On the 9th of February 1638, Sir John Banks charged John Lilburn with contumacy for refusing to answer, neglecting to enter his appearance, and declining to take the oath of the Star Chamber. An affidavit by one Chillington, read thereafter, named Lilburn and John Wharton as having printed treatises against the bishops in Rotterdam. Lilburn demanded leave to defend himself. He recounted that Chillington, apprehended whilst distributing books, had purchased his own liberty by denouncing other men; he denied having arranged the consignment of the volumes and demanded that his accuser be brought face to face with him. Wharton attempted to speak against the oaths imposed by the prelates. The lords commanded him to answer the question; he persisted in his invective. The court laughed, then silenced him. Both steadfastly refused the general oath.
In 1636, Lilburn had departed London to convey to Holland a treatise against the bishops written by the physician John Bastwick. Bastwick was then detained in the Gatehouse on account of his writings. Lilburn returned with this pamphlet, the “Merry Liturgy,” alongside similar tracts, which he dispersed clandestinely. He did not dispute this journey; what he contested was the legal construction and the particular allegations subsequently advanced against him. The affair joined his name with that of John Wharton, an aged printer whose workshop and trade connections to booksellers found themselves drawn into the same inquiry.
On the 11th or 12th of December 1637, Lilburn was walking along Soper Lane with John Chilburne, Wharton’s servant, when a pursuivant and four assistants apprehended him. About noon the following day, he was conducted to the Gatehouse; less than three days later, he was transferred to the Fleet by order of the Council. The authorities informed him that he was held for dispatching books from Holland. From his cell, he submitted a petition for his release. He was told in answer that he must first submit to examination by Sir John Banks, the Attorney General.
The examination, of which Lilburn himself left a relation, began with inquiries regarding the printers, the moneys, and the persons he had encountered in Amsterdam and Rotterdam. He acknowledged having seen a certain Hargust and admitted acquaintance with Edmund Chillington. He denied having dispatched the books and protested that questions touching other men exceeded the stated ground of his detention. When asked if he knew John Wharton, he hesitated over his full name, then admitted knowing the bookbinder and printer. He was confronted with Chillington’s affidavit, which accused him of having financed or caused to be printed thousands of copies. Lilburn answered that the declaration was utterly false.
The most telling incident of the interrogation concerned the sheet he was commanded to sign. The clerk had abridged his answers and presented him with what was to stand as his official examination. Lilburn maintained that the writing did not represent what he had uttered. He demanded the pen to set down his own version; Banks snatched it away after he had written but a few words, deeming his answer sufficient. Lilburn remained in ward. Later, at the office of the Star Chamber, he protested that he was commanded to appear and pay entering fees without having been served any subpoena or shown any formal bill of information. A clerk replied that the examination must come first, and the charge would be drawn afterward.
The dispute thus shifted from the substantive matter of the pamphlets to the legality of the procedure. The officers sought to bind Lilburn by oath to answer all questions that should be put to him. He demanded to know beforehand the scope and object of the oath. In his view, a general engagement to answer whatever the court might ask would serve not merely to examine his own conduct, but to entrap other men. The chronicle records his refusal, followed by that of Wharton, who asserted that the bishops had already immured him in five prisons within two years for refusing that very oath. Both were committed close prisoners, denied access to their friends, while awaiting their return before the court.
On the 13th of February, a further deposition from Chillington enumerated the treatises: Lilburn was alleged to have printed several of Bastwick’s works, including the “Answer to Sir John Banks’s Information” and the “Litany”; Wharton was charged with paying for the printing of a “Breviate” concerning the bishops and the “Sixteen New Queries.” Lilburn once more contested these imputations. The chronicle preserves the deposition and his rebuttal, but records no opportunity for cross-examination or confrontation with Chillington.
The affidavit remained before the court, yet its author did not appear to answer the prisoners’ exceptions. According to Lilburn’s account, precedents were cited concerning men accused of harbouring seminary priests who had refused to answer upon oath. Lilburn protested that such cases bore no parity to his own; he maintained, moreover, that the facts alleged against him had not been legally established. The court rested its judgment upon the affidavit and their contumacious refusal of the oath. Lilburn and Wharton were each amerced five hundred pounds. Lilburn was sentenced to be whipped and set in the pillory; Wharton, being eighty-five years of age according to the narrative, was spared the whip but condemned to the pillory. Wharton likewise inveighed against the bishops, his protests repeatedly interrupting the interrogatories of the court. Following the sentence, they were granted the liberty of the prison for a time. However, reports of Wharton’s speeches against the prelates reached the Council; both men were once more committed together, this time to close confinement. Some three weeks later, Wharton, being exceedingly infirm, obtained upon petition a temporary enlargement until the ensuing term. Lilburn remained locked away.
On the 18th of April 1638, Lilburn was conducted to Westminster. Borrow records that he was whipped through the streets all the way to the pillory. His back lacerated, his neck pinioned in an aperture set too low, he stood exposed for nearly two hours beneath a harsh sun. He addressed the assembled throng, declaiming against the bishops and against a judgment rendered without his accuser being brought to his face. The Warden of the Fleet commanded that he be silenced, and presently ordered him gagged. Deprived of speech, Lilburn stamped his feet against the wood. Upon his release, the officers conveyed him back to prison, where a surgeon came to dress his wounds. His narrative closes with a subscription which he declared was written in part with his own blood.
Borrow’s memoir then traces the remainder of Lilburn’s life: in 1640, Parliament granted him an enlargement upon bail, and subsequently declared his initial sentence tyrannical and illegal. This redress did not avert future strife. Lilburn served in the Parliamentary army, quarrelled with his commanders, and in turn assailed the very institutions he had fought to defend. Banished from the realm, he returned without warrant, and was subsequently acquitted at the Old Bailey. Borrow portrays him as having embraced the Quaker faith before his death, in that same year.