Editing Putney (section)

===St Mary's Church===
{{main|St Mary's Church, Putney}}
The parish church of [[St. Mary's Church, Putney|St Mary the Virgin]] became the site of the 1647 [[Putney Debates]]. Towards the end of the [[English Civil War]], with the [[Roundhead]]s looking victorious, some soldiers in the [[New Model Army]] staged a minor mutiny amid fears that a monarchy would be replaced by a new dictatorship. A number, known as the [[Levellers]], complained: "We were not a mere mercenary army hired to serve any arbitrary power of a state, but called forth … to the defence of the people's just right and liberties". 

A manifesto was proposed entitled ''[[An Agreement of the People]]'', and at an open meeting in Putney the officers of the Army Council heard the argument from private soldiers for a transparent, democratic state, without corruption. Proposals included sovereignty for English citizens, Parliamentary seats distributed according to population rather than property ownership, religion made a free choice, equality before the law, conscription abolished and parliamentary elections held every year.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Vernon |first1=Elliot |last2=Baker |first2=Philip |title=What was the first "Agreement of he People"? |journal=The Historical Journal |date=2010 |volume=53 |issue=1 |pages=39–59 |doi=10.1017/S0018246X09990574 |jstor=25643882 |s2cid=159787293 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/25643882 |issn=0018-246X}}</ref> While the ideas proved greatly influential, including inspiring much of the language of the [[United States Declaration of Independence]], [[Oliver Cromwell]] would later have the Leveller leaders executed.

The diarist [[Samuel Pepys]] visited St. Mary's Church on several occasions. During one visit on 28 April 1667, he recorded:<blockquote>"and then back to Putney Church, where I saw the girls of the schools, few of which pretty; and there I come into a pew, and met with little James Pierce, which I was much pleased at, the little rogue being very glad to see me: his master, Reader to the Church. Here was a good sermon and much company, but I sleepy, and a little out of order, for my hat falling down through a hole underneath the pulpit, which, however, after sermon, by a stick, and the help of the clerke, I got up again, and then walked out of the church."<ref>[[:s:Diary of Samuel Pepys/1667/April|Diary of Samuel Pepys/1667/April]]</ref></blockquote>