Clubmen

participants in a peasant movement in England who emerged in 1645, during the English Bourgeois Revolution of the 17th century. From March to November 1645 the movement embraced the counties of southwestern and western England, as well as Wales. Peasant-copyholders made up the nucleus of the clubmen, who were dissatisfied that Parliament had ignored their demands for the abolition of the copyhold. Some of the townsmen also participated in the movement. Organizing themselves into detachments of self-defense, the clubmen resisted oppression by both the royal and Parliamentary armies. At the end of 1645 they were crushed by the Parliamentary army.