Sir Walter Raleigh's notes
First English dictionary
Letter about Guy Fawkes
The Gunpowder Plot
The head of Guy Fawkes
Shakespeare's King Lear
King James Bible
The Globe Theatre
Surgeons' tools
Chinese globe
Shakespeare's First Folio
Lotus Sutra
English Civil War scenes
Witch hunting
Execution of Charles I
Agreement of the People
Charles I's executioner
Early A - Z of London
Advert for a quack doctor
Oliver Cromwell as the Devil
A cure for the Plague
Robert Hooke, Micrographia
Great Fire of London map
Great Fire of London
Wren's plans after the fire
Theatrical figures
Dictionary of criminal slang
Games and pastimes
Habeas Corpus Act
Map of the moon
A London Rhinoceros
Henry Purcell
Locke's Two Treatises
East India Company
Account of a shipwreck
Map of South America
During the English Civil War of 1642–1651, the overthrow of the King saw the need for a peace agreement that could be used as a constitution for the new-look England. This proposal, known as the Agreement of the People, came from extremists in the army, known as the Agitators, and their allies, the Levellers – the first communist movement. The agreement proposed among other things freedom of worship, equality for all men under the law, the right to vote for all men aged 21 and over, except servants, beggars or Royalists and the abolition of the death penalty except for murder. The agreement itself was a large vellum document – a kind of fine calfskin parchment – probably paraded through London. It was eventually set aside because of the execution of the King. Nearly all its points would eventually be achieved, but not for nearly 300 years.
Shelfmark: Egerton 1048, f.91