The Ballad of Freeborn John

The Ballad of Freeborn John

The bloodiest war in our history
And one in four of us died
For a castled king on a stagnant throne
And a revolutionary tide.

‘I spilt my blood so I need a voice!’
Cries Freeborn John at Putney,
‘Who dies for England is England’s king,
We are no grandee’s army.

‘The poorest man in England has
The right to live as the greatest,
Our All in all is God the king
In every soul and breast.’

The bloodiest war in our history
And one in four of us died
For a castled king on a stagnant throne
And a revolutionary tide.

We’re the voice of the Freeborn Englishman
That was raised at Magna Carta,
The deathless flag of the Good Old Cause, the Bold
Dissenting Leveller.

I rose with Tyler, Straw and Ball
When peasants shook the kingdom,
I was sold down that river of blood by a king
Who hawked the soul of England.

We need no manor house and land
To fix our permanent interest,
We fight for England, our rights and ourselves:
No mercenary business.

The bloodiest war in our history
And one in four of us died
For a castled king on a stagnant throne
And a revolutionary tide.

I will strike with the Tolpuddle Martyrs,
I will die at Peterloo,
March to bloody hell at the Westgate Hotel
To win this England for you,

Die a million deaths in two world wars
Though the portion’s not so many
As died for Charles, that Man of Blood,
And in our redcoat Army.

A new model England truly advanced,
Through the royal ranks of sin
In a cavalry charge to a Future Now
Where God not man is king.*

The bloodiest war in our history
And one in four of us died
For a castled king on a stagnant throne
And a revolutionary tide.




*the epitaph on Cromwell’s tomb



During the English Civil Wars - in June 1647, at Putney, with the king under arrest - a proto-democratic assembly of elected New Model Army representatives debated a new constitution for England. The vision of ordinary men and what they had fought for received articulate expression and a level of consideration far beyond the intellectual level of the Stuart court or of the aristocratic 'Parliament.' 'Freeborn John' Lilburne was one of the key voices but there are many others like John Ball through history. The debates, often regarded as the cradle of modern democracy, were cut short by the 'Man of Blood' (Charles I) escaping and a second war beginning. Incredible that this Civil War, fought on principle rather than for tribal loyalties or pay, cost one in four English lives proportionally higher than World War I and II combined. The poem was first composed on St George's Day 2013, and the intention is to include it as a new folk song in my Cromwell's Talking Head show as a musical collaboration.

The chorus emphasises the two world views of the antagonists. Charles I was set up to fight the civil war in sieges from castles but it was decided by cavalry charges in pitched battles - the verb of dynamic progress against the noun of mediaeval reaction.