Robert Lilburne

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Robert Lilburne

Robert Lilburne (* 1613 ; † August 1665 ) was a leader of the Levellers , politician and soldier during the English Civil War and in the Commonwealth .

Life

Robert Lilburne was the older brother of John Lilburne , the famous leveler . But unlike his brother, he did not follow Oliver Cromwell into politics, but remained in the army. When the restoration began, he was classified as one of the 47 regicides who had signed the death sentence against Charles I in 1649 .

When the English Civil War broke out , Lilburne joined the Republican Roundheads and served under Edward Montagu and was made captain. He set up a regiment of horses in County Durham , which was placed under Lord Fairfax's Northern United Army . Robert Lilburne joined the New Model Army and rose to the rank of colonel of a regiment.

King Charles I's death sentence

Although he, like his brother and like many in his regiment, had sympathy for the Levellers , he was not involved in the Corkbush Field encounter . Without orders, he marched with his regiment to Corkbush Field, hoping to obtain a manifesto for the Levellers in the army. The mutiny failed. When an army officer, Sir Thomas Fairfax , approached them, they threw stones at him and wounded him. With sword drawn, Oliver Cromwell had some of his officers ride to meet them and ordered the insurgent soldiers under Robert Lilburne of rank to tear off the banderoles on their helmets with the slogan "England's freedom, soldiers' rights" . Cromwell had eight and nine of the most unruly of Lilburne's soldiers arrested. You were convicted in an improvised express court and found guilty of mutiny. Three ringleaders were sentenced to death and had to draw a lot, Richard Arnold drew the deadless and was shot immediately as a chilling example, while the others escaped with the horror.

During the Third English Civil War he fought under Oliver Cromwell on his campaign in Scotland and, when the Scottish Army invaded England, it was Lilburne who defeated the English royalists on August 25, 1651 at the Battle of Wigan Lane . By preventing the Scots from uniting, he enabled Oliver Cromwell's victory in the Battle of Worcester , which marked the end of the English Civil Wars. In November 1651 he returned close to Scotland in the occupation army of Major General Richard Deane . In December 1562 Lilburne took command of the army in Scotland, but when he saw that he was not getting the support he was looking for from London to crush the Scottish uprising under Glencairn , he was happy to hand over the command to General George Monck in early 1654 .

During the intergovernmental period, he supported Oliver Cromwell during the first five years of his protectorate, although some officers felt he showed too much sympathy for the Levellers and the Anabaptists . In 1654 he was appointed governor of York and the next year he commanded units of the army that put down the uprising in York. He was elected to the Second Parliament for East Riding of Yorkshire . He refused to offer Oliver Cromwell the royal dignity and felt uncomfortable with the new constitutional provisions of the later Protectorate.

After the death of Oliver Cromwell, Lilburne did not support Richard Cromwell's successor, instead the restoration of the rump parliament and the restoration of the Commonwealth. He was appointed to the Army's Security Committee, assisting General John Lambert when Lambert marched against General Monck to prevent him from marching on London. When this attempt by Lambert failed and the restoration of the monarchy spread, Lilburne was arrested with other regicides living in England. He was found guilty of high treason on October 16, 1660 and sentenced to death by hanging and quartering. The sentence was later commuted to life imprisonment. He died as a prisoner on Drake's Island off Plymouth in August 1665.

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SURNAME Lilburne, Robert
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Leader of the Levellers, politicians
DATE OF BIRTH 1613
DATE OF DEATH August 1665