JOHN LILBUllNE. 
351 
age, and with very little education, to an apprenticeship with an emi- 
nent wholesale clothier in London. He appears to have imbibed from 
his family those principles of opposition to what were thought illegal 
exertions of power in church and state, which then began to prevail ; 
and he also inherited a bold, unquiet, and forward temper, which 
involved him in that perpetual series of contention and suffering by 
which his life was distinguished. He gave an early specimen of his 
disposition by a complaint before the city chamberlain against his 
master for ill-usage; and having carried his point, he was enabled to 
indulge his propensity for reading, which was turned to the religious 
systems and controversies at that tinre so much studied by the purita- 
nical party. The book of Martyrs, in particular, inspired him with an 
enthusiastic passion for encountering all dangers and sufferings in the 
cause of truth. He soon began to be taken notice of by those of similar 
sentiments ; and was introduced by his pastor in 1636, to Di\ Bast- 
wick, then a star-chamber prisoner on account of sedition. 
Contracting an intimacy "w ith this person, he was entrusted to carry 
over to Holland one of his anti-episcopal writings, in order to get it 
printed. On his return, he employed himself in similar occupations, 
till, being betrayed by an associate, he was apprehended, and found 
guilty, in the star-chamber court, of printing and publishing libels and 
seditious books. At his examinations he refused to answer interroga- 
tories, and stood up so firmly for the privileges of Englishmen, that 
he acquired the appellation of Freeborn John. His sentence was to 
receive five hundred lashes at the cart’s tail, and then to be set in the 
pillory, which was executed in April, 1638, with great severity ; but 
his spirit was so far from being subdued by this treatment, that upon 
the pillory he uttered many invectives against the bishops, and threw 
pamphlets from his pockets among the crowd. For this contumacy 
he was remanded to prison, and kept double-ironed in one of the 
worst wards ; yet here he contrived to get another libel printed and 
published. Such was the opinion of his desperate resolution, that a 
fire having taken place near his cell, he was thought to have caused 
it for his deliverance, and the other prisoners and neighbours joined 
in an application for his removal to a more airy situation. 
On the meeting of the long parliament in 1640, an order w^as made, 
in consequence of his petition to the house of commons, that he should 
have the liberties of the Fleet and a better apartment. In consequence 
of this indulgence, he w'as enabled to appear as one of the ringleaders 
of an armed mob which assembled at Westminster, and cried out for 
justice against the earl of Strafford ; for which he was brought to 
the bar of the house of lords on a charge of treason, but was dis- 
missed. 
In May, 1641, a vote passed the house of commons, That the 
sentence of the star-chamber against Mr. Lilburne was illegal, barba- 
rous, bloody, and tyrannical, and that reparations ought to be given 
him for his imprisonment, sufferings, and losses.” When an army 
was raised by the parliament, Lilburne entered into it as a volunteer, 
and at the battle of Edgehill acted as a captain of infantry. He 
behaved with distinguished bravery at the affair of Brentford, where 
he was made prisoner, and carried to Oxford. He was there arraigned 
