Free-Born John

The biography of John Lilburne
Pauline Gregg
Phoenix Press
1961

The definitive biography of a neglected but decisive figure in English history, the Leveller leader John Lilburne.

Gregg's account focuses on the Levellers' fight for legal and political rights for ordinary people, a story which has many parallels with struggles for human rights around the world today.

Lilburne's repeated confrontations with authority were pivotal for the development of English common law. Gregg shows how he used propaganda and mass organisation in a way which made him arguably the first modern political activist, and the Levellers the first modern political movement.  The book is particularly good on the network of underground printing presses which sustained the Puritan opposition to Charles I.

Required reading for anyone who wants to understand the human struggle underneath the costume drama of the English Civil War.

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