During the Civil War of England, Richard Overton was a revered pamphleteer and Leveller. While uncertain, almost any professional historian would tell you that he believes the man graduated from a college in Queen’s after spending his childhood in Cambridge and then spent his mid twenties getting work as an actor. Unfortunately not very much else is known about his early life but it’s fairly clear that his political beliefs and actions later had important impacts on the post revolution atmosphere of Britain.
Overton, a dedicated pamphleteer, wrote and published his first known tract in the early 1640s. The piece, which was riddled with satire, attacked the Catholic church’s reform and gained a big following amongst activists.
Near that same time he wrote a tract about his beliefs regarding death, saying that the soul was really just as sensitive as the body and would perish along with it. This vision, as well as the essay he used to spread it, led Overton to being demonized by British Presbyterians.
A few years later Richard Overton, under the guise of a pen name, would release yet another satirical tract, this time about the hypocritical nature of the Presbyterian Church. This pamphlet proved to be extremely popular among other Independents and contained principles that would eventually become key points for the future Leveller Movement.
A Leveller was a popular British political activist that was known for pushing for religious tolerance, popular sovereignty, and extended suffrage among many other things. Their movement’s beginning can be traced to the first Civil War of the country and, by the second one, had become incredibly influential among the citizens.
Parliament, in the 1640s, condemned both the group and the activists, who are all tried for treason after their arrests. In 1649 they were released but it was too late to save the Levellers Movement. Read more about: richard overton
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