In London in 1647, Richard Overton, a former Waterlander Mennonite and now an English General Baptist and leader of the religiously motivated English political faction known as "the Levellers," was arrested and thrown in the tower of London for printing pamphlets without submitting them to the approval of the censor. He was dragged to jail clutching a copy of the Magna Charta, that first document in English common law that limited the rights of monarchs and began the tradition of limited government with checks and balances and eventually, the tradition of democratic rule. In The Commoner's Complaint (issued 10 February 1647), which Overton wrote from prison, he published the story of his arrest, but also the even more dramatic story of the subsequent arrest of his wife and it is that story I detail below.

We know little about Mrs. Overton. Even her name is lost to history and feminists would be right seeing this as all too typical of the patriarchal conventions which make men appear to be the only actors in history and women, if mentioned at all, placed as appendages to strong males (husbands, fathers, sons, etc.). (It is because we don't know her name that I use the older title, Mrs., for a married woman, rather than the neutral designation, Ms., of modern invention.) But Mrs. Overton must have been a fascinating woman who shared her husband's strong convictions for "universal human rights," a term first coined by Overton in his 1642 tract, The Arraignment of Mr. Persecution. We don't how the Overton's met or how long they had been married by 1647. Was she with him in his youth when he traveled to Germany and saw the beginnings of the Thirty Years' War? (Was that the origin of Overton's convictions that wars of religion were evil incarnate? Was it the origin of his defense of liberty of conscience, of conscientious objection to war, of his convictions about nonviolence?) Was she with him in Holland in 1615 when he joined the John Smyth congregation of exiled Puritan Separatists just after they had merged with the Waterlander Mennonites in Amsterdam? Or did Overton only meet her after his return to England sometime before 1642, a member of a General Baptist congregation (for the first 50 years of their existence the General Baptists were in frequent communication with the Amsterdam Waterlander Mennonites, each considering the other group "of like faith and order"; pacifism was widespread, though not universal, among the General Baptists of this earliest period)? We don't know.

What we know is this: Mrs. Overton apparently shared Richard's strong convictions concerning the injustice of autocratic rule and persecution for the sake of conscience. She demonstrates her own democratic and human rights convictions, doubtless rooted in her (Ana)baptist faith as was Richard's, by continuing to print his pamphlets and distribute them after his arrest. It is this which led to her own arrest. Mrs. Overton's conscience would not permit her to cooperate in her unjust arrest. So she committed nonviolent resistance, going limp and refusing to walk to jail. The marshall threatened to drag her by the axle of a cart. She replied that he must "do as it seemed good unto him for she was resolved on her course." Richard Overton describes the scene sarcastically. Feminists might rightly protest that his description reinforces some stereotypes of women as "the weaker sex," but he uses such commonly held views with great rhetorical skill to undermine the authority of the arresting marshall, and, thus, the authority of any government which would stoop to such measures in persecuting its citizenry. The marshall, says Richard, "strutted in fury, as if he would have forthwith levied whole armies and droves of porters and car-men, to advance the poor little harmless innocent woman and her tender babe" to Bridewell prison.

The marshall ordered his deputies to drag her, but they were so impressed with how she was "constant in her just resolutions" that they refused. "Then forth again goes this their Lordship; furious champion with his prerogative commission of Array [i.e., his arrest warrant], to raise up new Forces to encounter this weak woman, and her tender babe on her breast." But his new set of carriers also "hearing what this beleaguered woman was, wisely refused to lay any hands on her, and departed in peace." The marshall then mustered up hangman deputies, "caused his men to break open the door, and entering her chamber, struts toward her like a Crow in a gutter, and with his valiant strength like a man of mettle tries violently to snatch her baby from her arms but she forcibly defended it, and kept it in despite of his manhood." Whether her defense was violent or not Overton does not say. His scorn, his sarcasm, is entirely reserved for her arresting officers. Finally, they drag Mrs. Overton to court headlong upon the stones in all the dirt and muck of the streets "with the poor infant still crying and mourning in her arms, whose life they spared not to hazard by that inhumane barbarous usage." During the trek, the marshall and guards call Mrs. Overton names, "Whore, strumpet, and the like" in order to convince the crowd that they are only ill-using a sinful woman and not a respectable citizen. Overton's account exposes this tactic for the cheap trick that it was, but, sadly, he is still too much a man of his own era to straight out claim that even prostitutes should not be treated in the undignified way that his own wife and child were.

Mrs. Overton's nonviolent resistance did not win any immediate victories. In prison and after, Overton continues his nonstop campaign for democracy, liberty of conscience (including an end to state sponsorship of religion), and human rights. And his encounter in prison with the many poor jailed for debt and his definition of human rights begins to include economic justice. In prison, the Overtons, like their fellow prisoners, are given no food except what can be smuggled in from families and friends -- doubtless the origin of Overton's later tract on legal and prison reform, including a campaign to abolish capital punishment. But the Leveller movement did not prevail within the English Revolution and when the monarchy was restored, it was violently suppressed. But the witness remains.

We live in a nation and a generation that takes certain basic rights and liberties for granted: freedom of religion, freedom of the press, free expression of ideas, including minority dissenting ones, legal recognition of conscientious objection to military service and war. Our society has yet to embrace the Overtons' convictions concerning economic justice and prison reform, not to mention their opposition to capital punishment. In this time of "war on terror," the liberties mentioned above are greatly threatened on every hand. In the minds of many, "dissent" equals "treason." Overton's Mr. Persecution has returned with a vengeance. Perhaps the time has come to recommit ourselves to the deep Christian faith which was the basis for their human rights convictions and to follow their example in struggling for justice nonviolently -- even at great cost to themselves and their loved ones.

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