Saturday, June 20, 2026 · 天火 · tianmu.org

Appendix - The Diggers Song

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This song is one of the best-known poetic witnesses to the Digger movement. It speaks in the voice of the commoners who defended digging and planting on waste land against landlords, lawyers, clergy, and armed force.

The song is included here as related context for Gerrard Winstanley and the Digger movement, not as a secure Winstanley-attributed work. The text below follows the public-domain 1894 Camden Society edition of the Clarke Papers, edited by C. H. Firth and captured through the Online Library of Liberty.

Song

You noble Diggers all, stand up now, stand up now,
You noble Diggers all, stand up now,
The wast land to maintain, seeing Cavaliers by name
Your digging does disdaine, and persons all defame
Stand up now, stand up now.

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

Theire self-will is theire law, stand up now, stand up now,
Theire self-will is theire law, stand up now.
Since tyranny came in they count it now no sin
To make a gaole a gin, to sterve poor men therein.
Stand up now, stand up now.

The gentrye are all round, stand up now, stand up now,
The gentrye are all round, stand up now.
The gentrye are all round, on each side they are found,
Theire wisdom's so profound, to cheat us of our ground.
Stand up now, stand up now.

The lawyers they conjoyne, stand up now, stand up now,
The lawyers they conjoyne, stand up now,
To arrest you they advise, such fury they devise,
The devill in them lies and hath blinded both their eyes.
Stand up now, stand up now.

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.

The tithe they yet will have, stand up now, stand up now,
The tithes they yet will have, stand up now.
The tithes they yet will have, and lawyers their fees crave,
And this they say is brave, to make the poor their slave.
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 they are both even flatt 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 men in awe,
But they no vision saw to maintain such a law.
Stand up now, Diggers all.

The Cavaleers are foes, stand up now, stand up now,
The Cavaleers are foes, stand up now;
The Cavaleers are foes, themselves they do disclose
By verses not in prose to please the singing boyes
Stand up now, Diggers all.

To conquer them by love, come in now, come in now,
To conquer them by love, come in now;
To conquer them by love, as itt does you behove,
For hee is King above, noe power is like to love.
Glory heere Diggers all.

Colophon

This text is drawn from The Clarke Papers. Selections from the Papers of William Clarke, Secretary to the Council of the Army, 1647-1649, and to General Monck and the Commanders of the Army in Scotland, 1651-1660, vol. 2, edited by C. H. Firth and published by the Camden Society in 1894. The local source check used the Online Library of Liberty PDF and text extraction, PDF pages 204-205.

For this Good Works Library edition, Online Library of Liberty web navigation, page headers, and four dangling plain-letter a footnote artifacts introduced by the text-based PDF have been removed. Early modern spelling and lineation are otherwise preserved.

This item is included as related Digger movement context. It is not attributed here to Gerrard Winstanley.

Compiled and formatted for the Good Work Library by the New Tianmu Anglican Church, 2026.

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