amid the
acclamations of the multitude. At night bonfires were lighted in his
honour. The government made an attempt to detain him still in prison, but
in about a fortnight the general discontent of the people and the
intercession of friends procured his liberation.

(M498) (M499)

The citizens of London further testified their appreciation of this
champion of liberty by electing him a member of their Common Council on
St. Thomas's Day (21 Dec.), but upon the mayor and aldermen representing
the case to parliament the House declared his election void by
statute.(977) The matter, however, was compromised by Lilburne consenting
to take the engagement "with a declaration of his own sense upon it."(978)
Philip Chetwyn, a man somewhat of Lilburne's stamp, who had interested
himself in Lilburne's election, was ordered by parliament to lose the
freedom of the City, and was committed to Warwick Castle.(979)

(M500) (M501)

Colonel Pride, whose famous "purge" had reduced the House to a mere shadow
of its former self, and who was elected a member of the Common Council on
the same day as Lilburne, was allowed to take his seat without
objection,(980) whilst Colonel John Fenton was declared by the House to be
disabled from service as a Common Councilman. On the other hand, the
royalist alderman, Major-General Browne, had to go, notwithstanding his
past services to parliament and the army. According to the record of the
votes of the House of Commons for the 4th December, 1649, preserved in the
Journal of the Common Council, Browne was not only dismissed from
parliament, but was also discharged and disabled from being an alderman of
the city; but in the Journal of the House itself the latter resolution
relating to his discharge from his aldermanry was subsequently erased, and
a note subscribed to the effect that the vote was vacated by order of
parliament made the 26th March, 1659.(981)

(M502)

The late troubles had sadly depleted the city's Chamber as well as
increased the number of the poor within the city's walls. It became
necessary to appoint a committee (18 Sept., 1649) to examine the state of
the city's finances. The result was that in the following December the
Common Council resolved to cut down the table expenses of the mayor and
sheriffs, which were found to have materially increased since they were
last taken in hand in 1555.(982) Thenceforth it was to be unlawful for any
mayor or sheriff to be served at dinner wit