John Lilburne
John Lilburne, also known as Freeborn John, was an English political Leveller before, during and after the English Civil Wars 1642–1650. He coined the term "freeborn rights", defining them as rights with which every human being is born, as opposed to rights bestowed by government or human law. In his early life he was a Puritan, though towards the end of his life he became a Quaker. His works have been cited in opinions by the United States Supreme Court.
Early life
John Lilburne was the son of Richard Lilburne, heir to "a modest manorial holding" at Thickley Punchardon near Bishop Auckland, County Durham, and his wife Margaret, daughter of Thomas Hixon. He was probably born in Sunderland, but the exact date of his birth is unknown; there is some dispute as to whether he was born in 1613, 1614, or 1615. His father, Richard Lilburne, was the last man in England to insist that he be allowed to settle a legal dispute with a trial by combat, until Abraham Thornton did so in 1818. John's elder brother Robert Lilburne also later became active in the Parliamentary cause, but seems not to have shared John's Leveller beliefs. By his own account, Lilburne received the first ten years of his education in Newcastle, almost certainly at the Royal Free Grammar School. He also had some schooling in Bishop Auckland.In the 1630s, he was apprenticed to John Hewson, who introduced him to the Puritan physician John Bastwick, an active pamphleteer against Episcopacy who was prosecuted by Archbishop William Laud. Lilburne's connection with Bastwick, whose "Litany" he had a hand in printing, obliged him to flee to the Netherlands.
"Freeborn John"
On his return from Holland, Lilburne was arrested for printing and circulating books, particularly William Prynne's News from Ipswich, that were not licensed by the Stationers' Company. At that time all printing presses and publications were required to be licensed, and publishers were liable to the Court of High Commission.Upon his arrest on information from a Stationers' Company informant, Lilburne was brought before the Court of Star Chamber. Instead of being charged with a specific offence, he was asked how he pleaded. In his examinations he refused to take the oath known as the ex officio oath, and thus called into question the court's usual procedure. As he persisted in his contumacy, he was sentenced on 13 February 1638 to be fined £500, whipped, pilloried, and imprisoned till he obeyed.
On 18 April 1638, Lilburne was flogged with a three-thonged whip on his bare back, as he was dragged by his hands tied to the rear of an ox cart from Fleet Prison to the pillory at Westminster. He was then forced to stoop in the pillory, where he still managed to campaign against his censors more unlicensed literature was distributed to the crowds. He was then gagged. Finally he was taken back to the court and again imprisoned. During his imprisonment in Fleet he was cruelly treated.
While in prison, however, he managed to write and to get printed in 1638 an account of his own punishment styled The Work of the Beast, and in 1639 an apology entitled Come out of her, my people for separation from the Church of England.
Upon his release, Lilburne married Elizabeth Dewell in September 1641. Lilburne's agitation continued: the same year he led a group of armed citizens against a group of Royalist officers, who retreated. That was the first in a long series of trials that lasted throughout his life for what John Lilburne called his "freeborn rights", including the right to hear the accusation, the right to face one's accusers, and the right to avoid self-incrimination. As a result of these trials a growing number of supporters began to call him "Freeborn John" and even struck a medal in his honour to that effect. It is this trial that has been cited by constitutional jurists and scholars in the United States of America as being one of the historical foundations of the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution. It is also cited within the 1966 majority opinion of Miranda v. Arizona by the U.S. Supreme Court.
English Civil War
In the First English Civil War he enlisted as a captain in Lord Brooke's regiment of foot in the Parliamentary army commanded by the Earl of Essex and fought at the Battle of Edgehill. He was a member of the Parliament's garrison at Brentford against Prince Rupert during the Battle of Brentford that took place on 12 November 1642 as the Royalists advanced on London and, after trying to escape by jumping in the Thames, was taken as a prisoner to Oxford. The Royalists planned to try Lilburne, as the first prominent Roundhead captured in the war, for high treason. But when Parliament threatened to execute Royalist prisoners in reprisal, Lilburne was exchanged for a Royalist officer.He then joined the Eastern Association under the command of the Earl of Manchester as a volunteer at the siege of Lincoln, and on 7 October 1643 he was commissioned as a major in Colonel King's regiment of foot. On 16 May 1644 he was transferred to Manchester's own dragoons with the rank of lieutenant-colonel.
He became friends with Oliver Cromwell, who was second in command, supporting him in his disputes with Manchester. He fought with distinction at the Battle of Marston Moor in 1644. Shortly afterwards he asked permission to attack the Royalist stronghold at Tickhill Castle, because he had heard it was willing to surrender. Manchester refused, dismissing him as a madman. Taking that as a yes, he went and took the castle without a shot being fired.
In April 1645, Lilburne resigned from the army, because he refused to sign the Presbyterian Solemn League and Covenant, on the grounds that the covenant deprived those who might swear it, namely members of the parliamentary army, of freedom of religion. Lilburne argued that he had been fighting for this liberty among others. This was effectively a treaty between England and Scotland for the preservation of the reformed religion in Scotland, the reformation of religion in England and Ireland "according to the word of God and the example of the best reformed churches", and the "extirpation of popery prelacy". The Scots, he maintained, were free to believe as they saw fit, but not to bind anyone to the same faith if they did not share it.
The historian C. H. Firth argued Lilburne had gained a great reputation for courage and seems to have been a good officer, but his military career was unlucky. He spent about six months in prison at Oxford, was plundered of all he had at Rupert's relief of Newark, was shot through the arm at the taking of Walton Hall, near Wakefield, and received very little pay. His arrears when he left the service amounted to £880. He also succeeded in quarreling, first with Colonel King and then with the Earl of Manchester, both of whom he regarded as lukewarm, incapable, and treacherous. He did his best to get King cashiered, and was one of the authors of the charge of high treason against him, which was presented to the House of Commons by some of the committee of Lincoln in August 1644. The dispute with Manchester was due to Lilburne's summoning and capturing Tickhill Castle against Manchester's orders, and Lilburne was one of Cromwell's witnesses in his charge against Manchester.
Quarrels with William Prynne
Besides the feuds he had with officers in the army, Lilburne soon engaged in a quarrel with William Prynne.On 7 January 1645 he addressed a letter to Prynne, attacking the intolerance of the Presbyterians, and claiming freedom of conscience and freedom of speech for the independents, Prynne, bitterly incensed, procured a vote of the Commons summoning Lilburne before the committee for examinations. When he appeared the committee discharged him with a caution. A second time Prynne caused Lilburne to be brought before the same committee, on a charge of publishing unlicensed pamphlets, but he was again dismissed unpunished. Prynne vented his malice in a couple of pamphlets: A Fresh Discovery of prodigious Wandering: Stars and Firebrands, and The Liar Confounded, to which Lilburne replied in Innocency and Truth Justified. Dr. John Bastwick took a minor part in the same controversy.
Agitation
Lilburne then began in earnest his campaign of agitation for freeborn rights, the rights that all Englishmen are born with, which are different from privileges bestowed by a monarch or a government. He also advocated extended suffrage, equality before the law, and religious tolerance. His enemies branded him as a Leveller but Lilburne responded that he was a "Leveller so-called". To him it was a pejorative label which he did not like. He called his supporters "Agitators". It was feared that "Levellers" wanted to level property rights, but Lilburne wanted to level human basic rights which he called "freeborn rights".At the same time that Lilburne began his campaign, another group led by Gerrard Winstanley styling themselves True Levellers, advocated equality in property as well as political rights.
Some recent scholarship suggests that Lilburne's role in the development of radical ideas may be more nuanced than traditionally thought. While Lilburne is often credited with originating key concepts, research by David Como indicates that ideas like the Norman yoke and the supremacy of the House of Commons were already circulating in radical circles before Lilburne began publishing on them. As Como argues, "...celebrated print propagandists were merely collating, synthesizing, and subtly reshaping ideas, programs, and assumptions which they knew from experience were widely shared in the radical parliamentarian circles they occupied." This suggests that Lilburne's contribution lay in systematizing and disseminating these ideas through his prolific pamphlet writing, exemplified by works like The Free Man's Freedom Vindicated.