Levellers and the law

The Levellers

Some of the earliest and most devastating criticisms of English law and lawyers were made by the Levellers in the seventeenth century in the context of revolutionary changes in English society following the Civil War and the execution of Charles I. The Leveller movement advocated popular sovereignty, extended suffrage, equality before the law and religious tolerance. The Levellers proposed radical reforms, most of which have not yet been carried out in Britain. The Levellers put forward a revolutionary programme, including the codification of the common law in a brief and intelligible handbook, the abolition of barbarous punishments and the reform of the prisons. Its keynote was decentralisation, so that the common man and his neighbours should govern themselves through their juries and elected magistrates.