John Streater

John Streater (died 1687) was an English soldier, political writer and printer. An opponent of Oliver Cromwell, Streater was a "key republican critic of the regime" He was a leading example of the “commonwealthmen”, one division among the English republicans of the period, along with James Harrington, Edmund Ludlow, and Henry Nevile.

He was in the Parliamentary forces from 1642, seeing action at the Battle of Edgehill and Battle of Newbury. He served in the Parliamentary army in Ireland, as a quarter-master and engineer.

He made a direct reply in 1653, "Christ must come before Christmas, or else he will come too late", to Cromwell's supporter Thomas Harrison, who said that Cromwell sought not for himself but that "King Jesus might take the sceptre". This comes from James Heath, Flagellum: or, the Life and death, birth and burial of Oliver Cromwell (1663), and is considered "rather dubious" by Austin Woolrych.

In 1654 he started a serial publication, Observations Historical, Political. and Philosophical. It ran for 11 issues, from 4 April to 4 July. It argued for annual elections. Taking the form of commentary on the Politics of Aristotle, it broached many topics such as censorship, free speech and right of assembly, with views on the family and criticism of the paternalist theories of divine right.

Streater has been seen as taking radical ideas, such as those suppressed with the Levellers, onto a new plane:

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