Posts Tagged ‘Fifth Monarchists’

Bengali New Year and Levellers 2013

Friday, May 12th, 2023

Bengali New Year and Levellers: I spent Sunday 12th May in East London, beginning at Weavers Fields in Bethnal Green for the Boishakhi Mela procession and then moving on to Wapping where a plaque was being unveiled at the burial place of Leveller Thomas Rainsborough. On my way there I was passed by a large group of motorcyclists out for a ride.


Boishakhi Mela Procession – Bethnal Green

Bengali New Year and Levellers 2013

The Bengali New Year is in the middle of April, but when the annual celebrations by the Bangladeshi community in Tower Hamlets began in 1997 they decided April in London was too cold and likely to rain and moved their celebration to a month later.

Bengali New Year and Levellers 2013

The celebration, which I’d photographed in 2006 and 2008, had been based around Brick Lane, but had by 2013 become a victim of its own popularity and had outgrown its original location, and had been moved to Victoria Park, well away from the centre of the Bangladeshi community. I think in later years it returned to its original location in the Brick Lane area, but I’ve not been back since.

Bengali New Year and Levellers 2013

The Mela is said to be the largest celebration of Boishaki outside of Bangladesh, and it was certainly very crowded when I was in Brick Lane in 2008. Tower Hamlets Council had that year banned it on safety grounds from using their parks, but later allowed them to use Weavers Fields for the main stage. It is said to be the second largest street festival in UK – though at around 80,000 taking part it is still an order of magnitude smaller than Notting Hill.

Bengali New Year and Levellers 2013

But as the pictures show it is a very colourful event. The council took over the management of the festival in 2009 when a record 95,000 people attended.

I walked with the procession to the gates of Victoria Park taking photographs, but left as they entered the park to go to Wapping.

Boishakhi Mela Procession


Bikers – Bethnal Green

The Boishakhi Mela Procession had been held up for a couple of minutes in Bethnal Green and had to wait as a large group of motorcyclists made its way down Old Ford Road where they were to go. I talked briefly with some of the bikers as they waited at the traffic lights, but conversation was rather difficult over the noise of perhaps a hundred poorly silenced engines. But I think they were simply a group from Dagenham and other parts of Essex out for a ride around London.

Bikers


Leveller Thomas Rainsborough – St John’s Churchyard, Wapping

Although I had walked through and photographed the small park, saved from being built on by local campaigners, which had been the churchyard of St John’s in Wapping, I don’t think I had previously known it was where Thomas Rainsborough had been buried.

Colonel Thomas Rainsborough was a military leader in Cromwell’s New Model Army, fighting for Parliament against the king in the English Civil War. He was killed by a Royalist raising party during the siege of Pontefract on 29 October 1648 and buried at Wapping on 14th November.

Rainsborough is best remembered now for his statement in the Putney Debates in London in 1647 about all men being equal:

"For really I think that the poorest he that is in England hath a life to live as the greatest he; and therefore truly, sir, I think it’s clear that every man that is to live under a government ought first by his own consent to put himself under that government; and I do think that the poorest man in England is not bound in a strict sense to that government that he hath not had a voice to put himself under…"

It was truly a revolutionary idea at the time, and he was labelled as an extremist. He was the most senior officer to support the Levellers.

The four Royalists had entered his lodgings at night and attempted to arrest him. There was a huge funeral procession by Levellers from Tottenham to Wapping for his burial. His sea-green regimental standard (a replica of which was carried by the Sealed Knot’s ‘Colonel Rainsborough’s Regiment of Foote’ in today’s ceremonies) was torn into strips and the sea-green ribbons became a Leveller symbol.

He had been an important military leader, in command of 1500 musketeers, but today there just five from the Sealed Knot, along with an officer and some pikemen, but they put on an impressive performance for the hundred or so of us who had turned up for the event, with speeches by John Reese, Tony Benn and others before Tony Benn pulled the string to unveil the plaque. This included words from the inscription on his long lost tomb which proclaimed he had made ‘Kings, Lords, Commons, Judges shake, Cities and Committees quake‘.

After the official proceedings and while photographs were being taken Ian Bone of Class War seized the opportunity to speak against the appropriation of Rainsborough by members of the political establishment who had taken part in the ceremony, but would still be opposed to the radical ideas put forward by the Levellers.

Standing in front of a fine banner showing a red sleeping lion with the text ‘Who shall rouse him up’ he spoke about the more radical Fifth Monarchists, fifty of whom staged a brief and doomed insurrection following the restoration in 1661, led by Thomas Venner. They stormed St Paul’s Cathedral on January 1 and held parts of London for three days before all were killed or taken prisoner. Venner was captured after suffering 19 wounds, tried and then hanged, drawn and quartered on 19 January 1661.

More at Leveller Thomas Rainsborough.


Murdoch, Tower Bridge and Poor Doors

Sunday, March 26th, 2023

I came up to London on the afternoon of Thursday 26th March 2015 and began my work by going to News International opposite the main entrance to London Bridge Station where te week of Occupy Rupert Murdoch was on its fourth day. Not much was happening there, so after taking a few pictures I went for a short walk to Tower Bridge and back. Things were only just beginning to start for an evening of events there when I needed to leave and cross the river for another weekly protest by Class War at One Commercial Street.


Occupy Rupert Murdoch – News International, London Bridge

Thursday 26th March 2015

I’d been at News International three days earlier on Monday 23 March 2015 when campaigners against the scandal of the UK’s media monopoly, with 5 billionaires owning 80% of the media, had marched there the short distance from London Bridge to present an arrest warrant for Rupert Murdoch, charging him with for war crimes, phone hacking, political blackmail, tax avoidance and environmental destruction.

Thursday 26th March 2015

Someone from News International had come and taken the warrant, and the campaigners had then set up camp on the pavement outside for a week of activities, Occupy Rupert Murdoch Week. I’d been busy for a few days and this was my first opportunity to return and see what was happening.

Thursday 26th March 2015

The answer when I arrived late on Thursday afternoon was not very much, though the camp and some of its supporters were still there, and still putting up posters and telling people going into London Bridge Station opposite the camp why they were protesting.

Thursday 26th March 2015

I went for a short walk along the riverside to Tower Bridge and came back later when more people were beginning to arrive for the evening session. But unfortunately I needed to leave to walk across the river and join Class War in Aldgate before things really got going.

Occupy Rupert Murdoch


Around Tower Bridge

I’d thought that Tower Bridge was probably the most photographed building in London but a survey of Instagram tags in 2022 showed that Big Ben had inched ahead with 3.2 million posts to Tower Bridge’s 2.6 million.

I don’t often feel a great need to add to the number of pictures of London’s most famous bridge, which I think I first photographed 50 years ago, though I’d gone under it on a school trip almost 20 years earlier, back before primary children had cameras. Most of the pictures which I’ve taken including it in the last 25 or so years have a group of protesters outside nearby City Hall in the foreground.

London’s City Hall is now no longer within sight of Tower Bridge, hidden out beside the ROyal Victoria Dock in Canning Town, though it was still in its rented home, bought back by the Kuwaiti state a couple of years earlier. Tower Bridge is still owned by Bridge House Estates, a charity set up in 1282, its only trustee THE MAYOR AND COMMONALTY AND CITIZENS OF THE CITY OF LONDON.

But mostly my attention was on the north bank of the river now rather dominated by a cluster of ugly and idiosyncratic towers in the centre of the City of London, until close to Tower Bridge where the Tower of London, actually outside the City in Tower Hamlets, still stands out despite its relatively low height.

Around Tower Bridge


A Quiet Night at Poor Doors – One Commercial St, Aldgate.

Eight months earlier in July 2014 Class War had started a series of weekly protest outside the massive largely residential block of One Commercial Street on the corner of that street and Whitechapel High St. The block includes flats for both private owners and a smaller number of socially rented flats, with the two groups having separate entrances.

The ‘rich door’ is on the main road, next to the Underground station entrance, while the ‘poor door’ is down a side alley. When the protests began the alley was dark, with dumped rubbish and a strong and persistent smell of urine, but one positive result of the protests has been that the alley has been cleaned up and new lighting installed.

As the protesters were getting ready at the rich door, I went after Ian Bone of Class down the alley to look at the poor door. We returned to the front of the building and the rich door, followed by two police officers who had come to watch us.

It was good to see again among the banners the ‘Epiphany’ banner based on the Fifth Monarchists who led a short-lived rebellion in London which began on 6th January 1660. Class War had taken part in the filming of a re-enactment of this event in 2013.

It began as a fairly quiet protest with speeches and some chanting, and at some point a yellow smoke flare rolled across the pavement.

There was a small confrontation when one resident entering the rich door pushed rather roughly past the protesters, but very few came in or out of the rich door. The ground floor also includes shops and a hotel, and I think residents could probably use the hotel entrance. We had also found that they were able to exit via the ‘poor door’.

At the end of the protest some of the protesters who had brought a Hello! magazine Queen’s Diamond Jubilee flag attempted to burn it. But this turned out to be difficult and it melted a bit but didn’t catch fire. Some then when down the alley to look at the poor door before everyone left.

More pictures on My London Diary at Quiet Night at Poor Doors.


Epiphany Rising Against Monarchy

Thursday, January 6th, 2022

Epiphany Rising Against Monarchy
Relatively few nowadays observe the 12 days of Christmas which come to an end on January 6th with Epiphany. Traditionally in the UK and some other countries it was when Christmas decorations were taken down, but also a feast day celebrating the arrival of the Three Kings with their gifts. Nowadays most seem to put up decorations even before the start of Advent and often take them down by the New Year.

Ian Bone holds a picture of Thomas Venner

Epiphany gained a new importance in literature and moved to entirely lower case in the work of James Joyce, where his hero Stephen Daedalus defines it as “a sudden spiritual manifestation, whether in the vulgarity of speech or of gesture or in a memorable phase of the mind itself.” Epiphanies are moments of revelation that change the the way a character or person sees life or a particular situation, suddenly seeing things in a new light. I think all great photographs are epiphanies.

Ian Bone speaks

But getting back to the 6th of January, and in particular the 6th of January 1661 which was the subject of a partial re-enactment on the 6th of January 2013, we need to remember the centrality of religion in those times. Though many might now protest against the monarchy, particularly in recent days over the ennobling of a war criminal and the alleged criminal acts against minors by one of the royal family, few would now do so for the kind of religious reasons that led Thomas Venner and his fellow Fifth Monarchists to carry out a bloody armed insurrection in the City of London.

As I wrote in My London Diary:

The Fifth Monarchists were an important religious movement in England during the rule of Oliver Cromwell, seeing the execution of King Charles as being part of the fulfulment of the Biblical prophesy in the book of Daniel about the end of the four kingdoms of history being followed by the “rule of a son of man” for a thousand years (which they took as the rule by the Pope) after which would come the Christ’s reign on earth. For this to happen, the old order had to be ended by violence – as had begun with the beheading of the king.

They included three of those who had signed the execution warrant, but they soon become disillusioned with Cromwell, who they saw as trying to make himself a king and they began to agitate against him. Thomas Venner was imprisoned for several years for plotting to overthrow Cromwell, but released when Richard Cromwell became Protector.s

They were incensed by the restoration of the monarchy, and in particular by the savagery shown by the new order against the ‘regicides’, including Fifth Monarchist Major-General Harrison who showed great bravery during his gruesome public execution by hanging, drawing and quartering.

My London Diary

Like Venner’s the re-enactment began at Swan Alley (now Great Swan Alley) and with around a similar number of his 50 or so followers, and were variously armed with pikes and other weapons. The event in 2013 began with a speech by Ian Bone about the history of the earlier event, followed by several other anarchists and socialists whose comments related the it to our current times. The event was for a short film, Epiphany, with Ian Bone as writer working with director Suzy Gillett.

I suspect Venner’s address was rather more fiery, but we did have a very fine banner, with a heraldic lion and the text ‘Who shall rouse him up?’, and as in 1661 the mob was led out of the yard by a young woman bearing a pike and the battle cry “King Jesus and the heads upon the gates“. Among those taking part was Sam, grandson of Philip Sidney Noakes, the last of the Muggletonians, another of the radical seventeenth century religious movements with his daughter Rachel.

Sam, grandson of Philip Sidney Noakes, the last of the Muggletonians, with his daughter Rachel

There were other anarchist banners and black and red flags and banners and people shouted some of the old slogans, ‘King Jesus‘, ‘Heads On Pikes‘ and ‘Nobility In Chains’. Though some were carrying axes and hammers, certainly illegal offensive weapons, none were put into use into what was a rather tame stroll with a number of stops to allow the film director Suzy Gillett to move the camera into position on the way via the Guildhall to the steps of St Paul’s Cathedral.

There the group were content with posing for photographs, rather than following Venner’s example and storming in and holding it for several days, along with other parts of the city, until finally the army was sent in against them. Most were then killed and the others captured after a long and bloody fight. Venner himself was wounded in 19 places before he was finally overpowered.

Together with ten others after a brief trial he was sentenced to be hung, drawn and quartered; the sentence was carried out in front of the meeting place of his congregation in Swan Yard on 19 Jan 1661. Many other Fifth Monarchists who had taken no part in the rising were hunted down and hung or imprisoned, and draconian laws were enacted against dissenters but this did not end the movement.

You can read a fuller account of the event in Epiphany Rising Against King on My London Diary, and even more detail in a post on the Bristol Radical History Group site.