The Later Life of Gerrard Winstanley

Bibliographic Data

ID4456932
AuthorsRichard T Vann (corresponding author)
Year1965
Volume26
Issue1
Pages133
Publication date1965-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of the History of Ideas (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0022-5037 • E-ISSN: 1086-3222
PublisherJSTOR (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.2307/2708404
OpenAlexW2326087158
LanguageEN
Citations received7

The Digger Gerrard Winstanley published his last pamphlet in 1652. Almost three centuries passed before his collected works were edited by George H. Sabine and made subject of a book by D. W. Petegorsky.1 But neither Sabine nor Petegorsky could do much to dispel obscurity cloaking life of Winstanley after his retirement as a pamphleteer. The only glimpse of Winstanley was in 1660, when he appeared as a plaintiff in chancery and as a tithe-gatherer of propriety in pages of a hostile pamphlet. In 1948 Wilhelm Schenk could comment that the known facts about Winstanley's life are tantalisingly meagre and it is extremely unlikely, after patient researches of Petegorsky and Sabine, that any more will be discovered in future. 2 This prediction has proven to be unduly pessimistic. Recently discovered evidence allows us a fuller picture of Winstanley's later life, no longer as polemicist and communist theorist, but as corn-chandler, Quaker, and litigant. After final dispersal of Digger community in Surrey, Winstanley spent late summer and autumn of 1650 as steward to eccentric prophetess Lady Eleanor Douglas on her estate at Pirton, Hertfordshire. From a letter found in Huntington Library we know that Winstanley had to defend himself from a charge of dishonesty in keeping of his accounts. Characteristically, Winstanley interpreted his relationship to Lady Eleanor as one of seeking her conversion rather than commerce: came not under your rooffe to earn money a slave. It is convertion of your spirit to true Nobilities, which is falne in earth, not weight of your purse that I looke after. But his services had gone beyond spiritual, for as he reminds her, was your Saviour in this last Somer's crop in getting sequestracon taken of [off] your estate, and you freely promised before Ellin to give me 20?. Not only had this promise not been fulfilled, but prophetesse Melchisedecke had appeared suddenly like a theeff in night to audit Winstanley's accounts, and apparently they had a violent falling-out.3 Winstanley may have continued his activities as a steward, since in 1660 he was attacked for taking tithes by Ranter Laurence Claxton. In his The Lost Sheep Found, or Prodigal Returned to his Father's House, Claxton claims to have detected vanity in Winstanley's proceedings as a Digger, and charges him on page 27 with an ignominious, though not unex

Australian History and Society · Historical Economic and Social Studies · History · Philosophy · Scottish History and National Identity

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