1649.] CLARENDON'S MISSTATEMENTS AS TO LILBURNE. -145 1 been put apprentice at twelve years of age to an eminent wholesale clothier near Londonstone; which may account for what he said on his trial that he did not know Latin or any other language but English. John Lilburne was fully aware, and even rather more than reasonably proud, of the importance in that age of being of a good family. For he is reported to have assigned as one reason for refusing to submit to the domination of Cromwell that he was "as good a gentleman, and of as good a family." And though such menas Cromwell and Bonaparte could well afford to laugh at such reasons for refusing allegiance to them, and content themselves with the reflection that their nobility began at Naseby and Monte Notte; this reverence for family antiquity is one cause of the stability of hereditary kingship in an old country. Great would have been John Lilburne's wrath could he have returned from the grave and seen the contemptuous terms in which Hyde presumed to speak of him; of him whose courage or whose folly, unlike the wisdom and discretion of Hyde, always made him defy a living enemy to his face; and not wait for the time when he could safely blacken his memory. For Lilburne knew so little of fear, that he was ready on all occasions to fight against any odds. Lilburne said in the course of this trial, "I bless God I have learnt to die, having always carried my life in my hand, ready to lay it down for above this twelve 1 Biog. Brit., art. Lilburne, John."When John Lilburne's cause was pleaded at the bar of the House of Lords in 1640, among other aggravations of the cruelty of the sentence passed upon him by the Judges of the Star Chamber in 1637, it was urged by the managers in his behalf that he was descended from an ancient family in the north, a town in Northumberland still bearing the name of Lilburne, or rather Leisle-bourne, by reason of the water called the Bourne that was about it; and that the arms belonging to the family are three water-budgets, which is an ancient bearing of arms.' -Ibid., note (A). L years together." This was true to the letter, for he had begun his struggle against tyranny in 1637, when, though only nineteen years of age, for his undaunted defence of the constitutional rights of Englishmen, he was fined £500, and further ordered to be whipt through the streets, and set in the pillory. The punishment was inflicted with the utmost severity. But nothing could subdue the spirit of John Lilburne. While in the pillory he inveighed bitterly against the tyranny of the bishops, and the government of Charles, and scattered pamphlets among the people, which the Star Chamber then, like the Council of State now, pronounced to be seditious. The Star Chamber also, having heard of his speaking in the pillory, ordered him to be gagged The joker of the Long Parliament, Henry Marten, is reported to have said of John Lilburne, that "if there was none living but himself, John would be against Lilburne, and Lilburne against John.” 1 2 On Monday, the 22nd of October, 1649, there is a minute in the Order Book of the Council of State, "That Colonel Robert Lilburne be called in to hear what he hath to propound to the Council." Though no further information is afforded by the Order Book as to what Colonel Robert Lilburne had to propound to the Council of State, there is no doubt that his business with the Council related to a proposition made by his brother, John Lilburne. On that same day a petition from Colonel Robert Lilburne, and Elizabeth Lilburne, the wife of Lieut.-Col. John Lilburne, was presented "to the right honourable the supreme authority of this nation, the Commons of England in Parliament assembled, in the behalf of Lieut.-Col. John Lilburne, prisoner in the Tower of London.” It is 1 Rushworth, vol. ii. p. 468. 2 Order Book of the Council of State, Die Lunæ, 22 Octobris, 1649. 1 good evidence in favour of the private character of John Lilburne, that both his wife and his brother Robert were most devotedly attached to him. In this petition the petitioners say "considering his principles are a burthen to this State, they do most humbly present their assurance and confidence of his purpose to withdraw himself into some foreign country, desiring he may have his money, which is necessary to his and his family's subsistence in their transplantation, and convenient time to prepare himself to go." This petition was however altogether fruitless. The proposition which Colonel Robert Lilburne had to make to the Council of State on the 22nd of October, referred to in the minute of that date, was a proposition of John Lilburne entituled "The Innocent Man's Second 2 Proffer made unto his present adversaries, Oct. 22, 1649, and communicated unto them by his loving Brother, Col. Robert Lilburne." This proposition is in the form of a letter to his brother, dated "Tower Oct. 22 1649," and thus commences, "Brother; In answer to your late letter, I can make no other proposition, besides what is in my letter to Mr. Hevenningham of the 20th present, than this. That seeing myself, and the principles I profess, are a burthen to the : 1 State Trials, vol. iv. pp. 1424, 1425. 2 The Innocent Man's First Proffer" was a proposition of Lt.-Col. John Lilburne in the form of a letter dated Tower of London Oct. 20, 1649 to William Hevenningham, Esq. of Hevenningham, in Suffolk, a member of the Council of State, to submit the judgment of his cause to a tribunal composed of one of the twelve judges chosen by himself and such of the other eleven as his adversaries shall choose, provided the hearing be public, and the judges give their judgment in writing with their reasons for it, and provided he may choose two friends to take notes of all the proceedings without danger to their persons, liberties or estates. The letter thus commences : "Honoured Sir; Having sometimes the opportunity to discourse with you, there appeared that in you unto me, that gives me encouragement to pick you out above all men that now remain sitting in your House, to write a few lines unto, in as moderate a way as my condition and provocations will permit me."-State Trials, vol. iv. pp. 14211423. men in present power, therefore (for peace and quietness' sake only), I will engage, (enjoying my money and my immediate liberty), that I will within six months' time transport myself into some part of the West Indies." He then adds a proviso that all those that are free and willing to go with him, of what quality soever, may have free liberty to go, and may have their arrears or money lent to the public paid to them. He concludes by saying that seeing he knows no plantation already planted, he would sooner choose to be cut to pieces in England than engage singly to go alone. ' This proposition was as fruitless as the petitions of his wife and brother. On the 23rd a remarkable petition, entituled "The humble petition of the well-affected, in and about the city of London, Westminster, and parts adjacent," was offered to the House, with most earnest and importunate solicitation to have it received, but neither the serjeant-at-arms, nor any member would so much as touch it, the former telling the petitioners that the House would not receive any petition in Lieut.-Col. Lilburne's behalf; although they had themselves declared that it is the right of the people of England to petition, and their duty to receive petitions, even though against law established. Some passages of this petition set some of the proceedings of the existing Government in a very striking light. "that Every one believed," say the petitioners, after the expulsion of the greater number of the members of this honourable House (as betrayers of their trust) a new representation should immediately have been ordered, according to that model of an Agreement of the People, tendered by the Council of the Army, or in 1 State Trials, vol. iv. p. 1426. some other way. And that because that honourable Council in their declaration of December last, declared 'That they should not look on the remaining part as a former standing power to be continued; but in order unto and until the introducing of a more full and formal power in a just representative to be speedily endeavoured by an Agreement of the People.' "And we were the more confident hereof, because they had formerly declared also, That where the supreme authority was fixed in the same persons during their own pleasure, it rendered that Government no better than a tyranny, and the people subject thereunto, no better than vassals: That by frequent elections men come to taste of subjection as well as of rule,' (and are thereby obliged for their own sakes to be tender of the good of the people), so that considering those expressions, and those extraordinary things done (declaredly) for a speedy new elected Parliament; how it should come not only to be wholly deferred, but to be matter of blame for us, or any of our friends, earnestly to desire what is so evidently just and necessary in itself, and so essential to the liberties of the nation. perplexeth us above measure; and we intreat some satisfaction therein. "And truly, when you had voted the people under God to be the original of all just power, and the chosen representatives of the people the supreme authority, we conceived that you did it to convey those righteous principles (which we and our friends long laboured for) to the next full and formal representative, and not that you intended to have exercised the supreme law-making power. Much less that such ensnaring laws should ever have issued from a House of Commons, so often and so exceedingly purged (intentionally by the army) for the freedom of the Com |