and wrote a new treatise, calling in question their power. Lilburne was eventually banished by the Rump Parliament; but in 1653 he returned to England and threw himself upon the tender mercies of the Protector. Cromwell would do nothing, and left him to the law. Lilburne was then arrested, and committed to Newgate. At the next sessions he was arraigned, but refused to plead unless furnished with a copy of his indictment. He managed to put off his trial by various expedients till the next sessions, when he was acquitted by the jury. In Thurloe's State Papers it is stated that "John Lilburne was five times at his trial at the Sessions House, where he most courageously defended himself from the recorder's violent assaults with his old buckler, the Magna Charta, so that they have let him alone." "Freeborn John" was so popular with malcontents of all shades of opinion, that the authorities, from Oliver Cromwell downward, were really afraid of him. Oliver professed to be enraged against him, and anxious for his punishment, yet he privately paid him a pension equal to the pay of a lieutenant-colonel, and, as Thurloe says, "thought the fellow so considerable, that during the time of his trial he kept three regiments continually under arms at St. James'." The jury which acquitted Lilburne were summoned to answer for their conduct before the Council of State. Yet there is little doubt that the court was overawed by the mob. For Thurloe says there were six or
seven hundred men at the trial, with swords, pistols, bills, daggers, and other instruments, that, in case they had not cleared him, they would have employed in his defence. The joy and acclamation were so great after he was acquitted that the shout was heard an English mile.
All this time prisoners of great mark were at times confined in Newgate. That noted royalist, Judge Jenkins, was among the number. His crime was publishing seditious books, and sentencing to death people who had assisted against the Parliament. He was indeed attainted of high treason under an ordinance passed by the House of Commons. A committee was sent from "the Commons' House to Newgate, which was to interview Judge Jenkins, and make the following offer to him—viz., that if he would own the power of the Parliament to be lawful, they would not only take off the sequestrations from his estates, amounting to £500 per annum, but they would also settle a pension on him of £1,000 a year." His reply was to the following effect: "Far be it from me to own rebellion, although it was lawful and successful." As the judge refused to come to terms with them, he remained in Newgate till the Restoration.
People of still higher rank found themselves in gaol. The brother of the "Portugal" ambassador, Don Pantaleon Sa, is sent, with others, to Newgate for a murder committed by them near the Exchange. It was a bad case. They had
quarrelled with an English officer, Gerard, who, hearing the Portuguese discoursing in French upon English affairs, told them they did not represent certain passages aright. "One of the foreigners gave him the lie, and all three fell upon him, and stabbed him with a dagger; but Colonel Gerard being rescued out of their hands by one Mr. Anthuser, they retired home, and within one hour returned with twenty more, armed with breastplate and head-pieces; but after two or three turns, not finding Mr. Anthuser, they returned home that night." Next day the Portuguese fell upon a Colonel Mayo, mistaking him for Anthuser, wounded him dangerously, and killed another person, Mr. Greenaway. The murderers were arrested in spite of the protection afforded them by the Portuguese ambassador and committed to Newgate. Don Pantaleon made his escape from prison a few days later, but he was retaken. Strenuous efforts were then made to obtain his release. His trial was postponed on the petition of the Portuguese merchants. The Portuguese ambassador himself had an audience of Cromwell, the Lord Protector. But the law took its course. Don Pantaleon pleaded his relationship, and that he had a commission to act as ambassador in his brother's absence; this was disallowed, and after much argument the prisoners pleaded guilty, and desired "to be tried by God and the country." A jury was called, half denizens, half aliens, six of each, who, after a full hearing,
found the ambassador's brother and four others guilty of murder and felony. Lord Chief Justice Rolles then sentenced them to be hanged, and fixed the day of execution; but by the desire of the prisoners it was respited two days. This was the 6th July, 1654. On the 8th, Don Pantaleon Sa had his sentence commuted to beheading. On the 10th he tried to escape, without success, and on the same day he was conveyed from Newgate to Tower Hill in a coach and six horses in mourning, with divers of his brother's retinue with him. There he laid his head on the block, and it was chopped off at two blows. The rest, although condemned, were all reprieved, except one, an English boy concerned in the murder, who was hanged at Tyburn. Their first victim, Colonel Gerard, survived only to be executed on Tower Hill the same year for conspiring to murder the Lord Protector.
Other distinguished inmates, a few years later, were Charles Lord Buckhurst, Edward Sackville, and Sir Henry Bellayse, K. B., who, being prisoners in Newgate, petitioned the Lord Chief Justice, March 10th, to be admitted to bail, one of them being ill of the smallpox. They were charged seemingly with murder. Their petition sets forth that while returning from Waltham to London, on the 8th February, they aided some persons, who complained that they had been robbed and wounded in pursuit of the thieves, and in attacking the robbers wounded one who afterward died. Sir
Thomas Towris, baronet, petitions the king (Charles II) "not to suffer him to lie in that infamous place, where he has not an hour of health, nor the necessaries of life. He states that he has been four months in the Tower, and five weeks in Newgate, charged with counterfeiting his Majesty's hand, by the malice of an infamous person who, when Registrar Accountant at Worcester House, sold false debentures." Sir Thomas wished to lay his case before his Majesty at his first coming from Oxford, but was deceived, and the way to bounty was thus stopped.
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