general, Michael Jones, to whom Ireton, with that zeal for the public service and freedom from selfish ends and personal aggrandizement that marked his character, had given way on observing his greater knowledge of the country and of the service. The character which his commander-in-chief, Cromwell, gives him in the dispatch which announces his death, will remain a greater honour to his memory than a monument among the sepulchres of kings. "The noble lieutenant-general," says Cromwell, "whose finger, to our knowledge, never ached in all these expeditions, fell sick, upon a cold taken in our late wet march, and ill accommodation, and went to Dungarvan, where, struggling some four or five days with a fever, he died, having run his course with so much honour, courage, and fidelity, as his actions better speak, than my pen. What England lost hereby is above me to speak; I am sure I lost a noble friend and companion in labours. cup to us."

You see how God mingles out the

Owen O'Neal, having quarrelled with Ormond, endeavoured to make his peace with the English Parliament; but his offers were sternly rejected, and he again united with Ormond.

It would appear, from a minute, and a copy of another document in the Order Book of the Council of State, that the number of the troops of the Parliament at that time in Ireland was greater than has been commonly supposed. There is a minute of 12th October 1649 "that the proposition made by Mr. Downes for the furnishing of sixteen thousand suits of foot soldiers cloaths [sic] at 178. per suit and to find packing be accepted of."1 The Order Book

1 Order Book of the Council of Paper Office. State, 12th October, 1649. MS. State

also contains a copy of the "Articles of Agreement between the Council of State and Robert Downes for the furnishing of 16,000 coats and breeches for the soldiers in Ireland." The Irish committee also contracted for 16,000 shirts, 16,000 pairs of stockings, and 16,000 pairs of shoes.1 This seems to show that there was only one shirt allowed for each man, the number of shirts ordered being the same with the number of suits of clothes.

2

John Lilburne had, as has been before mentioned, been. committed to the Tower on the 28th of March by an order of the Council of State, "upon suspicion of high treason, for being the author of a scandalous and seditious book intituled England's New Chains Discovered." On the 17th of July Lilburne had addressed a letter to Lord Grey of Groby, Henry Marten, and two other members of Parliament, stating that his son had died of the small-pox the day before, and that his wife and two other children were ill, and desiring to be allowed a few days' liberty to visit them. On the following day, the 18th of July, Henry Marten moved the House that he should be liberated on security. This motion was granted, and Lilburne was liberated. But again, on the 19th of September, an order of the Council of State was made for his imprisonment in the Tower, in order to his trial on the charge of new attempts to raise up mutiny in the army, and overturn the Government.

3

Great preparations were now made for the trial of John

Lilburne on these charges. Forty-one persons of station, including one of the Lords Commissioners of the great seal, eight of the judges, three serjeants-at-law, the Lord Mayor of London, and nine aldermen, were appointed the commissioners of this extraordinary commission of Oyer and Terminer.1 Four counsel were appointed assistants to Prideaux the Attorney General.2 The following minutes of the Order Book of the Council of State further show the extraordinary anxiety of the Government to rid themselves of this active and troublesome, if not formidable, assailant.

"That letters be sent to the several judges who are out of town to repair to this town to attend the service of the commonwealth for the trying of some grand offenders according to the late Act. And they are to be here. within 14 days after the date hereof."

"3

"That Mr. Ambrose and Andrew Broughton be sent unto to repair unto this town to attend upon the Attorney General and receive directions from him for the carrying on of a charge against Mr. John Lilburne, who is to be tried according to a late act for treasons, and that Mr. Nutley shall be solicitor for this cause.

"That letters be written to the militia of London and Westminster to cause sufficient guards to be in a readiness on Wednesday next to prevent any trouble that may arise upon the occasion of the trial of John Lilburne." 5

"To write to the Sheriffs of London to prepare a fit

1 See the names of the 41 Commissioners in State Trials, vol. iv. pp. 1269, 1270.

2 Order Book of the Council of State, à Meridie, 19 Sept. 1649. MS. State Paper Office.

Order Book of the Council of State, à Meridie, 19th Sept. 1649.

MS. State Paper Office.

4 Order Book of the Council of State, à Meridie, 19th Sept. 1649. MS. State Paper Office.

5 Order Book of the Council of State, Die Saturni, 20 Octobris, 1649. MS. State Paper Office.

place in Guildhall, for the trial of Lt.-Col. John Lilburne, and for the accommodation of the Council of the Commonwealth." 1

"That the letter now presented to the Council to be sent to Major-General Skippon for keeping the peace and preventing danger at Guildhall upon the trial of John Lilburne be signed and sent." 2

The "late act for treasons," referred to in the minutes above recited, was "An Act of the 14th of May 1649 declaring what offences shall be adjudged treason.' There was another Act of 17th July, 1649 which was the same as the former, with the addition of a clause respecting coining. Now, while the old English law of treasons required that there should be an attempt to subvert the Government, manifested by an overt act, this new law of treasons of the Government, which styled itself the Commonwealth, enacted that words affirming by writing or otherwise that the government settled in the form of a Commonwealth is tyrannical, usurped, or unlawful, or that the commons assembled in Parliament are not the supreme authority, shall be treasonthereby creating a change in the old constitutional laws of England, which was considered generally a tyrannical innovation. It is evident that the Parliament and Council of State committed a great blunder in the whole of this proceeding, both in the change of the law of treason, and in the extraordinary constitution of the tribunal, which they created for the trial of an obnoxious individual, whom they thereby raised to an eminence and importance which probably his own abilities, though far greater than modern

1 Order Book of the Council of State, Die Lunæ, 22 Octobris, 1649. MS. State Paper Office.

2 Order Book of the Council of State, Die Martis, 23 Octobris, 1649. MS. State Paper Office.

writers have supposed, could never have obtained for him. And yet, whatever judgment may be formed of his abilities, a man who was a more popular pamphleteer than Milton, who could thwart and irritate such statesmen as Vane and Cromwell, and baffle all their efforts for his destruction, naturally excites some curiosity respecting his character and history. It is also important towards a clear understanding of the nature of the government then existing in England to enter into some of the details of this trial, from which it will appear that the law-officers of the government called the Commonwealth, both counsel and judges, did not exhibit much, if any, greater fairness towards the prisoner than was exhibited by the counsel and judges of the most despotic times of the Tudors and the Stuarts.

Lilburne was by birth a gentleman, though Clarendon in his account of him, which contains more misstatements than it does sentences, says of him "this man before the troubles was a poor bookbinder." So far is this statement from the truth, that John Lilburne was descended of an ancient family, (quite as ancient and as good as Hyde's), that possessed estates in the county of Durham. He was the second son, (his elder brother Robert being a colonel, as he was a lieutenant-colonel in the army of the Parliament), of Richard Lilburne of Thickney Puncharden in the county of Durham, where John Lilburne was born in 1618. His father Richard Lilburne, besides the estate of Thickney Puncharden, was possessed of lands to a considerable value in the county of Durham. John Lilburne, according to a custom at that time very prevalent with regard to the younger sons of good families, for whom the colonies and the Indian Empire did not then afford a provision, had

1 Clar. Hist. vol. vii. p. 44, Oxford, 1826.