Slavery or prison became the future.Ĭoppe wrote, “Mine ears are filled brim full with cries of poor prisoners, Newgate, Ludgate cries (of late) are seldom out of mine ears. These defeats cleared the way forward for capitalist conditions of exploitation by the thorough separation of workers from the means of production, especially land. At the same time the Levellers with their principle of political equality and the Diggers with their principle of commoning land were defeated. This put an end to the divine right of kings. Less than a year earlier, 30 January 1649, the King, Charles I, was decapitated, and shortly thereafter Parliament replaced monarchy with a commonwealth. Coppe was imprisoned for “putting forth,” or publishing, A Fiery Flying Roll: A Word from the Lord to all the Great Ones of the Earth. Bad luck on Friday the thirteenth, at least in 1650, because on that day, 13 January 1650, Abiezer Coppe was transferred from a prison in Warwick to one in Coventry and then some time later to London and Newgate prison.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |