By virtue of being a free-man, I conceive I have as true a right to all the privileges that doe belong to a free-man, as the greatest man in England, whatsoever he be ….. and the ground and foundation of my freedome, I build upon the Grand Charter of England
John Lilburne was a seventeenth century political agitator and leading member of the English Civil War dissident group known as the Levellers. Their rise to prominence took place during the First English Civil War (1642-1646), and the movement peaked in terms of numbers during the course of the Second English Civil War (1648-49).
As a group the Levellers called for popular sovereignty, equality before the law, and religious toleration. It was among the dissenting members of the New Model Army, and within the confines of the City of London, where Leveller ideology proved most popular and took deepest root. Many Levellers were instrumental at the Putney Debates of 1647 and helped shape the early iterations of the Agreement of the People. The final version of this document bore the names of prominent Levellers: Lt. Col. Lilburne, Walwyn, Overton, and Prince. This was to be the high-point of the movement’s influence. By 1650, the movement had become marginalised by those in power; their ideology deemed too radical for the more conservative parliamentarians.
John Lilburne’s reputation and political writings, however, went beyond the Leveller cause. Above all else, he was interested in the rights of the individual and he championed what it meant to be ‘freeborn’. To be ‘freeborn’ meant you were born free, rather than born into slavery. He argued that, people by way of birth possessed natural rights not granted by a King or government, but by God. It was this concern that would lead to his multiple imprisonments, and consequently his contemporary fame.
Unlike other prominent Levellers, Lilburne thought that the rights of Englishmen could be traced back to Magna Carta, believing they predated the Norman Conquest of 1066. He recognised that Parliament had the capacity to act as tyrannically as any monarch and denounced the legitimacy of the Commonwealth – an act that led to his arrest and trial for high treason in 1649. However, armed with a copy of Sir Edward Coke’s Institutes, particularly his commentary on Magna Carta, Lilburne was able to successfully defend himself and he was acquitted. This decision was met with popular acclaim and medallions were struck to commemorate his achievement.
It would be this image of Lilburne holding the Institutes in one hand whilst on trial that would resonate and inspire political radicals over the centuries that followed. People no longer remembered Lilburne the Leveller – instead, Lilburne the litigant.
Political radicals of the eighteenth century would connect their struggles with Lilburne’s image and reputation. In 1763, one such radical, John Wilkes, was accused of libelling King George III after having criticised a speech in which the King had praised the peace terms reached with France. The comparison between Wilkes, styled here as the defender the right to freedom of speech, and Lilburne was evident. The popular comparison was cemented when in June 1763, Wilkes was presented with a copy of both Lilburne’s 1649 trial and a medallion that commemorated it.
Lilburne’s image and reputation was also invoked by the establishment as a means to undermine Wilkes and other political radicals of the period. In the eyes of those in power, Lilburne’s name became a synonym for contentiousness and rabble-rousing. They would often use his humble beginnings and position of low-birth as a means to undermine the position of radical reformers.
From the nineteenth century onwards the use of Lilburne in political struggles waned. The struggles that dominated the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were resolved. Writing in the nineteenth century, Thomas Carlyle, described how Lilburne had been reduced to ‘noisy John, an irritating gnat who continually bothered the ‘great man’ Cromwell.’
Lilburne has always been invoked at times when there have been connections with his own political philosophies: the rights of juries and their role as a safeguard against royal and parliamentary tyranny or the rights of a free press. He was no longer simply a Civil War Leveller. He was an agitator, styled as a liberator who represented the interests of the ordinary man. As Professor Ted Vallance states, he became ‘a martyr to Liberty in the broadest sense’.
Today, the term ‘freeborn John’ remains a short hand that represents the inalienable rights of the Englishman. He continues to be one of the most recognisable and famous Civil War radicals. As Charles Firth states, ‘in a revolution where others argued about the respective rights of King and Parliament, he spoke always of the rights of the people.’ It is for this reason that the terms ‘freeborn John’ and a ‘freeborn Englishman’ remain so closely intertwined.
By Steven Franklin.
Steven is a Citizens 800 project Officer and PhD researcher at Royal Holloway, University of London
