See Levellers (disambiguation) for alternative meanings.
The Levellers were a mid 17th century English political movement, who came to prominence during the English Civil Wars. They were not a political party in the modern sense of the word, so people who historians have labeled a Leveller did not subscribe to a specific party manifesto, nevertheless many Levellers agreed with the view expressed in the Agreement of the People. Leveller views and support was to be found in the populace of the City of London and in some regiments in the New Model Army. The Levellers came to prominence at the end of the First English Civil War and were most influential before the start of the Second Civil War. After Pride's Purge and the execution of Charles I, power lay in the hands of the Grandees in the Army, (and to a lesser extent with the Rump Parliament). The Levellers along with all other opposition groups were marginalized by those in power and their influence waned. By 1650 they were no longer a serious threat to the established order.

Origin of name
The Levellers had no coherent agenda. Before 1649, there is no record of their having sat down together to develop a manifesto. However, they were committed broadly to the abolition of corruption within the Parliamentary and judicial process, toleration of religious differences, the translation of law into the common tongue, and some kind of expansion of the suffrage. These aims fluctuated. Some Levellers, like John Lilburne, argued that the English Common law, particularly Magna Carta, were the foundation of English rights and liberties, but others, like William Walwyn, compared Magna Carta to a 'mess of potage'.

Political ambitions
Levellers tended to hold fast to a notion of "natural rights" that had been violated by the king's side in the Civil Wars. At the Putney Debates in 1647, Colonel Rainborough defended natural rights as coming from the law of God expressed in the Bible. Richard Overton considered that liberty was an innate property of every person. Michael Mendle has demonstrated the development of Leveller ideas from elements of early Parliamentarian thought as expressed by men such as Henry Parker.

Foundation
In July 1645, John Lilburne was imprisoned for denouncing Members of Parliament who lived in comfort while the common soldiers fought and died for the Parliamentary cause. His offence was slandering William Lenthall, the Speaker of the House of Commons, whom he accused of corresponding with Royalists. He was freed in October after a petition requesting his release, and signed by over two thousand leading London citizens, was presented to the House of Commons.
In July 1646, Lilburne was imprisoned again, this time in the Tower of London, for denouncing his former army commander the Earl of Manchester as a Royalist sympathiser, because he had protected an officer who had been charged with treason. It was the campaigns to free Lilburne from prison which spawned the movement known as the Levellers. Richard Overton was arrested in August 1646 for publishing a pamphlet attacking the House of Lords. During his imprisonment he wrote an influential Leveller Manifesto, An Arrow Against All Tyrants and Tyranny. Several mutineers were killed in the skirmish, Captain Thompson escaped only to be killed a few days later in another skirmish near the Diggers community at Wellingborough. The three other leaders – William Thompson's brother, Corporal Perkins, and John Church – were shot May 17, 1649. This destroyed the Leveller's support base in the New Model Army, which by this time was the major power in the land. Although Walwyn and Overton were released from the Tower, and Lilburne was tried and acquitted, the Leveller cause had effectively been crushed.

Timeline
In 1724 there was a rising against enclosures in Galloway, and a number of men who took part in it were called "Levellers" or "Dykebreakers" (A. Lang, History of Scotland, vol. iv). The word was also used in Ireland during the eighteenth century to describe a secret revolutionary society similar to the Whiteboys.

See also

Annis, Ben; Have Historians Exaggerated the Significance of Radical Movements in the English Revolution?
Anderson, Angela; Cromwell and the Levellers interviewed as part of the preparation for Cromwell: New Model Englishman by Channel 4
Selected works of the Levellers
John Lilburne and the Levellers
BBC: The Levellers (17th century)
1642-52: Levellers and Diggers in the English Revolution
A Time-line for the Levellers
The Levellers: Overton, Walwyn and Lilburne Note 1 in this link includes an explanation of the origins of the word Levellers.
Hoile, David; The Levellers: Libertarian Radicalism and the English Civil War