churches of the capital, but in the room where the July 6. late parliament was accustomed to sit. Thirteen of the most gifted among them successively prayed and preached, from eight in the morning till six in the evening; and several affirmed that they had never enjoyed so much of the spirit and presence of Christ in any of the meetings and exerci ses of religion in all their lives, as they did on that day." As it was solely to their reputation for superior godliness that the majority of the members owed their election, the lord-general probably expected from them little opposition to his measures; but they no sooner applied to business, than he saw reason to be alarmed at the promptitude and resolution which they displayed. Though not distinguished by their opulence, they were men of independent fortunes ;* during the late revolu tions they had learned to think for themselves on the momentous questions which divided the nation; and their fanaticism, by converting their opinions into matters of conscience, had superadded an obstinacy of character not easily to be subdued." To Cromwell himself they always behaved with respect. They invited him, with four of his officers, to sit as a member among them; and they made him the offer of the palace of Hampton-court in exchange for his house of Newhall. But they believed and showed that they were the masters. They scorned to submit to the dictation of their servants; and if they often followed the advice, they as often rejected the recommendations and amended the resolutions of the council of

state.

Prosecu

One of the first subjects which engaged their attention was a contest, in which the lord-general, tion of Lilwith all his power, was foiled by the boldness of burne. a single individual. At the very moment when he

hoped to reap the fruit of his dissimulation and intrigues, he found himself unexpectedly confronted by the same fearless and enterprising demagogue, who, at the birth of the commonwealth, had publicly denounced his ambition, and excited the soldiery against him. Lilburne, on the dissolution of the long parliament, had requested permission of Cromwell to return from banishment. Receiving no answer,

June 15.

* They have been generally described as men in trade, and of no education; and because one of them, Praise-God Barebone, was a leather-dealer in Fleet-street, the assembly is generally known by the denomination of Barebone's parliament. (Heath, 350.) It is, however, observed by one of them, that "if all had not very bulky estates, yet they had free estates, and were not of broken fortunes, or such as owed great sums of money, and stood in need of privilege and protection as formerly." Exact Relation, 19. See also Whitelock, 559.

he came over at his own risk, and, on the day after his arrival in the capital, was committed to Newgate. It seemed a case which might safely be entrusted to a jury. His return by the act of banishment had been made felony; and of his identity there could be no doubt. But his former partisans did not abandon him in his distress. Petitions with thousands of signatures were presented, praying for a respite of the trial till the meeting of the parliament; and Cromwell, willing, perhaps, to shift the odium from himself to that assembly, gave his consent. Lilburne petitioned the new parliament; his wife petitioned; his friends from the neighbouring counties petitioned; the apprentices in London not only petitioned but threatened. But the council laid before the house the depositions of spies and informers to prove that Lilburne, during his banishment, had intrigued with the royalists against the commonwealth; and the prisoner himself, by the intemperance. of his publications, contributed to irritate the memJuly 13. bers. They refused to interfere; and he was ar raigned at the sessions; where, instead of pleading, he kept his prosecutors at bay during five successive days, appealing to Magna Charta and the rights of Englishmen, producing exceptions against the indictment, and demanding his oyer, or the specification of the act for his banishment, of the judgment on which the act was founded, and of the charge which led to that judgment. The court was perplexed. They knew not how to refuse; for he claimed it as his right; and necessary for his defence. On the other hand, they could not grant it, because no record of the charge or judgment was

known to exist.

tal.

Aug. 11.

Aug. 16.
Aug. 18.

After an adjournment to the next sessions, two His acquit- days were spent in arguing the exceptions of the pri soner, and his right to the oyer. At length, on a threat that the court would proceed to judgment, he pleaded not guilty. The trial lasted three days. His friends, to the amount of several thousands, constantly attended; some hundreds of them were said to be armed for the purpose of rescuing him, if he were condemned; and papers were circulated that, if Lilburne perish ed, twenty thousand individuals would perish, with him. Cromwell, to encourage the court, posted two companies

"It appears from Clarendon's Letters at the time that Lilburne was intimate with Buckingham, and that Buckingham professed to expect much from him in behalf of the royal cause; while, on the contrary, Clarendon believ ed that Liburne would do nothing for it, and Buckingham not much more. Clarendon Papers, iii. 75. 79. 98.

of soldiers in the immediate vicinity; quartered three regi ments of infantry, and one of cavalry, in the city; and or dered a numerous force to march towards the metropolis. The particulars of the trial are lost. We only know that the prosecutors were content with showing that Lilburne was the person named in the act; and that the court directed the jury to speak only to that fact; that the prisoner made a long and vehement defence, denying the authority of the late parliament to banish him, because legally it had expired at the king's death, and because the house of commons was not a court of justice; and, maintaining to the jury, that they were judges of the law as well as of the fact; that, unless they be lieved him guilty of crime, they could not conscientiously re turn a verdict which would consign him to the gallows; and that an act of parliament, if it were evidently unjust, was es sentially void, and no justification to men, who pronounced according to their oaths. At a late hour Aug. 20. at night, the jury declared him not guilty; and the shout of triumph, received and prolonged by his partisans, reached the ears of Cromwell at Whitehall.

be con

It was not, however, the intention of the lord-general that his victim should escape. The examination of the judges and jurymen before the council, with a certified copy of certain opprobrious expressions, used by Lilburne in his deAug. 22. fence, was submitted to the house, and an order was obtained that, notwithstanding his acquittal, he should fined in the Tower, and that no obedience should be paid to any writ of habeas corpus issued from the court of upper bench in his behalf. These measures gave great offence. It was complained, and with justice, that the men who pretended to take up arms against the king in support of the liberties of Englishmen, now made no scruple of trampling the same liberties under foot, whenever it suited their resentment or interest.*

Aug. 27.

Nov. 26.

Parties in parlia

ment.

In the prosecution and punishment of Lilburne, the parliament was unanimous; on most other points it was divided into two parties distinctly marked; that of the independents, who, inferior in number, superior in talents, adhered to the lord-general and the council; and that of anabaptists, who, guided by religious and political fanaticism, ranged themselves under the banner of major-ge

He was sent from the Tower to Elizabeth castle in Jersey, and discharg ed a little before his death, in 1657. He died a quaker. See Thurloe, i. 324. 367, 8, 9. 429, 430. 435. 441, 2, 451. 453. Exact Relation, p. 5. State Trials, . 415-450. Whitelock, 558, 660, i. 3. 691. Journals, July 13, 14; Aug, 2, 22, 27; Nov. 26,

neral Harrison as their leader. These "sectaries" anticipated the reign of Christ with his saints upon earth; they believed themselves called by God to prepare the way for this marvellous revolution; and they considered it their duty to commence by reforming all the abuses which they could discover either in church or state.*

In their proceedings there was much to which no one who had embarked with them in the same cause, could reasonably object. They established a system of the most rigid economy; the regulations of the excise were revised; the constitution of the treasury was simplified and improved; unnecessary offices were totally abolished, and the salaries of the others considerably reduced; the public accounts were subjected to the most rigorous scrutiny; and new facilities were given to the sale of the lands now considered as national property. But the fanaticism of their language and the extravagance of their notions exposed them to ridicule; their zeal for reform, by interfering with the interests of several different bodies at the same time, multiplied their enemies; and, before the dissolution of the house, they had earned, justly or unjustly, the hatred of the army, of the lawyers, of the gentry, and of the clergy.

Taxes.

1. It was with visible reluctance that they voted the monthly tax of 120,000l. for the support of the military and naval establishments. They were, indeed, careful not to complain of the amount their objections were pointed against the nature of the tax, and the inequality of the assessments:† but this pretext could not hide their real object from the jealousy of their adversaries, and their leaders were openly charged with seeking to reduce the number of the ar my that they might lessen the influence of the general.

law.

2. From the collection of the taxes they proceedReform of ed to the administration of the law. In almost every · petition presented of late years to the supreme authority of the nation, complaints had been made of the court of chancery, of its dilatory proceedings, of the enormous expense which it entailed on its suitors, and of the suspicious nature of its decisions, so liable to be influenced by the personal partialities and interests of the judge. The long parliament

Thurloe, i. 392. 6. 501. 515. 523.

t In some places men paid but two; in others, ten or twelve shillings in the pound. Exact Relation, p. 10. The assessments fell on the owners, not on the tenants. Thurloe, i. 755.

"It was confidently reported by knowing gentlemen of worth, that there were depending in that court 23,000 (2 or 3000?) causes; that some of them

did not venture to grapple with the subject; but this, the little parliament, went at once to the root of the evil, and voted that the whole system should be abolished. But then came the appalling difficulty, how to dispose of the causes actually pending in the court, and how to substitute in its place a less objectionable tribunal. Three bills introduced for that purpose were rejected as inapplicable or insufficient: the committee prepared a fourth: it was read twice in one day, and committed, and would probably have passed, had not the subsequent proceedings been cut short by the dissolution of the parliament.*

But the reformers were not content with the abolition of a single court: they resolved to cleanse the whole of the Augean stable. What, they asked, made up the law? A voluminous collection of statutes, many of them almost unknown, and many inapplicable to existing circumstances; the dicta of judges, perhaps ignorant, frequently partial and interested; the reports of cases, but so contradictory that they were regularly marshalled in hosts against each other; and the usages of particular districts, only to be ascertained through the treacherous memories of the most aged of the inhabitants. Englishmen had a right to know the laws by which they were to be governed; it was easy to collect from the present system all that was really useful; to improve it by necessary additions, and to comprise the whole within the small compass of a pocket volume. With this view it was resolved to compose a new body of law: the task was assigned to a committee; and a commencement was made by a revision of the statutes respecting treason and murder. But these votes and proceedings scattered alarm through the courts at Westminster, and hundreds of voices, and almost as many pens, were employed to protect from ruin the venerable fabric of English jurisprudence. They ridiculed the presumption of these ignorant and fanatical

had been there depending five, some ten, some twenty, some thirty years; and that there had been spent in causes many hundreds, nay, thousands of pounds to the utter undoing of many families." Exact Relation, 12.

Journals, Aug. 5; Oct. 17. 22; Nov. 3. Exact Relation, 12-15. The next year, however, Cromwell took the task into his own hands; and, in 1655, published an ordinance, consisting of sixty-seven articles" for the better regulating and limiting the jurisdiction of the high court of chancery." Widrington and Whitelock, the commissioners of the great seal, and Lenthall, master of the rolls, informed him by letter that they had sought to the Lord, but did not feel themselves free to act according to the ordinance, The protector took the seals from the two first, and gave them to Fiennes and Lisle Lenthall overcame his scruples, and remained in office. See the ordinance in Scobell, 324: the objections to it in Whitelock, 621. Journals, Aug. 18, 19; Oct. 20. Exact Relation, 15-18, VOL. XI.

15