By the end of the 15th century, central English authority in Ireland had all but disappeared. England's attentions were diverted by its Wars of the Roses (civil war). The authorities in the Pale grew so worried about the "Gaelicisation" of Ireland that they passed special legislation in a parliament in Kilkenny banning those of English descent from speaking the Irish language, wearing Irish clothes or inter-marrying with the Irish. Since the government in Dublin had little real authority, however, the Statutes did not have much effect.

From the mid-16th and into the early seventeenth century, crown governments carried out a policy of colonisation known as Plantations. Scottish and English Protestants were sent as colonists to the provinces of Munster, Ulster and the counties of Laois and Offaly (Plantations of Ireland). These settlers, who had a British and Protestant identity, would form the ruling class of future British adminstrations in Ireland. A series of Penal Laws discriminated against all faiths other than the established (Anglican) Church of Ireland. The principal victims of these laws were Catholics and later Presbyterians. The modern Presbyterian churches trace their origins to the Calvinist churches of the British Isles; in continental Europe such congregations were known as Reformed churches. The Presbyterian Church is strongest in Scotland, where it was founded by John Knox in 1557, but it is also well established in England, Wales, and the U.S. (Calvinism.) Calvinism first influenced the Protestant churches of Geneva and of the Huguenots. Presbyterians were to be found in most of the English colonies of North America.

The Irish Rebellion of 1641 began as an attempted coup d'état by Irish Catholic gentry, but rapidly degenerated into bloody intercommunal violence between native Irish Catholics and English and Scottish Protestant settlers. The rising was sparked off by Catholic fears of an impending invasion of Ireland by anti-Catholic forces of the English Long Parliament and the Scottish Covenanters. The Irish rebellion broke out in October 1641 and was followed by several months of violent chaos in Ireland before the Irish Catholic upper classes and clergy formed the "Catholic Confederation" in the summer of 1642. The Confederation was a de facto government of Ireland, loosely aligned with the Royalist side in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms.

The Levellers were a mid 17th century English political movement, with no centralised manifesto at all before 1649 and there was a Leveller movement until 1649 when much of their support had dissipated. They gathered most of their support from the City Companies in London and connections with members of the New Model Army, and supported the Parliamentarian faction in the English Civil War.

The Levellers in the New Model Army elected Agitators from each regiment to represent them. These debates are known as the Putney Debates, and they were held in St. Mary's Church, Putney, in the county of Surrey, between October 28 and November 11, 1647.

Levellers

The years before 1640 in England were years of national disillusionment. The gap between the court and Protestant elements widened. Oxford surrendersed in July of 1646, at the end of the first phase of the Civil War, except for a few isolated Royalist garrisons. By the end of the first civil war in 1646 Leveller ideas were particularly influential and culminated in the Putney Debates where ordinary soldiers debated revolutionary ideas with their generals; it was at this series of meetings that Leveller Colonel Thomas Rainborough argued the case for universal suffrage. Soldiers in contact with Lilburne's movement start electing "Agitators" (delegates) to take their grievances to Parliament in April of 1647. Agitators take Charles I into their own custody so that Parliament cannot negotiate a separate deal with him. Cornet George Joyce leads a force which brings the King from Holmby House (Northamptonshire) to Newmarket in June. Then in July, a mob incited by Presbyterians, the most conservative Parliamentarian faction invades Parliament and forces it to pass motions taking control of the London militia (a potential rival army) and inviting the King to London for talks. In August, army marches into London and occupies it without bloodshed.

By November, an attempted mutiny by Leveller soldiers at Corkbush Field, near Ware (Hertfordshire)- was called off after an appeal by Fairfax and Cromwell. One soldier executed. A serious setback for the movement. In March of 1648, the Governor of Pembroke Castle declares support for the King, starting of the second phase of the Civil War. Supports lie between newspapers and petitions by October 1648, Cromwell enters Edinburgh and at the end of the second phase of the Civil War, except for isolated Royalist garrisons in Yorkshire. In November, Cromwell worried about the strength of the Presbyterians in Parliament, who still want a compromise with the King. Invites Levellers to meet Grandees for new talks about a constitutional settlement.

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