Cromwell, to encourage the court, posted two
companies of soldiers in the immediate vicinity; quartered three regiments
of infantry, and one of cavalry, in the city; and ordered a numerous force
to march towards the metropolis. The particulars of the trial are lost. We
only know that the prosecutors were content with showing[d] that Lilburne
was the person named in the act; that the court directed the jury to speak
only to
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1653. July 13.]
[Sidenote b: A.D. 1653. August 11.]
[Sidenote c: A.D. 1653. August 16.]
[Sidenote d: A.D. 1653. August 1.]
that fact; and that the prisoner made a long and vehement defence, denying
the authority of the late parliament to banish him, because legally it had
expired at the king's death, and because the House of Commons was not a
court of justice; and, maintaining to the jury, that they were judges of
the law as well as of the fact; that, unless they believed him guilty of
crime, they could not conscientiously return a verdict which would consign
him to the gallows; and that an act of parliament, if it were evidently
unjust, was essentially void, and no justification to men who pronounced
according to their oaths. At a late hour at night the jury declared[a]
him not guilty; and the shout of triumph, received and prolonged by his
partisans, reached the ears of Cromwell at Whitehall.
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