• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 1084 0

by George Glover in 1641. He was part of the coalition of disaffected Protestants that dominated London’s street politics in the first two years of the Long Parliament. He signed up for the parliamentary army in 1642 and by 1644 had a distinguished military record. By 1645, however, his militancy was leading him away from the military struggle and back to the world of print and polemic. He was worried by Presbyterian plans for the national church and the political influence Presbyterian leaders were apparently able to muster, and irritated both by military differences with his (Presbyterian) commanders and by what he perceived as inadequate recognition by them of his achievements. As a result he began a pamphlet assault on Presbyterian leaders, and the institutions which allowed them influence, which led to the expression of radical political principles.3

Pamphlets by, or attributed to, Richard Overton follow a similar trajectory, which began to intersect with Lilburne’s in 1645. We know much less about Overton: he may have been born around 1600 or around 1615, he may or may not have matriculated at Queens” College, Cambridge (suggesting a relatively high-status background, perhaps), he may or may not have been married to Mary between 1642 and 1644. Unlike Lilburne there is no evidence to connect him with active politics: we do not know if he was in the crowds which shaped political events between 1640 and 1642, and there is nothing to suggest that he undertook any military service. Perhaps this is a difference in generation, or of education. His pamphlets support the view that he had received a relatively advanced education. Although his background and circumstances are obscure, the intellectual journey reflected in the 150 pamphlets and writings attributed to him is relatively clear. Between 1640 and 1642 he contributed to the vast output of anti-Laudian and anti-popish pamphlets. Taking up his pen again in 1644, however, he had moved in a more radical direction, arguing for the mortality of the soul, a publication which got him into trouble alongside Milton. Orthodox soteriology (theological argument about salvation) depended on the continued existence of the soul after physical death – it was the basis of beliefs about heaven and hell (and, for Catholics, purgatory). Overton’s prominence in the world of illegal printing had probably brought him into contact with Lilburne the previous winter, if not before.4

Prior to the chance meeting on 19 July Walwyn and Lilburne had become fellow travellers in the fight against what they saw as Presbyterian intolerance. Lilburne had once been imprisoned for publicizing Henry Burton’s views and, along with Burton, Bastwick and Prynne, had suffered at the hands of the Laudian regime. By January 1645, however, he and Prynne were separated on the issue of Church government. On 2 January, Prynne’s Truth Triumphing over Falsehood had championed, intemperately, the Presbyterian cause. Both Lilburne and Walwyn were prompted to reply, as were Burton and Thomas Goodwin, a leading Independent minister and one of the authors of the Apologeticall Narration. Lilburne’s reply appeared within five days, testimony to the immediacy of the print polemic by this stage in the conflict. It was followed less than a month later by Walwyn’s A Helpe to the right understanding, which argued for freedom of conscience. Richard Overton added his own counterblasts from April onwards, his the more withering and satirical contributions. In April The Araignement of Mr Persecution put Prynne on trial before the Grand Jury of virtuous principles, and this was followed by three pamphlets copying a notorious Elizabethan pamphleteering campaign by Martin Marprelate. In both cases the associations are interesting – laying claim to religious freedom in a traditional institution of English liberties and laying claim to a longer tradition of reformation polemic. A fourth pamphlet, The Nativity of Sir John Presbyter, assumed the form of a horoscope cast by ‘Christopher Scale-Sky, Mathematition in chief to the Assembly of