Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 33.djvu/249

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Lilburne
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Lilburne

he found him unskilled with his weapon. A catchpenny account of the affair was printed at the time under the title of ‘The Generous Husband, or Lord Lælius and the Fair Emilia,’ London, 1771, 16mo. Ligonier obtained a decree of divorce on 10 Dec. 1771, and thirteen years later the lady married a trooper in the blues at Northampton (Gent. Mag. 1771 p. 567, 1784 pt. i. p. 395). Ligonier married, secondly, Mary, second daughter of Lord-chancellor Northington, who survived him. At his death, without issue, in 1782, the title became extinct.

[Haag’s La France Protestante, 2nd ed. by Bordier, Paris, 1877, vi. 91–4; Smiles’s Huguenots in England, 6th ed. 1888; Dict. Univers. (Michaud), under ‘Ligonier;’ Anacharsis Combes’s J. L. Ligonier—Une Étude, Castras, 1866, 12mo; Collins's Peerage, 4th ed. 1768, vi. 211 et seq.; Hayward's Essays—Marshal Saxe; Cannon’s Hist. Rec. 7th Princess of Wales’s Dragoon Guards; Anecdotes of the 4th Horse, in Colburn’s United Service Mag. December 1833; A. N. C. Maclachlan’s Order-book of William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, Southampton, 1876, 8vo; Hamilton’s Hist. Grenadier Guards, 1872, vol. ii.; Military Entry and Commission Books in Public Record Offices in London, and at the Four Courts, Dublin; Stanhope’s Hist. of England; R. Chambers’s Hist. of the Rebellion of 1745, new ed. 1869; Walpole’s Hist. of George II; Walpole’s Letters, vols. i. ii. iii. v. ix.; Brit. Mus. Addit. MSS. under ‘Ligonier.’]

H. M. C.

LILBURNE, JOHN (1614?–1657), political agitator, was the son of Richard Lilburne (d. 1657) of Thickley Puncherdon, Durham, by Margaret, daughter of Thomas Hixon, yeoman of the wardrobe to Queen Elizabeth (Visitation of Durham, 1615, p. 31; Foster, Durham Pedigrees, p. 215). His father signalised himself as one of the last persons to demand trial by battle in a civil suit (Rushworth, I. ii. 469). Robert Lilburne [q. v.] was his elder brother. A younger brother, Henry, served in Manchester’s army, was in 1647 lieutenant-colonel in Robert Lilbune’s regiment, declared for the king in August 1648, and was killed at the recapture of Tynemouth Castle of which be was governor (Rushworth, vii. 1226; Clarke Papers, i. 142, 368, 419; Carlyle Cromwell, Letter xxxix.) A cousin, Thomas, son of George Lilburne of Sunderland, was a staunch Cromwellian while the Protector lived, but in 1660 assisted Lord Fairfax against Lambert, and thus forwarded the Restoration (Thurloe, vii, 411, 436; Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1659–60 p. 294, 1663–4 p. 445; Le Neve, Monumenta Anglicana, ii. 108).

Lilburne was born at Greenwich (Innocency and Truth Justified, 1645, p. 8). At the close of a letter appended to that pamphlet and dated 11 Nov. 1638, he describes himself as then in his twenty-second year; in the portrait prefixed to another he is described as twenty-three in 1641 (An Answer to Nine Arguments written by T. B., 1645). The 'Visitation' appears to prove that in each case his age was understated. He was educated at Newcastle and Auckland schools, and then apprenticed by his father to Thomas Hewson, a wholesale cloth merchant in London, with whom he remained from about 1630 to 1636 (The Legal Fundamental Liberties of the People of England, 1649, 2nd edit., p. 25; Innocency and Truth Justified, p.8). In his spare time he read Foxe's 'Book of Martyrs' and the Puritan divines, and about 1636 became acquainted with John Bastwick, then a prisoner in the Gatehouse. Lilburne's connection with Bastwick, whose 'Litany' he had a hand in printing, obliged him to fly to Holland. The story that he was Prynne's servant seems to be untrue (Bastwick, Just Defence; Prynne, Liar Confounded, 1645, p. 2; Lilburne, Innocency and Truth, p. 7). On his return from Holland, Lilburne was arrested (11 Dec. 1637) and brought before the Star Chamber on the charge of printing and circulating unlicensed books, more especially Prynne's 'News from Ipswich.' In his examinations he refused to take the oath known as the 'ex-officio' oath—on the ground that he was not bound to criminate himself, and thus called in question the court's usual procedure (see Gardiner, History of England, viii. 248; Stephen, History of the Criminal Law, i. 343). As he persisted in his contumacy, he was sentenced (13 Feb. 1638) to be fined 500l., whipped, pilloried, and imprisoned till he obeyed (Rushworth, ii. 463–6; State Trials, iii. 1315–67). On 18 April 1638 Lilburne was whipped from the Fleet to Palace Yard. When he was pilloried he made a speech denouncing the bishops, threw some of Bastwick's tracts among the crowd, and, as he refused to be silent, was finally gagged. During his imprisonment he was treated with great barbarity (Lilburne, The Christian Man's Trial, 1641; A Copy of a Letter written by John Lilburne to the Wardens of the Fleet, 4 Oct. 1640; A True Relation of the Material Passage of Lieutenant-Colonel John Lilburne's, as they were proved before the House of Peers, 13 Feb. 1645; State Trials, iii. 1315). He contrived, however, to write and to get printed an apology for separation from the church of England, entitled 'Come out of her, my people' (1639), and an account of his own punishment styled 'The Work of the Beast' (1638).