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Thomas Rainsborough

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Thomas Rainsborough (1610 - October 30, 1648), or Rainborough or Rainborowe or Rainbow, was a leading figure in the English Civil War, and was the son of William Rainsborough, a captain and Vice-Admiral in the Royal Navy, and Ambassador to Morocco (for his services to end white slavery he was offered a hereditary Knighthood, which he declined). Before the war, he and his brother, William Rainborowe, were both involved in an expedition to the Puritan colony of Providence Island, off the coast of Nicaragua. Rainsborough commanded the Swallow and other British naval vessels in the first civil war. By May 1645, he was a colonel in the New Model Army, taking a role in the battles at Naseby and at Bristol. Later that year, he captured the symbolic stronghold of Berkeley Castle. In 1646, he helped conclude the siege of Worcester.

In January 1647, Rainsborough became MP for Droitwich. He was the highest ranking supporter of the Levellers in the Army and one of the speakers for the Leveller side in the Putney Debates (July 1647), where he opposed any deal with the King.

In early 1648, he was due to return to the Navy as a Vice-Admiral, but his Leveller sympathies were unpopular with some officers, and a mutiny ensued. He was returned to Army service.

In October, Rainsborough was sent by his commander, Thomas Fairfax, to the siege at Pontefract, where he was apparently killed by four Royalists in a bungled kidnap attempt. His funeral was the occasion for a large Leveller-led demonstration in London, with thousands of mourners wearing the Levellers' ribbons of sea-green and bunches of rosemary for remembrance in their hats. After his death, his brother, William Rainborowe, continued in the Leveller (and Ranter) cause.

Quotations from the Putney Debates

Rainsborough, for the Levellers:-

For really I think that the poorest he that is in England have a life to live, as the greatest he: and therefore truly, sir, I think it's clear, that every man that is to live under a government ought first by his own consent to put himself under that government.

Henry Ireton, for the 'Grandees' in reply:-

no man hath a right to an interest or share in the disposing of the affairs of the kingdom... that hath not a permanent fixed interest in this kingdom.

(quotations from E. P. Thompson's The Making of the English Working Class)

Quotations from the Putney Debates

Notes and references

Further reading