We've written about John Lilburne, but it wasn't until we did some more research that we realized what a partner his wife Elizabeth had been.

The story of John and Elizabeth Lilburne fascinated us because despite being born in the early 17th century they were far ahead of their time – certainly far ahead of MPs in Parliament today. The sacrifices they made to establish and defend a whole range of our freedoms would make most people run. You can see why parents would be reluctant to take the risks they took – yet the Lilburnes defied dangers to give their children the inheritance of freedom.

John Lilburne was young and frightened of what the authorities might do to him when three of his friends who were religious dissenters had their ears cropped. But it was the last time he was frightened. He began printing and distributing books censored by the government and walked right into the maw of the Star Chamber.

Begun in the 15th century to hear cases against the powerful, the Court of the Star Chamber at the Palace of Westminster had become a tool to destroy political and religious opponents in secret without jury or appeal. (Bright gold stars in its ceiling give the chamber its name.) Haberdasher George Collier, lawyer Robert Beale, minister Thomas Cartwright and many other Brits had fought Star Chamber persecutions, and lost.

When he was interrogated, Lilburne declared he had a right to be silent, and refused to answer questions and confess. He was sentenced to a £500 fine, and was whipped over 200 times on the two-mile walk to the pillory. Forced between wooden bars, he continued to protest until he was gagged and returned to prison for the next two years.

His courage and confinement caused a public sensation, and helped to put an end to the Star Chamber. He met Elizabeth, who had been arrested for worshipping with a dissenting congregation, and they fell in love. They married in 1641. They had a few months together before the Civil War began.

Lilburne became a captain and fought for Parliament at Edgehill and Brentford, where he was captured. The Royalists planned to hang him, but Parliament declared lex talionis, the law of retaliation, which would save him if anyone were willing to deliver the message to the royalist camp. Elizabeth, pregnant, was the only one who dared to go. Her message - if prisoners-of-war who had fought for Parliament were hanged, Parliament would hang Royalist prisoners. Lilburne was released.

Lilburne became a lieutenant-colonel, but he showed his real mettle by leaving the Army because he refused to take a religious oath. By 1645 he was writing and publishing pamphlets that attacked an increasingly authoritarian Parliament. He believed that MPs should not act according to their own will and pleasure, but according to the fundamental Constitutions and Customs of the Land. . . for the safety and preservation of the people.

Unchecked by the king and trampling on the law, Parliament attacked him, hauling him in to investigate his political opinions. Lilburne demanded a trial by a jury of his peers, on a specified and known charge brought by known accusers, in a court of common law, and according to the known and declared laws of the land. "I have a right to all the privileges that do belong to a free man. . .and the ground and foundation of my freedom I build upon the Great Charter (Magna Carta) of England." He was imprisoned in Newgate, and was joined there by Elizabeth, who was heavily pregnant. She gave birth to their daughter in prison. When she was released, she began circulating his pamphlets, and was arrested by the House of Commons.

In 1647, soldiers from all parts of the country and walks of life began meeting in inns and bivouacs across Britain. Called Agitators (New Agents) or Levellers they were developing new ideas -

The right to vote in biannual or annual parliamentary elections
Complete religious freedom for individuals with no religious direction from the state
Freedom of association
Uncensored books and newspapers
The right not to bear witness against oneself
The abolition of class privileges
The right of juries to acquit
No taxes for people earning less than £30 per year.

The most famous Agitators, John Lilburne and Richard Overton, were jailed. Like Elizabeth, Richard's wife, Mary Overton, distributed her husband's pamphlets. She was dragged through the streets by government agents while holding her six-month-old baby.

In another break with convention, Lilburne believed that women "were by nature all equal and alike in power, dignity, authority and majesty" to men. In London women mobilised a mass peace campaign.

In one of the first peace protests in history, hundreds of women crowded into Westminster to present a petition to end the horrors and deprivations of the war. Army troopers commanded by Parliament rode the women down. The women tried to pull the men from their saddles; the soldiers slashed them with their swords.

The Lilburnes were living from hand to mouth. With small children and babies, they had plenty of reason to quit defending freedom, and try to get on with their lives. Let someone else be a hero. But Lilburne continued to write and publish until, in 1649, he was taken to court for treason.

We wonder how John and Elizabeth endured it. They were, he once remarked, steadied by Christ.

Speaking on behalf of every person charged by the government, Lilburne demanded fair play - the right to counsel, time to consult with counsel, the right to subpoena witnesses in his favor, and presumption of innocence. In a legal watershed that prosecutors try to ignore to this day, Lilburne persuaded his jury that they were judges of law as well as fact. In other words, they could find him innocent if they found the law to be illegal. They did, and Londoners celebrated with bonfires. Today the right of jury nullification remains one of the key defences against oppressive government.

Lilburne fought alongside men who took credit for his victories in battle and who betrayed him. He met MPs who sold out principle for a bribe or an office. He found little to choose between a dictatorial king and a despotic parliament, and challenged them both. Historians have called him argumentative and paranoid. In grieving much that is wrong today, many people may doubt he was paranoid.

By 1652, Oliver Cromwell and Parliament had crushed the Agitators. Lilburne spent most of the rest of his life in prison, dying in 1657 at the age of 42. Brave and realistic, Elizabeth struggled to preserve their children. Though the Agitators were levelled, their ideas went underground like seeds, and survived to rise again.

Gerry Jackson
Image: From a photo by David Sandison, the Independent

"As Zimbabwe clamps down on free speech, Gerry Jackson's British radio station is reaching out to its most helpless citizens." Kim Thomas reports that for the desperate people of Zimbabwe, "where broadcasters are controlled by the state, most independent newspapers have been banned and foreign reporters are outlawed", Jackson is a lifeline.

"Impartial information about what is going on in their own country is a rare and precious commodity. For many Zimbabweans, one small radio station, broadcasting on shortwave from the UK, offers the only opportunity to find out what is happening. SW Radio Africa has been broadcasting daily to the country since 2001", after Jackson fled Zimbabwe's oppressive regime -

Each day, SW Radio Africa broadcasts news from north London to Zimbabweans about the events in their country. Much of it comes from people on the ground, who talk to the station on their mobile phones or send text messages. The station's seven journalists are on the phone to Zimbabwe all day, says Jackson.

The violence in Zimbabwe is intense. Mugabe is now deliberately starving the people. Mineral resources have been sold to China, which supplies the illegal regime with weapons.

Gerry looks tired in the photo. After all that various "world" leaders have said about Mugabe, you would think they would help support the only free radio station providing independent news to the people of Zimbabwe. They are not providing help, but we can.

Image: An umbrella stashed in a Rolls Phantom.

I've always liked taking walks with an umbrella since I live in Portland, and nine months of the year it might be raining. My umbrellas are quite big so they won't flip inside out in a high wind and I can walk in drenching rain by myself or with a friend and feel quite dry - just a dash of moisture here and there. It's the way I imagine Obama feels when the doting press holds that big umbrella over his head - lest one tiny drop of moisture from an unfortunate question fall on his head.

The impeccably dressed British intelligent agent John Steed of the Avengers show always carried an umbrella, which contained a sword. Today via Instapundit we heard about an unbreakable walking stick-umbrella strong enough to substitute as a weapon of self-defence.

But could it stop a tank?

At the battle of Arnhem Bridge, Digby Tatham-Warter, his ammunition gone, stopped a German tank with his umbrella.

Image: Sean Boggs
Farming: Not for wimps

I had lunch with friends on Sunday. One of them was a farmer, eighty but ageless, confident, happy, with a swift blue-eyed smile streaking from his red face. He and his wife, who sat across the table, had raised four sons and a daughter on the living he raised from the farm. "You need experiences in order to learn," he remarked about his children, "and the farm gave them experiences".

Poet Laureate Ted Hughes (1930-1998) wrote about racing a storm to bring in the hay -

Last Load

Baled hay out in a field
Five miles from home. Barometer falling. 

A muffler of still cloud padding the stillness. 

The day after day of blue scorch up to yesterday,
The heavens of dazzling iron, that seemed unalterable,
Hard now to remember.

Now, tractor bounding along lanes, among echoes, 

The trailer bouncing, all its iron shouting 

Under sag-heavy leaves 

That seem ready to drip with stillness.
Cheek in the air alert for the first speck.

You feel sure the rain's already started -
But for the tractor's din you'd hear it hushing
In all the leaves. But still not one drop
On your face or arm. You can't believe it. 

Then hoicking bales, as if at a contest. Leaping 

On and off the tractor as at a rodeo.

Hurling the bales higher. The loader on top 

Dodging like a monkey. The fifth layer full 

Then a teetering sixth. Then for a seventh
A row down the middle. And if a bale topples
You feel you've lost those seconds forever. 

Then roping it all tight, like a hard loaf.

Then fast as you dare, watching the sky
And watching the load, and feeling the air darken
With wet electricity,
The load foaming through leaves, and wallowing

Like a tug-boat meeting the open sea -
The tractor's front wheels rearing up, as you race, 

And pawing the air. Then all hands 

Pitching the bales off, in under a roof, 

Anyhow, then back for the last load.

And now as you dash through the green light
You see between dark trees 

On all the little emerald hills 

The desperate loading, under the blue cloud.

Your sweat tracks through your dust, your shirt flaps chill, 

And bales multiply out of each other
All down the shorn field ahead. 

The faster you fling them up, the more there are of them -
Till suddenly the field's grey empty. It's finished.

And a tobacco reek breaks in your nostrils
As the rain begins 

Softly and vertically silver, the whole sky softly 

Falling into the stubble all round you

The trees shake out their masses, joyful, 

Drinking the downpour. 

The hills pearled, the whole distance drinking
And the earth-smell warm and thick as smoke

And you go, and over the whole land 

Like singing heard across evening water
The tall loads are swaying towards their barns
Down the deep lanes. 


Found in a website devoted to the poetry of hay by British and American writers.

When I was in England last February, a friend. . .did me the great favor of taking me to see, inter alia, Salisbury Cathedral.

It was a wonderful experience. The Cathedral is, after all, one of the great intact medieval buildings. Right up my alley, or perhaps nave…. clerestory… well.. you get it.
But I was not prepared for the full surprise I was to have that day.

With a some intensity I could sense, he led me to the Cathedral’s splendid Chapter House.

There are various display cases in the chapter, containing wonderful objects.

But eventually I worked my way to the far end and, strolling around a somewhat sheltered case, I peered down at a medieval parchment.

It was sheepskin, probably. It was written very close, in a small chancery hand, in Latin.

Having had a bit of Latin, some training in paleography, and the requisite curiosity I began to scan the first lines.

"John, by the grace of God King of England, Lord of Ireland, Duke of Normandy and Aquitaine, and Count of Anj…"

I can’t quite describe what occurred to me at that moment, the physical coldness of hair rising on the back of my neck and arms, my throat closing with the urgent need not to breathe. . .

Eric Liddell at the 1924 Paris Olympics

I crossed the Atlantic watching Chariots of Fire, and found the Telegraph I had carried with me had a feature on Eric Liddell, the British runner and Christian featured in the film. As those who have seen the movie know, Liddell declined to enter his 100 metre race in the Paris Olympics because he would not run on Sunday. Instead he ran the 200, winning a bronze, and to everyone's amazement "ran them off their feet", winning the gold in the 400 in 47.6, and setting a world record. The last scene is here -

What I didn't know was that Liddell had returned to China, where he was born, to serve as a missionary and teacher, and is greatly loved by the Chinese for his heroism and compassion during the Japanese invasion. He refused to leave them.

Brendan Gallagher writes,"In 1938 he heard of a wounded Chinese soldier lying helpless in a temple, 20 miles from the mission hospital. He cycled for 20 miles over rough terrain to get there and then found another injured soldier, who had survived a Japanese execution. He manufactured a makeshift cart to help push both men to hospital".

Gallagher reports that "Li Airui as he was known in the Far East, was considered a godly, heroic figure in non-communist China, and now the modern-day Chinese authorities have agreed to let his story of Christian humanity and sporting excellence be told". This is surprising good news. "John Keddie's acclaimed Running the Race, a biography that places Liddell's sporting life in the religious context in which it was lived, has been published in Mandarin and will be launched in China next month."

Liddell was interned in a Japanese camp, where he became the leader of the desperate men, women and children incarcerated there. When a prisoner exchange was made, he again refused to leave, sending a pregnant woman in his place.

A fellow internee, Stephen Metcalfe, later wrote of Liddell: "He gave me two things. One was his worn out running shoes, but the best thing he gave me was his baton of forgiveness. He taught me to love my enemies, the Japanese, and to pray for them."

As we flew above the clouds, I thought, it is impossible to predict the influence of a man or woman. Liddell's inspiring example of courage and love continues to grow.

It is estimated that there are between 50 million and 100 million Chinese Christians in China. Some of them will have heard his story by word of mouth, even before Keddie's book is published.

"Now would I give a thousand furlongs of sea for an acre of barren ground." (Shakespeare, The Tempest)

The EU has just proclaimed that in 2010 it will be illegal to register land in acres. This means that no one will be able to talk about acres when they want to buy or sell them. The new translation reads -

"Now would I give 201,000 metres of sea for 2.471 hectares of barren ground."

It has a certain dull and clanking sound, doesn't it?

Brits have a little more than seven years to leave the EU and celebrate Magna Carta's 800th anniversary as a free people.

The posts below are a little cheerier.

The Royal Albert Hall

"With a thunderous blast from the Albert Hall organ and with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Royal College of Music Brass at full tilt, the 2008 season of BBC Proms got off to a rip-roaring start".

More about the Proms here.

It has been 263 years since Brits produced a set of fair and crystal-clear rules of play for the first golf tournament, held in 1745, in Edinburgh. Along with great golfers, those rules are the reason the game has staying power.

We salute him for his gallant attempt, which we supported.

Jeff Pollitt asks how I square my refusal to care about Zimbabwe with a Christian conscience. Let me cite William Blake's profound and disturbing words ( disturbing, at least, to those who believe in the false religions of politics): "He who would do good to another must do it in minute particulars. General good is the plea of the scoundrel, hypocrite and flatterer".

My point is simple. 'Caring' about the woes of foreign countries is usually done in public, so as to look concerned and compassionate, and to make the 'carer' feel good about himself or herself, and allow the 'carer' to let as many people as possible know how 'caring' he or she is. It is generally entirely ineffective, and results in precisely nothing. It is, to a large extent, the modern substitute for real acts of conscience and kindness, private and unnoticed. It is these unselfish acts which, if we all tried to do more of them, would heal many of the wounds of our society.

Worth thinking about. African economist James Shikwati says something very similar. (And there is a British connection.)

The movie has just opened. "Blessedly, the cinematic version is an absolute gem, full of energy and gusto, and bolstered by a gung-ho cast and the writer, director and producer of the stage play".

A surprising number of American physicists have said that they do not believe that anthropogenic CO2 emissions are likely to be primarily responsible for the global warming that has occurred since the Industrial Revolution.

They are opening their debate with the publication of a paper by Lord Monckton of Brenchley, which concludes that climate sensitivity - the rate of temperature change a given amount of greenhouse gas will cause - has been grossly overstated by the IPCC modelling of the United Nations. 

Monckton says that natural variability is the cause of most of the Earth's recent warming. "In the past 70 years the Sun was more active than at almost any other time in the past 11,400 years. . .Mars, Jupiter, Neptune's largest moon, and Pluto warmed at the same time as Earth."

There was, as you know, little human-caused warming on those planets.

One of our earliest posts covered Lord Monckton's telling disagreements with Al Gore.

In related news, scientists in Switzerland have just reported that Europe's temperature warming is caused by cleaner air.

Meanwhile Australian scientists think they know why we have seen no sunspot activity - "spin-orbit coupling". The result, they believe, will be global cooling with unhappy effects on agriculture.

Lord Monckton noted the "courage of those free-thinking scientists who continue to research climate change independently despite the likelihood of refusal of publication in journals that have taken preconceived positions; the hate mail and vilification from ignorant environmentalists; and the threat of loss of tenure in institutions of learning which no longer make any pretence to uphold or cherish academic freedom."

We note his courage in facing the hot blasts of anthropogenic global warming theorists - and the key, devastating graph from his paper -

It is of no little significance that the IPCC's value for the coefficient in the CO2 forcing equation depends on only one paper in the literature; that its values for the feedbacks that it believes account for two-thirds of humankind's effect on global temperatures are likewise taken from only one paper; and that its implicit value of the crucial parameter κ depends upon only two papers, one of which had been written by a lead author of the chapter in question, and neither of which provides any theoretical or empirical justification for a value as high as that which the IPCC adopted.

David adds - We would like to see our dependence on oil-rich nations eliminated and real pollution addressed.

This post has been edited.

That this government seeks to "restore" what it cannot take away is an absurdity. That it must "restate" this right is nonsense. That it has made homeowners afraid to defend themselves against violent invasion and citizens on the street afraid to resist a mugging or lend a hand to a fellow Brit under attack lest they be prosecuted and imprisoned afterwards is an outrage.

That the government has abused the people mercilessly is a fact. That it now "allows" them to "use force against criminals who break into their homes or attack them in the street without worrying that 'heat of the moment' misjudgements could see them brought before the courts" is not something for which we are grateful.

We have a right to defend ourselves without being attacked by our government and our police services.

Under the British Constitution - the Coronation Oath, Magna Carta, Common Law, the Declaration of Right (singular Right, the covenant between the people and the monarch, not the Declaration of Rights approved by Parliament) - under all these covenants we have the right to defend ourselves under our ancient laws and customs and under our natural rights.

Those natural rights have been articulated by Locke and by Blackstone and defended by thousands of judges and juries.

In his Two Treatises on Civil Government (1690), Locke asserted that we have the right to rebel when government does not protect our lives, liberty, and property. In his Commentaries on Common Law Blackstone (1765-1769) wrote, "The rights or. . .liberties of Englishmen. . . consist primarily in the free enjoyment of personal security, of personal liberty and of private property."

Government exists to protect our natural rights. It is high time the people reminded it of that fact.