Page:The Leveller movement; a study in the history and political theory of the English Great Civil War (IA levellermovement01peas).djvu/143

 he considered that as the summons was illegal he was not bound to obey it. He urged the officer who came for him to inform the House that such must be his answer at their bar. Before he was summoned in, he begged one of the peers to bid the Lords consider before they forced a contest on the principle involved; for Lilburne, by his own account, would willingly have avoided a collision with the Lords, could he have done so without betraying the liberties of Englishmen. In spite of all his efforts, he was called in and asked if he knew of the Iust Mans Iustification. For reply he inquired if there were any formal charges laid against him; and finding that he was held to the question asked him, he handed in a protestation. Naturally the clerk would not receive it, and when Lilburne withdrew, it was thrown after him. He had to wait in suspense for but a short time before a warrant came to commit him to Newgate for his contempt in handing in the protestation. Lilburne took up the gage of battle. He at once drew up a petition to the Commons asking protection, and urging that they release him from his illegal imprisonment and assign him damages for it. In his protestation he had asserted that the Lords derived their authority from prerogative, and not from any trust committed to them by the Commons of England, “the originall and fountaine of power.” He now addressed the House of Commons as “the chosen and betrusted Commissioners of all the Commons of England unto whom all the Commons of England have given so much of