Bidrohi Captain Pouch [Rebel Captain Pouch]

This tale examines the role of insurrection as a response to food shortage. Our artists tell the story of the Midlands Rising of 1607. After the death of Elizabeth I in 1603, James VI of Scotland ascended the throne as James I of England.    Just a few years later, in 1607, it was reported that at Newton in Northamptonshire, a thousand men and women were in revolt. The “tumultuous rabble” of “diggers” (or “levellers,” as they called themselves) were digging in enclosures, destroying hedges and fences built by local landlords, to convert these from enclosed pasture to common arable land. This soon culminated in dramatic conflict with local gentry who resisted with a makeshift military force of household servants and clients. The events in Newton were a culmination of similar protests across Leicestershire, Northamptonshire, and Warwickshire, known as the Midlands Rising. The revolt can be ascribed to a longer run of events - growing burdens of poverty, relaxation of laws protecting common land, depopulation, and loss of livelihoods for the poor since the 1590s. Our story focusses on “Captain Pouch” or the rebel leader John Reynolds, whose popular name arose from his carrying of an enigmatic “pouch” or leather bag which, Reynolds insisted, contained “sufficient matter to defend them [the levellers] against all”; except that when he was captured, it was found to contain nothing more than a mouldy piece of cheese.   

The story of Reynolds and the Midlands diggers resonated with Dukhushyam and his version focusses strongly on protest and social justice. The patachitrakars, once again, had to meet the challenge of telling a story set in seventeenth-century England. They worked with some historical images (such as a woodcut of an early modern scaffold and maps) and were quick to note and emphasise the regional inequalities and London-centric politics that drove the revolt. The graphic artist Aratrika Choudhury’s narrative and illustrations, on the other hand, brutally expose the violence at the heart of the story, in lurid reds and browns, with a grim satirical blending of human and animal figures which give a nightmarish atmosphere to the tale. Both versions play on the contemporaneity of the riots with Shakespeare’s writing of the play Coriolanus, which depicts the revolt of common citizens. 

“The Diggers of Warwickshire to all other Diggers” (1607), British Library, MS. Harley 787: f9v.

James I, A Proclamation for suppressing of persons riotously assembled for the laying open of enclosures (Westminster, 30 May 1607).

James I, A Proclamation signifying his Majesty's pleasure as well for suppressing of riotous Assemblies about enclosures, as for reformation of Depopulations (Greenwich, 28 June 1607).

James I, A Proclamation signifying his Majesty's gracious pardon for the Offenders about enclosures (Windsor Castle, 24 July 1607). 

Robert Wilkinson, A sermon preached at North-Hampton the 21. of Iune last past, before the Lord Lieutenant of the county, and the rest of the commissioners there assembled vpon occasion of the late rebellion and riots in those parts committed (1607).

Francis Bacon, “Of Seditions and Troubles” in Essays (1625).