Read the interview with Tom Goodman Hill, who plays John Lilburne.
There's a case for saying John Lilburne is one of the overlooked men of British history. Did you know much about him before The Devil's Whore?
I'd known of him from when I was a kid, because he's in our family tree. When my agent told me what part I was auditioning for, I was astonished. He looms large in our family history. My auntie Joan is a Lilburne, and I'd known a lot about him since I was a kid. I also went to the school that he'd been to, The Royal Grammar School in Newcastle. As did my dad, and his dad, etcetera, etcetera all the way back.
Is he a source of great family pride?
It's quite something when you've got the father of democracy somewhere back in your family tree. We're not directly descended from him, because although he and Elizabeth had lots of children, none of them bore children themselves. A lot of them died in infancy, and the one or two that survived after John died never bore children themselves. So my family is descended from the vast Lilburne family that came from his two brothers and from his aunts and uncles.
Although he was a fervent campaigner for the rights of the common man, Lilburne was from a reasonably privileged background himself, wasn't he?
He was from quite an eccentric background. His father was the last man ever to be recorded settling a land dispute by combat, which I think is absolutely brilliant. It was a fantastic mixture of the noble and the pugnacious, that family. John's brother, Robert, was known as a regicide, as he'd signed the warrant for Charles I's execution. And his other brother, George, was an MP. So they were a very politically active family. But yes, he was a noble.
So you already knew a lot about Freeborn John. Did you have to do any further research for the project?
I did a vast amount of research. I think everyone in the cast read one book or another by Pauline Gregg, who wrote a book about Charles, one about Cromwell and one about John Lilburne. Also, we laid out the family tree over the dining table.
It must make you very proud to play a role in bringing his story to light.
Yes, Peter Flannery wanted to bring his story to the fore, because it's never been examined. It was his ideas that shaped a lot of the rebellion during this time. Were it not for the Cromwell-Rainsborough-Lilburne triumvirate, none of it would have happened. It took all three of them to make it move forward.
He was a great man, but the drama makes the point that he'd never have succeeded, or even survived, were it not for his wife.
He puts his wife and family in jeopardy with his actions, but he could never have done what he did without the full support of Elizabeth. They were an extraordinary partnership, the two of them.
His legacy is incredibly far-reaching, isn't it? Aren't large chunks of the US constitution based on his writing?
Absolutely they are. Ironically, I think he's more celebrated in America than in Britain. He was considered the father of democracy by Americans before he was by the British.
