Both author and publisher were condemned to the barbarous penalty
of having their right hands cut off, as we have already recorded.
[Footnote: Cf. page 129.]
"Sturdy John," as the people called John Lilburne of Commonwealth fame,
was another purveyor of books who suffered severely at the hands of both
Royalists and Roundheads. At the early age of eighteen he began the
circulation of the books of Prynne and Bastwick, and for this enormity he
was whipped from the Fleet to Westminster, set in the pillory, gagged,
fined, and imprisoned. At a later stage in his career we find him
imprisoned in the Tower by Cromwell, for his _Just Reproof to
Haberdashers' Hall_, and fined L1,000; and his bitter attack on the
Protector, entitled _England's New Chains Discovered_, caused him to pay
another visit to the Tower and to be tried for high treason, of which he
was subsequently acquitted. To assail the "powers that be" seemed ever to
be the constant occupation of "Sturdy John" Lilburne. From the above
example, and from many others which might be mentioned, it is quite
evident that Roundheads, when they held the power, could be quite as
severe critics of publications obnoxious to them as the Royalists, and
troublesome authors fared little better under Puritan regime than they did
under the Stuart monarchs.
Another learned French printer was Etienne Dolet, who was burned to death
at Paris on account of his books in 1546.
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