He was conducted back to the Tower, whence he had been brought, 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)