stained with blood, and the Sword of the deceased with them. Some
thousands followed in Ranks and Files, all had Sea-green and black
Ribbon tied on their Hats and to their Breasts, and the Women
brought up the Rear. At the new Church Yard in Westminster some
thousands more of the better sort met them, who thought not fit to
march through the City. Many looked on this Funeral as an Affront
to the Parliament and Army; others called them Levellers, but they
took no notice of any of them."

In view of such a manifestation of the state of public opinion, we
cannot be surprised that Winstanley's eloquent and impressive appeals
awoke a responsive echo in the minds of many who would have shrunk from
following his example, or even from publicly avowing his creed.
Moreover, the miserable condition of the masses of the agricultural
population, of which we shall give some startling evidence later on,
must have prepared a soil favourable to his self-imposed mission, to
awaken them to a knowledge both of their rights and of their duties.
Especially welcome must have been doctrines in accordance with their
simple religious beliefs, as well as with their ancient and well-founded
traditions of certain inalienable rights to the use of the land: rights
that, as they well knew, had been filched from them under cover of laws
they had no voice in making, which they did not understand, and which
were enforced upon them by the power of the sword and gallows. We must
remember, however, that though the landholders had succeeded in
impoverishing, they had not yet succeeded in degrading the people; some
remnant of the old English spirit was still left, and the Civil War had
re-awakened the old English craving for freedom, liberty, and equity.
The landholders, in their attempt to emancipate themselves from the
control of the Crown, had kindled a fire amongst the people before which
they quailed; small wonder, then, that about this time they began to