The Common Freedom of the People

Michael Braddick’s excellent biography of John Lilburne deals with a remarkable life lived through a remarkable time. Lilburne came from gentry stock in the north of England and was apprenticed to the London clothier Thomas Hewson, who had connections in the London puritan underground. At the beginning of the Scottish troubles, Lilburne went to the Low Countries and was likely to have been involved in illicit printing against the Caroline regime. On his return to England he was arrested and showed remarkable courage, independence and inventiveness at his trial, after which he was, nonetheless, imprisoned. His travails became something of a minor cause célèbre and were used in wider arguments against arbitrary and unjust government. This set a pattern for the rest of Lilburne’s short life: connections with sympathetic associates; unflinching resistance in the face of what he perceived as injustice; a formidable streak of independence and self-belief; a talent

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