Born in Sunderland and brought up near Bishop Auckland in County Durham, ‘free-born’ John Lilburne became a leader of the Leveller movement, and one of the dominant personalities of the turbulent seventeenth century in England. Simon Webb’s biography offers an accessible introduction to this fascinating figure, whose fearless support of the rights of ordinary people made him a thorn in the side of both royalist and republican governments. A Durham Quaker himself, the author is uniquely placed both to examine how Lilburne’s northern roots influenced his career as a political agitator, and how this uniquely restless soul came to embrace Quakerism in his last days.