\'The present state of the old world is running up like parchment in the fire.\' So declaimed Gerrard Winstanley, charismatic leader of Radical religious group the Diggers, in mid-seventeenth century England: one of the most turbulent periods in that country\'s history.
As three Civil wars divided and slaughtered families and communities, as failing harvests and land reforms forced many to the edge of starvation, and as longstanding institutions like the House of Lords, the Established Church an. \'The present state of the old world is running up like parchment in the fire.\' So declaimed Gerrard Winstanley, charismatic leader of Radical religious group the Diggers, in mid-seventeenth century England: one of the most turbulent periods in that country\'s history
