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You Noble Diggers All (The Diggers’ Song)

[ Roud 1521 ; DT LVLDIGGR ; Mudcat 120580 ; words Gerrard Winstanley]

Gerrard Winstanley (1609–10 September 1676) was an English Protestant religious reformer and political activist during the Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell. Winstanley was aligned with the group known as the True Levellers for their beliefs, based upon Christian communism, and as the Diggers for their actions because they took over public lands and dug them over to plant crops. [source: Wikipedia]

The Druids sang Winstanley’s rallying The Diggers’ Song in 1972 on their Argo album Pastime With Good Gompany. They noted:

Work on a B.B.C. Radio documentary programme entitled “The Long March of Everyman” provided words for All’s Dear But Poor Men’s Labour and The Digger’s Song. The latter conveniently matched up with the tune usually associated with Ye Jacobites by Name, the former needed a new tune.

Leon Rosselson with Roy Bailey and Sue Harris, accompanied by Martin Carthy on guitar, sang The Diggers’ Song, on Rosselson’s 1979 album If I Knew Who the Enemy Was. Twenty years later, it was included on Rosselson’s 1999 Fuse album Harry’s Gone Fishing.

Chumbawamba sang The Diggers’ Song in 1988 on their LP English Rebel Songs 1381-1914 and they recorded it again in 2003 for the re-made CD English Rebel Songs 1381-1984. In 2007, they sang it on their live CD Get On With It—Live. They noted:

The Diggers’ Song was written in 1649 by Gerrard Winstanley, leader of the Diggers. The Diggers, unable and unwilling to pay exorbitant rents to rich landlords, took over wasteland and began to build their own community. Time after time they were attacked by local soldiers under orders from the priests and lords. Their growing crops were pulled up and discarded. The Diggers, staunch pacifists, were repeatedly beaten up; but offered no physical resistance. Moving from place to place, and encouraging others to follow their example, they struggled on for two years preaching a vision of common ownership of the land and shared labour.

What happened to the Diggers should have taught us two things. Firstly, by nature of their example, that common and equal work—without lords or masters—can be a practical alternative to the robbery and inequality of capitalism. Secondly, that a willingness to accept the violence and destruction of the state without fighting back is, in the end, self-destructive. St George’s Hill, the most famous of the Diggers’ plots of squatted land, is now a highly select residential area full of well-to-do stockbrokers.

“Be encouraged, all ye friends of freedom, and writers in its defense! The times are auspicious. Your labours have not been in vain. Tremble all ye oppressors of the world. Take warning, all ye supporters of slavish governments and slavish hierarchies! Restore to mankind their rights: and consent to the correction of abusers. before they and you are destroyed together.”
(Richard Price, 1789)

Lady Maisery sang Diggers’ Song in 2016 on their CD Cycle. They noted:

The Diggers were a group of Protestant radicals who believed in economic equality and wanted to reform the existing social order with an agrarian lifestyle based on small egalitarian rural communities. The movement was begun by Gerrard Winstanley as the ‘True Levellers’ in 1649, but became known as the ‘Diggers’ because of their attempts to farm on common land. Despite first being published in 1894 by the Camden Society, we believe these lyrics remain chillingly fitting to the society we find ourselves in today.

Lyrics

Leon Rosselson sings The Diggers’ Song

You noble Diggers all, stand up now, stand up now,
You noble Diggers all, stand up now,
The waste land to maintain, seeing Cavaliers by name
Your digging do disdain and your persons all defame
Stand up now, Diggers all.

Your houses they pull down, stand up now, stand up now,
Your houses they pull down, stand up now.
Your houses they pull down to fright poor men in town,
But the gentry must come down and the poor shall wear the crown.
Stand up now, Diggers all.

With spades and hoes and ploughs, stand up now, stand up now,
With spades and hoes and ploughs, stand up now.
Your freedom to uphold, seeing Cavaliers are bold
To kill you if they could and rights from you withhold.
Stand up now, Diggers all.

Their self-will is their law, stand up now, stand up now,
Their self-will is their law, stand up now.
Since tyranny came in they count it now no sin
To make a gaol a gin and to serve poor men therein.
Stand up now, Diggers all.

The gentry are all round, stand up now, stand up now,
The gentry are all round, stand up now.
The gentry are all round, on each side they are found,
Their wisdom’s so profound to cheat us of the ground.
Stand up now, Diggers all.

The lawyers they conjoin, stand up now, stand up now,
The lawyers they conjoin, stand up now,
To arrest you they advise, such fury they devise,
But the devil in them lies, and hath blinded both their eyes.
Stand up now, Diggers all.

The clergy they come in, stand up now, stand up now,
The clergy they come in, stand up now.
The clergy they come in and say it is a sin
That we should now begin our freedom for to win.
Stand up now, Diggers all.

’Gainst lawyers and ’gainst priests, stand up now, stand up now,
’Gainst lawyers and ’gainst Priests, stand up now.
For tyrants are they both even flat against their oath,
To grant us they are loath free meat and drink and cloth.
Stand up now, Diggers all.

The club is all their law, stand up now, stand up now,
The club is all their law, stand up now.
The club is all their law to keep poor folk in awe,
That they no vision saw to maintain such a law.
Glory now, Diggers all.

Lady Maisery sing Diggers’ Song

You noble Diggers all, stand up now, stand up now,
You noble Diggers all, stand up now,
The waste land to maintain, seeing Cavaliers by name,
Your digging do disdain, and your persons all defame,
Stand up now, Diggers all.

Your houses they pull down, stand up now, stand up now,
Your houses they pull down, stand up now,
Your houses they pull down to fright poor men in town,
But the gentry must come down, and the poor shall wear the crown,
Stand up now, Diggers all.

Their self-will is their law, stand up now, stand up now,
Their self-will is their law, stand up now,
Since tyranny came in they count it now no sin,
To make a gaol a gin, and to starve poor men therein,
Stand up now, Diggers all.

The gentry are all round, stand up now, stand up now,
The gentry are all round, stand up now,
The gentry are all round, on each side they are found,
Their wisdom’s so profound, for to cheat us of the ground,
Stand up now, Diggers all.

The clergy they come in, stand up now, stand up now,
The clergy they come in, stand up now,
The clergy they come in, and they say it is a sin
That we should now begin, our freedom for to win.
Stand up now, Diggers all.

The club is all their law, stand up now, stand up now,
The club is all their law, stand up now,
The club is all their law, to keep poor folk in awe,
But they no vision saw, to maintain such a law,
Glory now, Diggers all.