The Works of Thomas Carlyle/Volume 6/Letter 39
August 10th. The Parliamentary Commissioners have returned, and three of the leading Scots with them,—to see what is now to be done. ‘The ‘Chancellor’ who comes with Argyle is Loudon, the Scotch Chancellor, a busy man in those years. Fairfax is at Bath; and ‘the Solicitor,’ St. John the Shipmoney Lawyer, is there with him.
I desire you answer my expectation herein so far as you may. You shall very much oblige, Sir, your real friend and servant,
This is not ‘Freeborn John,’ the Sectarian Lieutenant-Colonel once in my Lord of Manchester’s Army; the Lilburn whom Cromwell spoke for, when Sir Philip Warwick took note of him; the John Lilburn ‘who could not live without a quarrel; who if he were left alone in the world would have to divide himself in two, and set the John to fight with Lilburn, and the Lilburn with John’! Freeborn John is already a Lieutenant-Colonel by title; was not in the New Model at all; is already deep in quarrels,—lying in limbo since August last, for abuse of his old master Prynne.[2] He has quarrelled, or is quarrelling, with Cromwell too; calls the Assembly of Divines an Assembly of Dry-vines;—will have little else but quarreling henceforth.—This is the Brother of Freeborn John; one of his two Brothers. Not Robert, who already is or soon becomes a Colonel in the New Model, and does not ‘want employment.’ This is Henry Lilburn; appointed, probably in consequence of this application, Governor of Tynemouth Castle: revolting to the Royalists, his own Soldiers slew him there, in 1648. These Lilburns were from Durham County.