William Rainsborowe William Rainsborowe ( ? - " fl . " 1639 – 1673 ) , or Rainsborough , Rainborough , Rainborowe or Rainbow , was a Leveller and an officer in the English Navy and New Model Army in England during the English Civil War and the Interregnum . He was a political and religious radical who prospered during the years of the Parliamentary ascendancy and an early settler of New England in North America . Rainsborowe ' s birth and early years are obscure , although his father , William Rainsborough , was a captain and Vice - Admiral in the Royal Navy , and later Ambassador to Morocco ( at which time he declined a hereditary Knighthood ) . William moved to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in the 1630s with his sisters , at one point living in Charlestown and was serving in the militia there in 1639 . At some point , William and his brother , Thomas Rainsborough , were both involved in an expedition to the other Puritan colony , Providence Island colony , off the coast of Nicaragua . Providence Island fell to the Spanish in 1641 . Rainborowe was called back to England upon the death of his father in 1642 . He married a woman named Margery Jenney upon his return and almost immediately went to serve in the Navy . He was part of an expedition to Ireland in 1642 - 3 and then became an officer in a cavalry unit in 1644 . He and his brother , Thomas Rainsborough , were both Levellers and probably members of the congregationalist churches known at the time as " Independents " ( who were generally more militantly anti - Catholic and opposed to the Established Church than the Puritans ) . In the New Model Army , he was a captain serving for Colonel Thomas Sheffield . However , his radicalism emerged early , and in 1647 at a meeting with Parliamentary commissioners , he testified against Sheffield , saying that the army was demoralized , and he outlined the complaints of his men . He was subsequently promoted to the rank of major . The same year , 1647 , he showed his Leveller convictions during the army ' s Putney Debates at the end of October . William ' s brother , Thomas Rainborowe , was more fiery in his Leveller speeches , and he was murdered in 1648 . William led the funeral , and a pamphlet called " The Second Part of Englands New Chaines Discovered " of that year discussed Rainsborowe ' s attempts at finding justice and the resistance of the upper classes . William Rainsborowe ' s coronet , according to the " Dictionary of National Biography , " was , during this time , a depiction of the severed head of Charles I and the motto " salus populi : suprema lex " ( " let the good of the people be the supreme law " ) . In 1649 , when issues surrounding the Leveller movement were at a head , Rainsborowe was removed from command . He would be recommended for promotion twice in the 1650s , and each time the recommendation would be overruled by the government . He hosted Ranters meetings , and he was arrested for paying for the publication of Laurence Clarkson ' s " The Single Eye " ( 1650 ) . During the 1650s , Rainsborowe put his religious and political views into economic action . He purchased ecclesiastical lands , and he purchased the formerly crown estate of Highams Park . Rainborowe ' s wealth was extensive , for the estate was sold for ₤5 , 498 in 1654 . The Rump Parliament made him a colonel and had him raise a regiment in 1659 , but the Rump itself was dissolved and overturned . Rainsborowe protested against this by signing " A Remonstrance and Protestation of the Well - Affected People , " and he tried to sell the arms he had purchased for his militia . A political radical selling a great store of pistols just in the midst of a change from republicanism to a crown was extremely provocative , and this prompted his arrest for suspicion of treason in December of 1660 , at the time of the Restoration . He was released on bail soon after and left England . He does not enter public record again until his death in 1673 in Boston .