Medieval & Early Modern
John Lilburne
1614–1657 · Leveller
Freeborn John: rights no magistrate could take away.
In their words
“The poorest he that is in England hath a life to live as the greatest he.”
Lilburne smuggled pamphlets, was whipped through the streets of London, and never stopped asserting the liberties of freeborn Englishmen: no taxation without consent, no imprisonment without charge, no self-incrimination, no licensed press. Juries twice refused to convict him, and those refusals are why such protections exist in law. His Leveller manifestos proposed written limits on Parliament itself.
Why it matters for freedom
He put the rights of the individual person above the claims of any institution, and went to prison four times saying so.
Who they stood against
the king, the Commons, and every court that claimed authority over a free-born Englishman