Selected quad for the lemma: lord_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
lord_n	day_n	life_n	time_n	11,822	5	3.5373	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A88226	A new complaint of an old grievance, made by Lievt. Col. Iohn Lilburne, prerogative prisoner in the Tower of London. Nove. 23. 1647. To every individuall member of the Honourable House of Commons.	Lilburne, John, 1614?-1657.	1647 (1647)	Wing L2147; Thomason E416_25; ESTC R204498	5,207	4

A new complaint of an old grievance made by Lievt Col. Iohn Lilburne Prerogative prisoner in the Tower of London Nove. 23. 1647. To every Individuall Member of the Honourable House of Commons SIR MY exceeding urgent necessities and my extraordinary sufferings by your neglect in doing me justice and right according to your many oaths and declarations presseth me above measure still to play the part of the poore importunate widow mentioned in the Gospel and to resolve whatever befalls me never to give over till I have attained her end viz. Iustice You may please truly to take notice and the rather because many of you are new Members that in the year 1637. and 1638. I suffered a most ba rbarous sentence by the Star Chamber occasioned by two false oaths sworne against me by Edmond Chillington now a Lievtenant under Col. Whaly and by my refusing to answer interrogatories against my self in executing of which sentence the 18. of April 1638. I was tyed to a Carts tayle at Fleet bridge and whipt through the streets to West minster and had given me above the number of 500. stripes with a threefold knotted corded whip the weeles made in my back thereby being bigger then Tobacco pipes c. And set two houres upon the Pillory bare head in an extraordinary hot day and a gag out into my mouth above an houre to the almost renting of my jawes in sunder See my printed relation of my businesse before the Lords bar the 13. Feb. 1645 where all this with much more is proved upon Oath And upon that very day 10. Iudges of the said Star Chamber made an Order to murther and starve me the very words of which Order being that the said Iohn Lilburn shall be laid alone with irons on his hands and leggs in the wards of the Fleet where the basest and meanest sort of prisoners are used to be put and that the Warden of the Fleet take especiall care to hinder the resort of any persons whatsoever unto him and particularly that he be not supplyed with money from any friend And yet they nor any for them during all my imprisonment never allowed me the value of one farthing token to live upon but executed the said Order upon me with so much barbaritie that my pining tormenting condition was a thousand times worse and lesse to be indured then any sudden death whatever under which without doubt I had perished had it not been for the timely reliefe of this Parliament by which said sufferings I was rob'd of a profitable trade in the flower of my dayes And being by you set at liberty the first weeke of your sitting J was by the malice of one Littleton a Courtier by the Kings especiall command arrested of high Treason and the 4. May 1641. by the Kings own direction I received a kind of an Arraignment at the Lords bar where the said Littleton most falsely swore point blanke against me to the apparant hazzard of my life and being if he had not been contradicted by the oath of his own friend Mr. Andrewes a Counceller upon which day and at that very time the House of Commons were so sencible of my sad and suffering condition that they were pleased upon the report of Mr. Rouse to make these Votes for me Resolved upon the question That the sentence of the Star Chamber given against Iohn Lilburne is illegall and against the liberty of the Subject and also bloody wicked cruell barbarous and tyrannicall Resolved upon the question that reparations ought to be given to Mr Lilburne for his imprisonment suffering and loss●s sustained by that illegall sentence And yet I never had to this houre one penny of separations although J dare safely say it I have spent above a thousand pound one way and another in following you therefore above the space of seaven yeares which is a longer time for any thing I can read of in Scripture then ever the importunate widow followed the unrighteous iudge that neither feared God nor reverenced man and yet obtained justice at his hands That upon my deliverance by the assistance of one of my friends I betook my self to a●…ride for my livelyhood and of my own and my foresaid friend stockt it with almost 1500. l. ready money and the late wars comming on at the desires of many eminent men of this kingdome my then choice friends I left my trade and in iudgement and conscience girded my sword unto my thigh with an honest resolution to spend my heart blood for the preservation of the lawes and liberties of my native country which then the Parliament by their Declarations made me and the Kingdome beleeve was indeavoured to be dist●oyed by the King and his evill Councell And having like a man of undaunted resolution adventured my life at Edge Hill and Brainford with good and advantagious successes to the Parliament though with ill to my selfe being to a good value plundered at both places and at the last taken prisoner where by the inhumaine barbaritie of severall Lords and others I was d●vers times in danger aster quarter given before I came at Oxford to be ●…n in pieces being pinioned with my arms behind me and tyed to another and forced on foot through all the dirt and mire to march two dayes together And being arrived a prisoner at Oxford Castle I was visited by foure Lords viz The Lord Newarke now Marquesse of Durchester the Lord Dunsmore now Earle of Chichester the Lord Mattravers now Earle of Arundell and the Lord And ver as messeng●rs from the King as they told me and in his name proferred whatever in reason I could desire in h●… then prosperous condition so I would forsake the Parliament and my present principles and desire his pardon which they all unanimously promised to git for me but I told their Lordships they were mastaken in me if they thought I was to be courted out of my principles and as for His Majesties pardon I told them I scorn'd either the craving or accepting of it having in obedience to the Parliaments then commands done nothing but what I did then beleeve was just and legall and for which I would willingly lay my life down the desiring or accepting of a pardon would argue guiltinesse which I told them I beleeved I had no need to confesse Whereupon I was clapt in irons n●ght and day forc'd to lye in my cloaths upon the flore lockt up close in a chamber when I had not a penny of money about me being lately plundered of all I had and a centry set at my doore that I could not speake with any of my fellow prisoners to borrow a penny to buy me bread by means of which I was exposed to the greatest of straights and immediately in irons arraigned as a Trator before Sir Robert Heath and Sir Thomas Gardner for levying war against the King by authority from the Parliament and I pleaded to my Indictment telling the Iudge I girded my sword

unto my thigh in judgement and conscience by vertue of the greatest authority in the land with a resolution to spend the last drop of my blood for the preservation of the just lawes and liberties of my native country being seduced thereunto by no flesh alive acting not by an implicite faith but upon principles of judgement and understanding in the defence whereof I told him I was then as ready to dye by a balter as before I had been either by a Bullet or a Sword and having escaped that danger of hanging by a letter of the Speakers of this House threatning unto them Lex taliones As you may read in the first part book Decl. pag 802. 803. I contracted there by my hard usage a desparate and dangerous sicknesse of which I lay speechlesse divers dayes the inhumanitie of the barbarous Marshall Smith being such toward me that he would neither suffer Physitian Apothecary Surgion nor Nurse to come neare me and though some Gentlemen then in bonds with me got a poore halfe starved prisoner to looke to me yet he was clapt up twice close prisoner for helping me in those great straights and I could not freely injoy his helpe till I purchased it for money at the hands of one of Smiths cruell tormentors By which imprisonment besides my large expences there I lost at London in debts c. my Debtors taking the advantage of my arraigment for treason would as they said pay no Traytors debts about 600. l. every penny of which lay upon my own particular shoulders And comming out with the same Principles I went in I betook my self to my sword again having refused here at London divers places of ease profit and honour and with much resolution and integritie in the midest of many discouragements I fought under the Earle of Manchesters command so long tell by the visible apostatising from the first declared ends and by the wickednesse treachery basenesse and perfididiousnesse I found there I had lost all my principles and could not for all the world any longer kill Cavieleers in whose service I was plundered the third time at Newarke to the value almost of 100. l. besides many scores of pounds of my own money in that service I spent more then ever there I received there being due unto me at this day for my arreers there the greatest part of a thousand pounds as I doubt not upon just and true g●ounds clearely when you please to make appeare That at the laying down my command I vigorously with all the interest I had in England betook myself to an earnest prosecution to obtaine at the hands of your House my just and long expected and promised reparations from my cruell Star Chamber Iudges one of which sits in your house at this day in the following of which I met with such heard and unreasonable measure not only from the hands of your house it self but also from its Committees in being causl●sly tossed tumbled out of the hands of one Messenger to another from one gaol to another that it made me almost as weary of the Land of my nativity as ever the Israelites were of Egypt when the cruel tyrant Pharoah made them to make bricks without straw especially when I considered that all this was done unto me by those for the saving alive and preserving of whom I had so often freely and resolutely with my sword in my hand adventured my life and in the dayes of their greatest straights and calamities been as faithfull to them as ever Jonathan was to David when he hazzarded ruine and distruction from his father for siding with him Yea and if then it had been in my power could have done a thousand times more then I did verily beleeving they would have performed their just Declarations to the kingdome But before the storm of your indignation was well blown over the fearcenes of which had almost overwhelm'd me behold such a furious tempest the 10. July 1646. ariseth against me by the house of Lords as if it would have blown me into another Horizon or have Metamorphased me into the shape and habit of a bruit beast and have robd me of all things that might give me the denominotion of a man levelling thereby the liberties and freedomes of all the Commons of England unto their arbitrary Lordly wills And having about 18. moneths agoe fled unto you as iustly I might for shelter protection and justice against them which by my severall Pleas before your Committees I have proved you ought long since to have afforded me and having the 11. of this instant in halfe a sheet of Paper presented here at your doore as now J doe to your hands an abstract of the Lords tyrannicall illegall dealing with me And of all by way of Plea I have for my selfe to say with a desire to stand or fall under your judgement thereupon which yet I cannot obtaine from you and therefore referring you to that Abstract and to my Grand plea before Mr. Maynard upon the 20. October last and my Aditionall Plea annexed unto it for all the particulars I crave and challenge at your hands as my right and due I adjure you before Heaven and Earth and before the Lord Jehovah and his mighty and glorious Angels without any more delay to adjudge my cause betwixt the Lords and me either to my justification or condemnation and to doe me justice and right by helping me to my own kept from me by you and doe not by your 7 yeares delay of justice lay more provokations upon me then my strength and abilitie is able to beare and then goe about to distroy me for my crying out of your oppressiion when in the eye of reason I have no other remedie left me in this world but that or to distroy my self wife and children which even nature it self abhors or else to live upon the kindnesses of those that in future time to my reproach shall as some from whom I should little have expected it have lately done hit me in the teeth with it which makes the proffer of their courtesies a scorne unto me and the thoughts of not being able to repay them againe a burthen to my spirit And therefore to conclude let me in the bitternesse of my spirit say unto you as the unrighteous Iudge said unto himself although by your actings towards me you declare you neither feare God nor reverence man yee for my necessitie and pressing importunities sake now at last doe me justice and right for if I must dye by yours and the Lords murthering oppression I am resolved if I can helpe it I will not dye alone nor in a corner in silence Therfore help me to my own to leave subsistance unto my wife children that they may not beg their bread when I am dead and gone And if nothing but my blood will serve my cruell adversaries if they be men I challenge the stoutest of them in England hand to hand with his sword in his hand like a man to put a period to my dayes being ready to answer any man in England Lord or Commoner that hath any thing to lay to my charge Either First as a rationall man Or Secondly as a resolved man Or Thirdly at an English man In the last of which I sh●l desire no more favour then every Traytor Rogue or Murtherer that is arraigned for his life at Newgate Sessions injoyes viz. the benefit of the declared known law of England And so at present I rest From my starving murthering tyrannicall and most illegall imprisonment in the Tower of London this 23 Novem. 1647. g●ing in the eight yeare of my fruitl●sse expecting iustice from the deafe and hard hearted house of Commons Your oppressed friend that loudly cryes out to you for justice and right Iohn Lilburne FINIS