The Court of Star Chamber. accusers ought to be brought face to face to justify what they accuse me of." Being afterwards asked by the Attorney-General to sign his examination, he refused, but offered to prepare an answer of his own to the charge brought against him. Some days after he was taken to the Star Chamber office that he might enter his appearance. He objected that he had not been served with any subpama, and that no information had been drawn against him. He was informed that he must first be examined and that then the Attorney-General would prepare the in formation. Lilburn, seeing that the examina tion was intended to procure material for the bill when the oath was again tendered him " that you shall make true answer to all things that are asked you," objected to tak ing it, saying at first, " I am but a young man, and do not well know what belongs to the nature of an oath." Afterwards he said that he was not satisfied of the lawfulness of the oath, and after much pressing, finally altogether refused to take it. A fortnight later he was brought before the Star Cham ber, where the oath was again tendered to him, and again he refused it, saying it was an oath of inquiry, for the lawfulness of which there was no warrant. Lilburn had a fellow-prisoner, " old Mr. Wharton " (who, according to the report, was eighty-five years of age), who was asked to submit to the oath at the same time with Lilburn. The «old man refused, and began to rail about the bishops, of their cruelty to him, and how " they had him in five several prisons within these two years for refusing the oath." Lilburn and Wharton were again brought up the following day. Lilburn declared upon his word, and at length, that the accu sations against him were false, and that the books objected to had been imported by another person, with whom he had no deal ing. " Then," said the Lord Keeper, "thou
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art a mad fellow, seeing things are thus, that thou wilt not take the oath and answer truly." Lilburn repeated that the oath was one of inquiry, and unwarranted by the word of God. "When I named the word of God," says he, " the Court began to laugh as though they had nothing to do with it." Failing with Lilburn, the Court asked Whar ton whether he would submit to the oath. The venerable defendant, first obtaining leave to speak, " began to thunder out against the bishops, and told them they required three oaths of the King's subjects, namely, the oath of churchwardenship, the oath of canonical obedience, and the oath ex-officio, which, said he, are all against the law of the land, and by which they deceive and perjure thousands of the King's subjects in a year." "But," says the report, "the lords, wondering to hear the old man talk after this manner, commanded him to hold his peace, and to answer them whether he would take the oath or no. To which he replied, and desired them to let him talk a little, and he would tell them by and by. At which all the Court burst out laughing; but they would not let him go on, but com manded silence (which, if they would have let him proceed, he would have so peppered the bishops as they never were in their lives in an open court of judicature)." As both absolutely refused to take the oath, they were each sentenced to stand in the pillory, and to pay a fine of £500, and Lilburn to be whipped from the Fleet to the pillory, which was erected between Westminster Hall gate and the Star Chamber. Lilburn, it is said, received upwards of five hundred lashes, and was kept standing in the pillory for two hours afterwards. In May, 1641, the Long Parliament re solved "that the sentence of the Star Cham ber given against John Lilburn is illegal and against the liberty of the subject, and also bloody, cruel, barbarous, and tyrannical."
