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From the start of their enterprise, the Diggers faced resistance and hostility from the locals around St George’s Hill. Even though they were deemed ridiculous by many reports, and Captain John Gladman expressed to Lord Fairfax that he felt the Council of State should not be bothered at all with information about them, the local inhabitants felt otherwise. They decided to take the matter of putting an end to the Diggers’ plans into their own hands.
As we mentioned in our previous posts, after Lord Fairfax visited the Diggers on St George’s Hill, it was decided on the part of the State that it was not something to be greatly concerned about. After all, even though the Diggers claimed in their pamphlets that soon thousands would join them in their godly enterprise, the reality proved to be quite different. They were not many, the bareness of St George’s Hill meant that their crops were not abundant (and as we are about to see, even when they were, the little they had was destroyed by locals through furious raids on the Diggers’ camp site). But why were people reacting this way, we might ask? After all, wasn’t the Diggers’ message one that sought to create a better society for everyone to enjoy?
The act of wrongfully and gradually taking someone’s property and/or privilege.
Latin expression that refers to the current state of affairs in a society, particularly in terms of government and social structure.
The killing of a monarch, or a person who takes part in the killing of a monarch.
Probably the most well-known regicide in British history, the execution of King Charles I took place at the Banqueting House, in London, on 30th January 1649. As the first and only time a British monarch had been formally prosecuted for treason and sentenced to death, it was one of the most controversial events in British history and marked the beginning of the Interregnum. In 1660, monarchy was restored with Charles II, son of the deceased king.
A watercolour of St. George's Hill by an unknown artist. The painting is now stored in Elmbridge Museum's collection and is dated to September 1865, around 200 years after the Diggers occupied the land there.
As always, proposing radical changes to the status quo is never simple. This was a context of so much uncertainty and anxiety, where England’s future seemed to be anything but clear (remember that it was not long ago the king had been accused of treason against his own people and beheaded). These national events greatly affected local parish relations, and the air was heavy with tension in all corners of the Three Kingdoms. As we have seen, property was always a sensitive subject, and especially in such uncertain times. Those who owned it wanted to make sure they would be able to maintain what they considered to be rightfully theirs, independent of the outcome of the regicide.
In regard to those who opposed the Diggers, the first group of people that probably come to mind are the Lords of the Manors and property holders in general, which is correct. However, it might come as a surprise to the modern reader that opposition against the Diggers also came from the poor themselves.
Let’s think about this for a minute: for a poor commoner, who relied on the increasingly scarce commons for subsistence, it probably felt very threatening and anxiety-inducing to have a group such as the Diggers – with many being from outside the local parish – claiming the use of the St Georges Hill commons in the large scale that they did (at least at the beginning of their experiment). As argued by John Gurney, this was one of the most ‘intractable problems facing Winstanley and his companions, the difficulty of persuading poor commoners that it was in everyone’s best interests to allow the Diggers to occupy their commons’ (Gurney, 2007, p. 156).
This is also related to how it was customary to use the commons, even when they were not enclosed. One could not simply decide to plant whatever one wanted, and more importantly, in whatever quantity. The same applied to the pasture of cattle and sheep: you could not simply decide to put, let’s say, 200 sheep on common land. There were specific ways, oriented by custom, to make use of this type of land, ways that were acceptable and ways that were unacceptable (Gurney, 2007, p. 155). The Diggers’ project, adopting such universalistic tones – claiming that eventually thousands of people would come and join them out of their own free will – was not customary use of the commons, and people were filled with anxiety about what this could mean and become. Would it mean that the local poor wouldn’t be able to use that land for themselves anymore? In a period that was so unstable, when people were already dealing with so much financial distress caused by war and taxes (Braddick, 2007, p.28), it is not difficult to see why the Diggers’ intentions were not particularly welcomed even by groups that might potentially have benefited from their ideals and prospects for the reorganisation of English society.
In addition to that, it is also worth mentioning that reactions to the Diggers were quite different in Walton (where they first occupied St. George’s Hill) and in Cobham (where they occupied Little Heath in August 1649, after being cast out from St. George’s Hill earlier in the summer). In Walton, the locals reacted against the Diggers almost immediately, perceiving them as outsiders who were threatening their customary rights over the use of the commons. John Gurney also argues that Walton’s inhabitants ‘had a long tradition of resisting encroachments on their commons’ (Gurney, 2000, p. 75), which made the Diggers’ endeavors even more difficult. Whereas in Cobham, Gurney points out that the opposition to the Diggers adopted a far more complex pattern (Gurney, 2000, p. 77). In his view, this was probably because many of the Diggers were originally from Cobham, toning down the ‘outsider’ connotation.
Photograph of the filming of a battle scene in 'Winstanley' (1975), showing a group of men fighting the character Tom Haydon, played by Terry Higgins.
It is not surprising, therefore, that the Diggers suffered so many attacks following the occupation on St. George’s Hill. They alleged that their houses and crops were raided by a mob dressed in women’s clothes, having also been subjected to being locked up inside Walton Church (Winstanley, 1650a, p. 146).
All these episodes were narrated by the Diggers themselves in their pamphlets. In ‘A Declaration of The bloudie and unchristian acting of William Star and John Taylor of Walton, With divers men in womens apparel, in opposition to those that dig upon George-hill in Surrey’ (1649), a brief pamphlet of only 5 pages, the Diggers denounced an attack allegedly inflicted upon them on the 11th June 1649. According to them, a group of men dressed in women’s clothes, lead by John Taylor and William Star (freeholders from Walton), attacked four Diggers while they were working the land, with brutal violence.
'[…] they fell furiously upon them, beating and striking those foure naked men, beating them to the ground, breaking their heads, and sore bruising their bodies, whereof one is so sore bruised, that it is feared he will not escape with life.' (p. 60)
Postcard of St. Mary’s Church, Walton, c.1950s, where the Diggers were temporarily imprisoned.
The report also emphasized that the men attacked did not react:
‘[…] willing and resolving to deliver up their lives unto their Creator at that time […] yet very cheerfull all of them in spirit, not willing to seek revenge, but have committed their cause to him that judges righteously, to whom vengeance belongs’ (Winstanley, 1649, p. 60).
The subsequent pamphlets published by the group contained various other reports of attacks and ill treatments suffered by them. In ‘An Humble Request to the Ministers of Both Universities’, which has a dedication dated 9 April 1650, Winstanley reported that a pregnant woman that was participating in the digging suffered a miscarriage as a result of an attack orchestrated by Parson Platt and Thomas Sutton:
‘[…] The week before Easter, Parson Plat, Minister of Horsley, being the Lord of the Mannor of Cobham, where the Diggers were at work, and Thomas Sutton, the impropriator of Cobham, came in person, and brought divers men, whom they hired to pull down a poor mans house, that was built upon the Commons, and kikt [kicked] and struck the poor mans wife, so that she miscarried of her Child, and by the blows and abuses they gave her, she kept her bed a week.’ (Winstanley, 1650b, p. 168)
Actor David Bramley playing the part of Parson Platt in the film 'Winstanley' (1975), produced and directed by Andrew Mollo and Kevin Brownlow.
In the pamphlet ‘A New-Yeers Gift for the Parliament and Armie’, published sometime around January 1650, they included a list of ‘the most Remarkable Sufferings that the Diggers have met with’ (Winstanley, 1650a, p. 146), which included their temporary imprisonment in a church in Walton, as well as many distressing episodes, such as the destruction of houses, spades, carts and corns, arrests, and various episodes of beating and physical violence towards them (Winstanley, 1650a, p. 146-147).
As part of the grievances inflicted on the Diggers, they listed at least three episodes of imprisonment: first ‘at Walton, and then to a justice at Kingstone, who presently dismissed them’ (Winstanley, 1650a, p. 44), then a second time at Walton, and a final time five of the Diggers were reportedly ‘carried to White-Lion Prison, and kept there about 5 weeks, and then let out’ in Cobham (Winstanley, 1650a, p. 45).
But the Diggers didn’t suffer attacks only by locals. As mentioned in our previous posts, various newsbooks commented on them, and such reports were mostly negative. They promoted an association of the Diggers with disorder, drunkenness, sexual immorality and the like, depicting them, as we have seen, simultaneously as a threat to the order and stability of the Commonwealth, and as a bunch of ridiculous people not worthy of being taken seriously. The Diggers were, indeed, under attack on different fronts.
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