He repelled with scorn the charges of
the
[Footnote 1: Journals, 1649, April 11, May 12, July 18. Council Book May 2.
Whitelock, 414.]
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1649. April 11.]
[Sidenote b: A.D. 1649. May 12.]
[Sidenote c: A.D. 1649. June 8.]
[Sidenote d: A.D. 1649. July 18.]
[Sidenote e: A.D. 1649. Sept. 6.]
[Sidenote f: A.D. 1649. Sept. 14.]
[Sidenote g: A.D. 1649. Oct. 24.]
prosecutors and the taunts of the court, electrified the audience by
frequent appeals to Magna Charta and the liberties of Englishmen, and
stoutly maintained the doctrine that the jury had a right to judge of the
law as well as of the fact. It was in vain that the court pronounced this
opinion "the most damnable heresy ever broached in the land," and that the
government employed all its influence to win or intimidate the jurors;
after a trial of three days, Lilburne, obtained a verdict of acquittal.[1]
Whether after his liberation[a] any secret compromise took place is
uncertain. He subscribed the engagement, and, though he openly explained it
in a sense conformable to his own principles, yet the parliament made to
him out of the forfeited lands of the deans and chapters the grant[b] of
a valuable estate, as a compensation for the cruel treatment which he had
formerly suffered from the court of the Star-Chamber.
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