John Lilburne
Born in Greenwich, LondonBorn in 1614
Died on 29th of August 1657
Lilburne was one of the true radicals of the English Civil War period. His close contact with a radical pamphleteer saw him forced to flee to the Low Countries in his twenties; later the Star Chamber imprisoned him for bringing Puritan literature into the country; and his death at a relatively young age came after repeated spells in prison during the Commonwealth. Lilburne’s legacy is the concept of freeborn rights, in defence of which he was ironically frequently imprisoned, these inalienable rights including that of facing ones accuser and hearing the actual accusation; and of not being forced to incriminate oneself, now cornerstones of legal systems worthy of the name.
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