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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A88240	The prisoners plea for a habeas corpus, or an epistle writ by L.C. Joh. Lilburne prerogative prisoner in the Tower of London the 4. of Aprill, to the Honourable Mr. W. Lenthall Speaker of the House of Commons. In which is fully proved, that the judges are bound by law and their oaths to grant a habeas corpus to any prisoner ... and to deny it ... is to forsweare themselves, for which they may be in law indicted for perjury, and upon conviction, are for ever to be discharged of their office, service and councell. In which is also declared the usurpation of Mr. Oliver Crumwell, who hath forcibly usurped unto himselfe the office of L.G. in the Army, for almost 12. moneths together, and thereby hath robbed the kingdome of its treasure, under pretence of pay, which he hath no right nnto [sic], and by the power of the said office hath tyrannized over the lives, liberties, and estates of the freemen of England ... all which John Lilburne will venture his life according to the law of the land to make good, unto which he hath annexed his epistle which he writ to the prentices of London the 10th of May 1639 ...	Lilburne, John, 1614?-1657.	1648 (1648)	Wing L2165; Thomason E434_19; ESTC R202789	26,710	17

heard me say such words yet upon this complotted and contrived lye of Cromwell and his pencionary creature● for no other can I iudge it he writ his Letter to Col. Whaty the Kings Gaoler at Hampto● Court that he had certain intilligence of the Agents intent to murder and kill the King whic● letter Whaley shewed to the King upon which false suggestion and lye of Cromwell and his confederates own framing the King fled no doubt with Cromwells privitie knowledge and good l●king into Cromwells mouse trap in the Isle of Whight and after his departure it was bruited by Cromwells instruments all up and down the Armie City and Country that J was the origina● reporter of it from whence to the hazard of my life they drew this inference viz. That Iohn Li●burne in the Tower who pretendedly stood so much for law and iustice was one of the Conspirator to kill or murder the King without all shadow of law and further said that he that without a●● collour of law would not stick to have a hand in murdering the King would not stick without the collour of law if he had power in his hands to destroy all those that stood in his war thereby measuring me by their own practises and by their own principles laid down by their darling Solicitor St. Iohn in his plea of Law against the Earle of Strafford and therefore it is necessari● said they to keep him fast in the Tower this or the substance of it with much confidence wa● reported by men of qualitie to divers desperate Cavilier on b And yet at the same time Cromwels agents and instruments amongst honest men in London reported me to be an absolute Cavilier and stuck not with confidence to declare J was commonly drunk with Judge Ienkins c. in the Tower hoping thereby to destroy my reputation amongst honest men for ever purpose as I cannot but conceive to set them upon me to stab me or cut my throat some of whom told me of againe protesting they could not believe that report of me but I wondered and stood amazed from whence it should arise having for my self protested againe and againe upon many discourses with my friends c that J could never see an● law in being in England to inable the two Houses of Parliament it selfe to draw up a charge or impeachment agains● the King to inable them formally and judicially to try him for his life either for willfull murder or misgovernment c and to take away his life by a law made expost fa●●o I then declared and for my part still do● thinke is not just And an impeachment by the Parliament which they iudged legall was the highest that ever I knew any man to attempt c But yet in reason and equity J cannot apprehend a reason why a King who is but a meere creature as well as any other man and at most is but a Magistrate of trust for murder 〈◊〉 should not be as liable to punishment amongst men as any other man though I confesse I ●●ver could see any thing by the Law of England to declare the King of England so for this I 〈◊〉 sure of God the Supream King never created any man whatsoever lawlesse which he must 〈◊〉 be that is free and above the punishment of all law and I am sure nature and reason rea●●eth me to hold or tye my Fathers hands at least if with them he should doe so unnaturall 〈◊〉 thing as to goe about to destroy me and therefore seeing in my apprehension there is a defect in ●●is particular in the Law of England I shall for the future wish desire and endeavour by all befall and iust wayes and meanes that all whatsoever may be bounded by law and subject to the punishment of the Law professing before all the world that J know nothing that makes a ●an a Magistrate over me but law and while he walkes by the rules of that Law which make him a Magistrate I shall own him as a Magistrate but when he tramples it under his feet and walkes by the law of his own will I for my part in such a condition cannot own him for a Magistrate or desire which I could never learn perfectly till I lately spoke to him of ●●e Agents that were in prison at Windsor and see and read their petition to their Generall earnestly to presse and desire him to search into the bottome of that false and groundlesse ● p●rt which its believed usurping tyrannising Cromwell would never suffer him to doe be being his Lord and Master a copy of which petition you may read at large in the 52. pag. of my forementioned book called the Peoples prerogative but I must take a fit time of purpose to discover ●●lly this desperate plot of Cromwell and his associates against my life and the reputation and ●●ves of the gallant and honest Agents and their Noun Substantive Associates who by him and his fellow Tyrants are nicknamed and baptized Levellers which title as I have in my last printed book fully proved is only proper for himself and his fellow grandees who have already actually Levelled all our liberties lawes properties and lives to their tyrannicall lawlesse wills and pleasures so that really the quandom free men of England cannot say they can injoy any of them l●●ger than the Grandees will and please yet to that hight of tyranny are they grown in the very ●●my that even in the Generalls Regiment of Horse some of their weather cock Mercinary Officers have already commanded the Souldiers not to goe or ride a mile out of their quarters without have at their perils nor to talke nor discourse of newes or of state affaires with any Country men or Souldier so that if they doe a little longer proceed as they have already begun verily verily Englishmen shall not differ from bruit beast but in shape and shall be worse then ever our ●ncestors were in that tyrannicall age of William the Conquerer whose tyranny is lively set forth in the beginning of that notable book called Regall Tyranny a true parallell of which if I have ●o more imployment then I find in a prison may shortly be the worke of my pen but at present I shall take my leave of you desiring now at last for you if it be possible you may turne honest and doe me some justice before feare vengeance and iudgement sweep you from off the land land of the living to the place of recompence of all Tyrants and oppressors and so I rest Yours to serve you if you would but faithfully serve your native Country till death Iohn Lilburne that neither feares a Tyrant nor loves an Oppressor ●rom my most illegall and murdering imprisonment it the Tower of London this 4. April 1648. going in the eight yeare of my fruitlesse expecting justice from the House of Commons who now make it their principall study and worke to cheat and deceive the poore people of the Kingdome

common Gaole of the Fleete laid me in Irons upon both my armes and legs night and day all wihch was done unto me by the bloody and wicked decree of mercilesse and barbarous Sir Henry Vaine Senior and the Earle of Salsbury Lord Chiefe Iustice Bramston c. at which time J sent Canterbury and the rest of h●s bloody brethren word that for all that they had caused to be done unto me or could farther doe unto me I was not in the least afraid of them for J neither feared an Axe at Tower Hill nor a Stake in Smithfield nor a Halter at Tyburnt nor whipping at a Carts arsse nor a Pillorie in the Palace yard nor gagging nor cutting of eares and nose nor burning in the fore-head and cheeks nor yet banishment with Iohn to P●thmos For I verily believe if you should send me thither I shall there find Christ which by his spirit will unfold the revelation unto me and then I would write it and send it abroad into the world which would vex you as il as Sampson did the Philistims and prove as fatall to your decaying tottering spirituall Babilonian Anti-Christian Kingdome as his Foxes with fire brands at their tayles were to the Philistims Corne. And therefore as you loue your almost ruinated Kingdome looke to it and know that the faster you kick the harder J will sp●r you and the more you fling the closer I will stick and cleave fast unto you for you are plants which I groundedly know the Lord never planted and therefore undoubtedly he will pluck you 〈◊〉 Mat. 15.13 And therefore by the might power and strength of my God Psal 118.14 Esay 12.2 who is the worker of all my workes in me and for me Esay 26 12. I am resolved come life ●●e death seeing you by force have called me to it to shew my self valiant for the truth of God Jer. 9.3 which message Mr. Speaker you may read in the 34. pag of my book called Come out of at my people printed at Amsterdam 1639. And truly Mr. Speaker if you compell and force me to such a course J shall deale ingeniously with you and acquaint you before hand with my epistle J writ to the Apprentices of London upon the 10 of May 1639. the copy of which I shall hereunto annex the effects of which was like to have saved Derick the Hang man a labour in reference to the Bishop of Canterbury the like of which in reference to you and Cromwell c. I shall not feare to write againe and set my credit upon the tenter hooks if it be possible to get money to print enough to send all over England let the issue be what it will I can but dye and say I better any way then to be murdered and fami●●ed by you in a bole and a corner in silence But I am confident I shall fix such a charge upon Cromwell c. as shall clearly make them apparent to be the arrantest Iuglers Dissemblers Hypocrites Apostates and Lyars that ever breathed in the world that professed honesty a Which is already prittie well done in those two books called Putney Proiects and Westminster proiects and sincerity yea to be tyrannicall monsters in comparison of Strafford and Canterbury who were esteemed bail enough in their generation For though the Earle of Strafford caused to be condemned the Lord Mount Norris a Member of the Irish Army by Marshall Law over which Army the Earle was Generall by lawfull Commission which act of his notwithstanding was obiected against by your house as an act of treason in subverting the law which act was strongly pressed upon him as a most hainous crime by Mr. Glyn Recorder of London and a member of your hous● being assigned so to doe by you to which he made a more notable defence for himself by a thousand degrees then J am confident Cromwell is able to make to justifie his Martiall Law actions whose defence you may partly read in a printed relation thereof printed 1647 pag 11 12 13. Yet though he were esteemed very bad in his generation he never had so much impudence to ●ed●le with or endeavour to condemne to death a meer Commoner as Mr. Cromwell hath done in the case of William Thompson a meer Commoner as he hath fully proved himself to be in his ●●●e and impartiall printed relation dated from White Hall the 12. March 1647. whom upon the 16 Fol. 1647. he took from the House of Commons doore and most illegally by word of mouth and force of Armes committed prisoner to his Mercinary Iunisaries at Whitehall where to the ut●er levelling subverting of Magna Charta and the Petition of Right c. he hath passed upon him a sentence by Marshall Law to be shot to death and your House who should be the preservators and conservators of the lawes and liberties of England take no notice of the poore mans dying condition to redeeem him as you ought in duty and conscience to doe out of the clutches of that grand Vsurper and Tyrant Cromwell and to punish him c. severely therefore but by your silence you rather seem to justifie that murdering and tyrannicall action yea and so carrie you ●●●ves in it as though you were resolved without check or comptroule to give him leave to murder and destroy all the honest men in England at his will and pleasure that he beares a malic● to the full discovery of the evill consequence of which single president of Thompson will be worth the Kingdome knowledge which in due time to your eternall shame amongst men it may be the may enioy which is may be may in time bring Cromwell for all his arbitrarie proceedings again and subvertion of the fundamentall law of the land to the punishment of Empson and Dudley Privie Consellours to Henry 7. who yet had an Act of Parliament to authorise their proceedings of whom and their arraignments and ends you may read in the 2 part institutes fo 51. and 3 part fo 208. and 4 part fo 41 196 197 198. and in Iohn Speeds Cronicles fol 978 983. But Sir before J totally conclude I cannot but acquaint you what a lving desperate and malicious design Cromwell some moneths agoe had to destroy me and take away my life who by his mercenary Emisaries Paul Heison and Lievt Col. H. L. groundlesly raised a repor● all over the Army that I had told the foresaid Lievt Col. that some of the late Agents had a design or intention to murder and kill the King which was and is the most notoriousest and fals●lye in the world for I doe protest before men and Angels I never said any such thing in all 〈◊〉 life to any man breathing nor never was so told from any of the Agents or any of their friends and I will iustifie what I now say with my life against any man breathing that shall have so much basenesse and impudency to affirme the contrary against me viz. that ever be