Page:The Leveller movement; a study in the history and political theory of the English Great Civil War (IA levellermovement01peas).djvu/170

 Prynne as King’s attorney had made answer that the affair in question was then undergoing examination in the House of Commons; the House of Commons had decided that the Lords’ action was a breach of the Commons’ privileges, had called for a conference with the Lords on the subject, and finally ordered that King be discharged from imprisonment without payment of any fees; for he had given offense when the Lords called him in to hear his sentence read, and had been committed to the Fleet. Lords Journal, May 16, 30, June 3, 18, 1644, VI, 555, 573, 575, 595; Commons Journal, June 19, July 3, III, 534, 550.

In the same year the Lords had fined one, Captain Rous, one hundred pounds and had sought to make him kneel at their bar and confess the justice of the sentence. As a commoner he had thrown himself on the House of Commons, and had been committed to the Fleet; July 5, the House of Commons, on the ground that he was in attendance on the House as a witness, had ordered his discharge without fees. Lords Journal, June 1, June 18, 1644, VI, 574, 596; Commons Journal, July 5, III, 551.

The case of Clement Walker, who was fined by the House of Lords in 1643 for alleged reflections on Lord Saye, in connection with the prosecution of Nathaniel Fiennes, Saye’s son, for cowardice in connection with the loss of Bristol is another case in point; but apparently the House of Commons took no action in his case.

Soon after his imprisonment in 1646, Lilburne was embroiled in disputes with his keepers over the heavy prison fees of the Tower, and over certain formalities that he considered designed to intimidate the friends’ who came to see him. His especial bête noir was John White. White was described somewhat leniently by the author of Vox Plebis, Nov. 19, 1646, E. 362 (20)—a man with far too keen a sense of humor to be Lilburne—as an old man who would be a good one, if only he would give over scribbling foolish books against the dissenting brethren and against men in affliction; but withal too slow to credit the extortions with which his under-jailers were justly charged. White had had a former passage of arms with Lilburne when the colonel was prisoner in Newgate. White, according to his own account, had visited Lilburne there out of charity, and had offered him some good advice (apparently on things in general); he felt much aggrieved that Lilburne had only threatened to throw him out for his pains. Considering what the probable tone of the advice was, the story is not unlikely. Iohn White’s Defence, Sept. 15, 1646, E. 4 354 (4).