the 14th, without being brought to a trial. On the 10th of November the petition for his arrears (which he had presented soon after quitting the army) was read by that house, but being referred to the Committee of Accounts, where he refused to give in the particulars upon oath, no order was made for payment[footnote 1]. While these things passed in the lower House, our author was engaged in another business before the House of Lords, upon a petition he had presented there for reparations and damages, on account of his sufferings in the Star-chamber, and on the 13th of February his cause was re-heard and a few days afterwards the former decree of 1640, annulling the proceedings of the Star-chamber was confirmed, and on the 5th of March he obtained a decree for two thousand pounds, and a bill to that effect having passed the House on the 27th of April, was sent down to the Commons for their consent[sidenote 1]: but in the beginning of that month he was charged by the Committee of Accounts with a debt of 2000 l. to the State[footnote 2], and wasmoreover
Footnotes
- ↑ [S] No order was made for payment.] Here again he met his adversary, Mr Prynne, who, as Chairman of the Committee, tendred him an oath to the following effect: That he should swear what was due to him, and what he had received, and what free quarters he had had, as also what horses and arms from the State. This oath, as he acquaints his friend, he stoutly refused, resolving rather to lose all his money, and to be hanged, before he would make himself such a slave as to deprive himself of the benefit of the good and just laws of England, by taking such a wicked and unlawful oath. He farther alledged to the Committee, that having lost several of his papers and muster-rolls, when he was plundered as above-mentioned, at the siege of Newark, it was impossible for him to comply with the oath: and moreover, that he never dreamt of any such thing, as being called to give an exact account to the Parliament, walking, as he declares, by that rule that was established in the ordinances then in being; thinking that if the Army-Committee that was set other them to look to them, and the Council of War, that was to punish them for any misdemeanour, had nothing to say nor accuse him of, that he should have had his accounts audited, and sent by those persons named in the ordinance, under whom he served, and not be brought to a Committee at London; ‘That was not in being (continues he) when I engaged my life, nor had all the while that I was a soldier any power over us, nor never was in the field to know what belongs unto a soldier, and are merely in my apprehension intentively erected to cheat and ensnare honest and faithful commanders of their just due.’ This was a home-thrust, but he acknowledges it was aimed only at Prynne. He afterwards told them that he had his commissions ready to justify his service, and craved so much money as was due to him thereon for his pay, desiring them to let him have a charge what moneys, &c. they could fix upon him, and he would either acknowledge or disprove it; but the Committee assuring him, nothing could be done unless he would take the oath, he was dismissed, telling them he must and would repair again to the House of Commons that sent him thither[citation 6].
- ↑ [T] Charged with a debt of 2000 l. due to the State.] Before the decree for 2000 l. in the House of Lords was transmitted to the lower House, our author was summoned before the Committee of Accounts there, with the following warrant.By virtue of an Ordinance of Parliament of the 22d of February, 1643, for taking the general accounts of the Kingdom, these are to require you to appear before us of the Committee by the said Ordinance, at the House of Mr Freeman in Cornhill,
lying and paultry fellow, ‘who durst never (says he) embrace my challenge there made to him, nor never so much as in any of his late voluminous lines return one word of answer, that ever I could see, to what there I justly fixed upon him; and therefore, by his silence in that particular, though he hath printed scores of sheets since, he hath given me just cause now to proclaime him so notorious and base a liar, that he is not ashamed to tell and publish above a dozen in eight lines[citation 1].’ Dr Bastwick also felt the point of our Lieutenant-colonel’s pen in this Epistle to a Friend. Mr Prynne therefore undertook his cause in a pamphlet, intitled A just Defence of John Bastwick, Doctor of Physick, against the Calumnies of John Lilburne, &c. in five sheets, 4to, by way of answer to a reproach cast upon the members of the House of Commons. In our author’s epistle he allows a great part of the members of the House of Commons to be in understanding no better than minors. Dr Bastwick having expressed himself to the same purpose in these remarkable words[citation 2]: As there is no family that is never so honest, that has not a whore or a knave of their kindred; so it is impossible in such a great council as the Parliament, but they should have some ninnies and groles, and men that have no more with than will reach from their nose to their mouth. The piece above cited, called England’s Birthright, &c. coming out in reply to that of Bastwick, the author thereof, making merry with this passage, says[citation 3], ‘Surely this Parliament will be contemptible not only to their foes, but also to their friends, and will never shake off this blot with the State unless they call him to an account, and make him name whom he means, and punish the licenser that durst be so bold to let such a book be published cum privilegio to the dishonour of the very Parliament itself. Surely Sir John, and his brother the Speaker, have fee’d Bastwick well, and are not very sound; that they put him their stalking-horse upon such desperate courses, to salve up their credit; and he has as little wit as honesty in him to be earnest for Sir John Lenthal in particular, who is notoriously known to be the greatest whoremaster, adulterer, rogue, cheat, thief, and what-not. There has so many complaints been made to this present Parliament (tho’ little effect they have taken, by reason of the Speaker’s power and interest) against him, whose common practice it is to walk in contempt and violation of the known laws of the kingdom, and the making of them null and of none effect, as much as in him lies, to the ruin and destruction of thousands of the free denizens of England. Besides his outlawries, which have been out against him these three years; he has dozens of executions upon him, and yet walks abroad, and continues Keeper of the King’s-bench prison, and Justice of Peace; and, as it is reported, is Chairman of a Committee, by means of which he is invested with a power to crush and destroy every man that but opens his mouth to speak of his baseness and injustice. The height of his injustice (continues he) and of his arbitrary and tyrannical government, is scarcely in Strafford to be parallelled, which his so insupportable to the poor opprest prisoners in the King’s-bench, that they have got a proverb among them in these words: The Lawyers rule the Committees, the Speaker rules the Lawyers, Sir John Lenthal rules the Speaker, Thomas Dutson rules Sir John Lenthal, and the Devil rules Dutson. In his letter to the council of Agitators, our author, ever mindful to make the best of every thing he did to his own advantage, ascribes his discharge from Newgate without a trial, to the influence which the state of his case, mentioned in the text, had upon the jury; but it is more probable that his escape was owing to the sharp letter which, as Lord Clarendon informs us, was wrote to the Parliament by Cromwell[citation 4]; which is likewise confirmed by several passages in England’s Birthright, pregnant with the highest encomiums upon Cromwell, who is there proclaimed to be seasoned at heart, and not rotten-cored; free from partiality and self-interest; well-skilled in soldering the disjoynted spirits in the army; and infinitely hating all factious partakings and base self-gains, p. 32; and ’tis remarkable, that while Lilburne lay in Newgate, upon a petition of some of his friends, the Speaker of the House of Commons sent him 100 l. in part of his arrears[citation 5].
Sidenotes
- ↑ (e e) A Preparative to a Hue and Cry after Sir Arthur Haslerig, p. 17. Cook and Bradshaw were his Counsel in this cause, which he printed with Cook’s aggravations of his sufferings soon after.
