I stripped his back at the prison gates
And there this journey starts.
As the sun beat down on the bloody ground
I tied him to the cart
As the sun it burned and the cartwheel it turned
And the people lined the way,
More welcome be his Cross of Christ
Than the Devil's dirty pay. 

Chorus:
And I whipped him from Fleet Prison
Down through Temple Bar
Up the Strand past Charing Cross
To new Palace Yard.
A Free-born Englishman, a free-born Son,
I whipped him while the crowd sang
"Free-born John". 

I heard he would not take the oath, 
'Til first he'd been accused
He spoke out against the Church, the Courts
And the abuse.
At the Kings Gate some asked of me
What he had done wrong?
No crime said I
But he claims the rights of a Free-born John. 

Five hundred blows, fifteen hundred stripes,
Wounds the size of tobacco pipes
And dust in his eyes.
I stood him in the pillory
And gagged him, 'til he bled, 
He threw pamphlets to a waiting crowd,
And I believe a nation read.