These men signed a document knowing that was their death sentence, should their ramshackle collection of farmers and brewers and smiths fail to prevail against the most powerful military force the world had ever seen. A death sentence. They did that, not because they craved money, or social position, or political power – as with all revolutions before or since. Most of them had that in abundance. This was a risk they took not to gain everything, but to lose it.

They did it because they believed that men should be free: free from the petty tyrannies of other people telling you what to do for your own good.