I’ve just come across an excellent article about John Lilburne, the great agitator and liberal who was falsely called a Leveller by his opponents (including Cromwell).
Its a great look at someone who was well before his time, a truly radical liberal who believed in individual freedom and equality before the law. He objected to the Rump Parliaments execution of the King on the grounds that a new Parliament should be elected based upon a new constitution and then the King should be granted the fair trial due to all Englishmen.
Lilburne himself suffered at the hands of government, both under Charles I and under Cromwell. His refusal to take an oath under the Star Chamber is of singular importance and was cited by the US Supreme Court as recently as 1966 with reference to the 5th Amendment (Miranda vs. Arizona)
The article also gives a glimpse of his wife and the Bonnie Besses, a group of women who refused to be bound by the prevailing, sexist, views and petitioned Parliament (who rejected their petition, telling them to get back to housework - they refused and had to be dispersed by troops).
The article goes on to claim that Lilburne can be called a libertarian. It is very difficult to ascribe modern political categories to figures of the past, but in this case it is not without merit, at least for a broad category of libertarian which takes in classical liberalism.
