Robert Lilburne

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Robert Lilburne

Robert Lilburne (1613–1665) was an English Parliamentarian soldier, the older brother of John Lilburne, the well known Leveller. Unlike his brother, who severed his relationship with Oliver Cromwell, Robert Lilburne remained in the army. He is also classed as a regicide for having been a signatory to the death warrant of King Charles I in 1649. He was forty-seventh of the fifty nine Commissioners.

Civil War

At the outbreak of the

Earl of Manchester) and by 1644 had attained the rank of captain. He then raised a regiment of horse in County Durham which became part of Lord Fairfax's Northern Association army. He joined the New Model Army and was promoted to colonel
of a regiment.

Although like his brother John, his sympathies like those of his regiment lay with the

Thomas Fairfax approached them, members of Lilburne's regiment stoned and wounded him. Oliver Cromwell
, then the second-in-command of the New Model Army, and some of his officers rode into their ranks and ordered them to take the papers from their hat bands. Cromwell had eight or nine of the more truculent of Lilburne's troopers arrested, tried at an improvised court-martial, and found guilty of mutiny. Three ringleaders were sentenced to death and, having cast lots, Private Richard Arnold was shot on the spot as an example.

Despite this incident, Fairfax appointed Lilburne Governor of

Newcastle-upon-Tyne. During the Second English Civil War, Lilburne joined Cromwell and Lambert in the defeat of the Engagers at the Battle of Preston. In December 1648, Lilburne was nominated as one of the Commissioners at the trial of Charles I, he attended the trial and signed the king's death warrant. He also took part in the siege of Pontefract Castle
, which held out against Parliament until March 1649.

During the

George Monck
in early 1654.

Interregnum

During the

Anabaptists, he supported Oliver Cromwell during first years of the Protectorate. In 1654 he was appointed Governor of York and the next year he commanded the army units that put down the Sealed Knot uprising in York. In 1654 he was elected MP for County Durham in the First Protectorate Parliament. During the Rule of the Major-Generals (1656) he was deputy to John Lambert responsible for the day-to-day administration of Yorkshire and County Durham. He was elected MP for the East Riding of Yorkshire in the Second Protectorate Parliament
. However he opposed the offer of the crown to Cromwell and was uneasy with the constitutional arrangements of the later Protectorate.

Restoration

With the death of Oliver Cromwell, Lilburne did not support Richard Cromwell but instead supported the restoration of the Rump Parliament and the reinstatement of the

high treason, and was sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quartered, but later this was commuted to life imprisonment. He died a prisoner on Drake's Island in Plymouth Sound
in August, 1665.

Family

Lilburne married Margaret, daughter of Richard Beke of Hadenham, Buckinghamshire, with whom he had three sons who survived him.[2]

Notes

  1. ^ The Agreement of the People as presented to the Army Council, October 1647.
  2. ^ Firth 1893, p. 251 cites: Biographia Britannica.

References

  • Firth, Charles Harding (1893). "Lilburne, Robert" . In Lee, Sidney (ed.). Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 33. London: Smith, Elder & Co. pp. 250, 251.
  • Spartacus: Robert Lilburne
  • Biography of Robert Lilburne British Civil Wars and Commonwealth website
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