Page:The Leveller movement; a study in the history and political theory of the English Great Civil War (IA levellermovement01peas).djvu/146

 Harry Marten to inquire into the Lords’ proceedings. On October 27 and November 6 Lilburne explained his case before this committee, and defended his position as to the Lords’ lack of jurisdiction. November 9, he delivered his argument to Marten in writing, and published it as An Anatomy of the Lords Tyranny. Beyond acquainting the public with his case, however, his hearings seemed to bring him no nearer to freedom.

Probably Lilburne’s friends hoped to secure his release only by arousing public opinion against the House of Lords and the general shortcomings of the government. Accordingly the radical pamphlets did not confine their attention to the wrong done to Lilburne himself. Richard Overton represented him as a martyr who suffered because his writings endangered corrupt interests—arbitrary power, the presumption, arrogance, and intolerance of the clergy, the oppressive legal proceedings forced on the nation by the Norman conquest, the monopolies of trade. Further, the radical group linked Lilburne’s case with those of other men who could be represented as victims of arbitrary authority. Several such instances were at hand. Early in 1645 John Musgrave had come to London to push charges of treachery made by