The Levellers

Misha Glenny and guests discuss the group which came to be known as the Levellers and emerged during what would become arguably one of the bloodiest and most turbulent periods of English history. After the First English Civil War, the Levellers started calling for reforms to achieve legal and social equality. They pushed for a new constitution, extended franchise, popular sovereignty, and religious toleration. To do this, the Levellers pioneered the use of pamphlets and petitions, as well as taking to the streets in their thousands to demonstrate wearing their signature sea-green ribbons and sprigs of rosemary. To some they were radical, and to others not radical enough. Though the Leveller movement itself may have been short-lived, the arguments that they made have both inspired and challenged generations since.

With

Teresa Bejan

Professor of Political Theory and Fellow of Oriel College, University of Oxford

Ted Vallance

Professor of History and Dean of Research and Doctoral Study at the University of Roehampton

And

Clare Jackson

Honorary Professor of Early Modern History and Walter Grant Scott Fellow in History at Trinity Hall, University of Cambridge

Producer: Martha Owen

Reading list:

Teresa M. Bejan, First Among Equals: Visions of Equality before Egalitarianism (Belknap Press, forthcoming in 2026)