This comprehensive study of political and religious conflicts examines the challenge to Restoration institutions by Protestant dissent in the London of Charles II's reign. It presents liberty of conscience as the greatest political issue of the Restoration and explains how the contest between dissenters and Anglicans contributed to the development of parties in 1679-83 that unsettled the nation.

This book reinterprets the Leveller authorships of John Lilburne, Richard Overton, and William Walwyn and foregrounds the role of ordinary people in petitioning and protest during an era of civil war and revolution.

The Levellers sought to restructure the state in 1647-9 around popular consent and liberty for conscience, especially in their Agreement of the People. Following the Levellers, Volume Two examines the later political efforts of Leveller spokesmen like John Lilburne, John Wildman, and Richard Overton, and their followers.