Commons on the 13th, on account of some passage in that piece, he printed another epistle addressed to Mr Lenthal, charging the speaker with an embezzlement of 60,000 pounds of the publick money[footnote 1]. Whereupon an accusation against him being presented to that house, by Colonel King and Dr Bastwick, on the 12th of July, he was put into the custody of the serjeant at arms on the 19th. While he was under the care of that officer, he published a third epistle to a friend, dated July the 25th, upon which he was committed to Newgate on the 9th of August, and orders were given for his trial at the Old-Bailey on a charge of seditious practices; but in the interim, printing a state of his case, addressed to the world and his jury[sidenote 1], no bill was found against him[sidenote 2], and he was discharged from the prison by an order of the House of Commons[footnote 2], Octoberthe
Sidenotes
- ↑ (c c) It was reprinted in England’s Birthright, at the beginning, p. 6, 7.
- ↑ (d d) Mr Recorder acquainted the House, that no information or other charge had been brought against him, and that he desired either to be tried or discharged; whereupon it was resolved upon the question, that he be forthwith discharged. See the vote in Just Man’s Justification, p. 3.
Footnotes
- ↑ [Q] Charged the Speaker with embezzling 60000 l. of the public money.] As this affair is but little known, we shall give the following representation of it, made by one of Lilburne’s friends[citation 3]. One Cob, a Sea-captain (says the author) who was a prisoner in the King’s-bench, and ill-used by Sir John Lenthal, the Keeper, found means to convey a letter to the Speaker, his brother; wherein he charged Sir John with seizing and detaining 60,000 l. belonging to Sir Basil Brooke, without giving any account of it to the Parliament: whereupon Cob being sent for out of prison, was brought to the door of the House of Commons, in order, as he thought, to make good his charge; for which purpose he carried three or four witnesses with him, to prove it. But the Speaker not calling him into the house, sent him out word, that he should go back, and that himself would come shortly to his brother, Sir John’s house, and speak with him there. Accordingly he did so, but would admit none to be present. However, Cob returning to the prison among his fellows, gave them a true account upon his reputation of what had passed; which was to this effect: That, as soon as he was brought into the room, the Speaker shew’d him his letter, and asked him if he would justify it? Yes, says Cob, and a great deal more, if you would do your duty in making it known to the honourable House of Commons. Upon this the Speaker turning to Sir John, said, If this be true, here is enough to hang you: to which Sir John replied, That Cob had misrepresented the matter; for, whereas, says he, he charges me with letting Violet [then a prisoner in the King’s-bench] go twice to Oxford, during the time that he and Sir Basil Brooke were contriving their plot against the City, you know I never let him go but once, and then I had your warrant for it. Well, well, (said the Speaker) Captain Cob I see you are an honest man, and much injured by your adversaries; but shake hands, and be friends with Sir John, and I will get you your liberty. But Cob perceiving that the Speaker did nothing in it, sent a copy of the aforesaid Letter to Mr William Pendry of London, with Ellen Thomas’s information about the 60,000 l. and which was then in Sir John’s hands; which Letter the said Pendry communicated to two Knights in Parliament, who took no more care than the Speaker to have it brought to light, nor the 60,000 l. attached. Thus the affair stood, if we may believe this author, when our Lieutenant-colonel wrote the above-mentioned epistle to William Lenthall, &c. wherein he lays open all this dark scene of roguery, as he calls it. On the 12th of July an information being given in to a Committee of the House of Commons by three citizens of London, Mr Pretty, Mr Rawson, and Mr Worley, that the 60,000 l. had been sent to Oxford. Our author also appeared as an evidence against Sir John; but the Committee having cleared him of the charge in the morning, the accusation mentioned[citation 4] in the text, was presented to the House in the afternoon by Colonel King and Dr Bastwick, the former of whom had received a fresh provocation from him in this epistle, where, among other aggravations of the Speaker’s injustice and unrighteous dealings, he did not forget that of his taking no notice of the impeachment, as he calls it, against the Colonel mentioned in remark [P]. Neither is this the only instance wherein King found means to pay him in his own coin, as is there also suggested. As to Bastwick, he appears plainly, as our author observes, to be in this affair a meer tool of Mr Prynne’s forming, by whom he was supported in it, as will be seen in the following remark.
- ↑ [R] He wrote an epistle—was sent to Newgate, and ordered to be tried for sedition, but discharged without a trial.] If Lilburne’s behaviour in this affair was insupportably impudent, yet it must be allowed that neither did his superiors, in chastising him, preserve that gravity which became senators. For after his commitment to Newgate, a warrant being made out for seizing the copies of his books, the officer, in virtue of that authority, entered with his attendants into his house, where, finding no-body but an old gentlewoman, whom they put into a great fright, they run up into the chamber, and his wife being then big with child, and near her time, they stole out of her drawers several pieces of child-bed linnen, besides other things, refusing to shew or give an account of them to the old gentlewoman who desired it[citation 5]. Our author having followed his blow upon Mr Prynne in the Epistle to a Friend, mentioned above, that antagonist, wrote an answer, intitled The Lyar confounded, &c. wherein he charged Lilburne with having joyned the Separatists and Anabaptists, in a conspiracy to root out the members of that parliament by degrees, beginning with Mr Speaker, whom, if they could cut off, all the rest would easily follow; and if this succeeded not, then to suppress and cut off this parliament by force of arms, and set up a new parliament of their own choice and function. To this our author, nothing dismayed thereat, printed a reply, with the title of Innocency and Truth justified, &c. In which he still insists that Prynne had more than a finger in his prosecution, alledging as a proof thereof, this last piece of that adversary, ‘which, says he, was framed, published cum privilegio, and dedicated to Mr Speaker, just at the time when he saw I was likely honourably to be delivered as a spotless and innocent man.’ Proceeding then to the charge of a conspiracy against the Parliament, he observes, that by this heinous charge, Prynne had manifested himself a perfect knave and enemy to the kingdom ‘in that he knew me, says he, guilty of such a thing, and never to this day durst question me, or prosecute me for it: and if it be but one of his false, malicious suggestions, then he proves and declares himself a lyar to fix so notorious a falshood upon him, that in this, and all other things, bids defiance to him; yea, and in the same false, scandalous, and transcendent lying book of his, besides scores of lyes, he fathers positively thirteen or fourteen upon me in less than eight lines[citation 6].’ Our author also offered publickly to prove this charge; but no notice being taken of that challenge, he triumphs in a piece written the next year over that
dated 7, Jan. 1645[citation 1], which brought upon my back a whole sea of troubles; and a vote or votes in the House of Commons passed against me: whereupon, without any more a-do, black Corbet and the Committee of Examinations makes me a prisoner, and tosseth and tumbleth me to the purpose. So, before him, upon 13th of June 1645, was I forced to give in my reasons (now in print); wherefore I wrote that excellent and seasonable epistle (which was the first-avowed public cannon, I know of, in England discharged against the then insulting Presbyter for liberty of conscience[citation 2].’ By Mr Prynne’s invective books our author means, 1. Twelve considerable questions touching Church-government. 2. Independency examined and refuted. 3. A full Reply to certain brief Observations and Antiqueries on Mr Prynne’s Twelve Questions about Church government. 4. Brief Animadversions on Mr John Goodwin’s Theomachia, all printed by that author in 1644, in 4to; besides another the following year, against which Mr Lilburne’s Epistle, here spoken of, is particularly levelled, as appears from the title in these words: An Answer to Will Prynne, Esq; upon the coming out of his last booke, entitled, Truth triumphing over Falsehood; Antiquity over Novelty; in which are laid down five Propositions, which the author desires to discuss with the said Mr Prynne.
Citations
- ↑ (41) In the epistle to Lenthal, mentioned above in the text.
- ↑ (42) Legal and Fundamental Liberties, p. 24.
- ↑ (43) The author of England’s Birthright, a pamphlet, if not penned by Lilburne himself, yet manifestly under his directions, in 1646, 4to. The title of it is England’s Birthright justified, against all arbitrary Usurpations, whether regal or parliamentary, or under what vizor soever; where divers Queries, Observations, and Grievances, of the People, declaring the Parliament’s present Proceedings to be directly contrary to those fundamental Principles, whereby their actions at first were justifiable against the King, in their present illegal dealings with those that have been their purest Friends, Adviser, and Preservers, and many other things of high Concernment to the Freedom of all the freeborn People of England. By a well-wisher to the just cause, for which L. Col. John Lilburne is unjustly imprisoned in Newgate.
- ↑ (44) Col. Ireton and Mr Hawlins were included in the accusation. See our author’s Letter to the Council of Agitators, at the end of the second edition of his Epistle to Judge Reeves, published in 1647, 4to. p. 25.
- ↑ (45) See our author’s second epistle to Sir Henry Martin, p. 2. When the copies of his book, The Oppressed Man’s Oppressions, &c. were seized afterwards, he complains, that other books not in the warrant were also seized, as England’s Chains discovered, but could get no redress. It appears, that by an act, Sept. 28, 1647, officers were empowered to enter any shop or house, where they shall be informed, or have good cause to suspect, any unlicensed papers or pamphlets, and these England’s Chains were not licensed. Scobel’s Collection of Acts, &c. anno 1647, chap. xcv.
- ↑ (46) Innocence and Truth justified, p. 4 to 35.
lying
