders sent an alarming letter to the Council of State reporting that several individuals had begun to plant vegetables on St. George's Hill in Surrey. Sanders reported they, the Diggers, had invited "all to come in and help them, and promise them meat, drink, and clothes." and that the Diggers claimed that their number would be several thousand within ten days. "It is feared they have some design in hand." The Council of State sent the letter to Lord Fairfax, lord general of the army, along with a dispatch stating:
By the narrative enclosed your Lordship will be informed of what hath been made to this Council of a disorderly and tumultuous sort of people assembling themselves together not far from Oatlands, at a place called St. George's Hill; and although the pretence of their being there by them avowed may seem very ridiculous, yet that conflux of people may be a beginning whence things of a greater and more dangerous consequence may grow. Fairfax was then ordered to disperse the group and prevent a repetition of the event.
The Diggers were harassed by legal actions and mob violence, and by the end of March 1650 their members were driven off the St. George's Hill. Despite this setback they continued their work on a nearby heath in Cobham. colony was dispersed.
In April the Digger movement collapsed when a Parson Platt, the lord of the manor, and several others destroyed the Diggers' houses, burned their furniture, and scattered their belongings. Platt threatened the Diggers with death if they continued their activity and hired several guards to prevent their return to the heath. Winstanley recorded these events as well as a final defense of the Digger movement.
Source: B:Palmer, R, A Ballad History of England, BT Batsford Ltd, 1979
Notes:
Roy Palmer's notes follow:
Despite the execution of Charles I, the abolition of the House of Lords, and the proclamation of the Republic or Commonwealth in the first half of 1649, there was a groundswell of radical opinion directed against Cromwell and his policies. In the army the Leveller movement culminated in insurrection, which was crushed (May). Among the casualties were three soldiers executed at Burford in Oxfordshire. (These did not include Anthony Sedley, who scratched his name on the font while imprisoned in the church.)
Meanwhile, the Diggers were making a more peaceful protest by 'occupying', as we
might now put it, St George's Hill on 1 April. This was common land, near Weybridge in Surrey, and the Diggers' intention was to cultivate it by joint labour. Despite harassment by Cromwell's officers and local landlords, the Diggers struggled on until 1651 before their movement faded out. St George's Hill is now a highly select residential area in stockbroker country.
Gerard Winstanley's Diggers' Song remained in manuscript until 1894, when it was
published by the Camden Society. No tune was indicated, but it is clear from the metre which was meant: a version of the family of tunes later used for Jack Hall, Captain Kidd and Admiral Benbow. Its earliest appearance in print seems to have been 1714, in the version used here.