in the county of Norfolk and became one of the domestic chaplains of Lord Rich at Rockford in Essex. His fellowchaplain, Robert Wright, had with the sanction of Mr. Berriman, the parish clergyman, formed a Church in his own house, and Greenwood was associated with him in the pastorate. The Bishop of London was resolved to suppress these irregularities. Both Lord Rich and Wright were imprisoned; Greenwood left Rockford, came to London and formed a secret congregation which met at the house of Henry Martin, at St. Andrews in the Wardrobe, near St. Paul's.16 Of this congregation Henry Barrowe was probably a member.

Early in October, 1586, Greenwood was arrested while conducting a service. Evans, who had been ordained by Grindal, was arrested with him. Rather more than a month later, on Sunday, November 19, Barrowe, having heard of his friend's imprisonment, went to the Clink to visit him between nine and ten o'clock in the morning. The gaoler, who knew that Whitgift was anxious to lay his hand on Barrowe, arrested him, without any warrant except Whitgift's verbal authority, and went to Lambeth with the news of his arrest. In the course of the same afternoon Barrowe was put into a boat, and taken to the Archbishop's palace, where he was examined before the Archbishop himself, the Archdeacon, and Dr. Cosins. His complaint of the illegality of his arrest was peremptorily put aside, and he was sent back to prison without being formally charged with any offence. He was brought up for examination again towards the end of November [27], towards the end of March [24], 1586-7, and in the middle of July [18]. In July, Burleigh, the Lord Treasurer, the Archbishop, the Lord Chancellor, Lord Buckhurst, the Bishop of London, Justice Young, Dr. Some, and others were present. The following extract from the examination illustrates Barrowe's ecclesiastical position.18

16 Waddington, ii. (1567-1700), 29; and idem, Congregational Martyrs, 67. Strype, Annals, iii. (1), 177-180; for details of Wright's examination and defence, ibid., iii. (2), 228-237; and Aylmer, 54-57.

17 The record-The Examinations of Henry Barrowe, John Grenewood, and John Penrie-has " 18 day of the 3 month," which, according to Barrowe's practice in dating, would be March 18. But a manuscript exists in which the date is given as July 18, and "7" may have been turned into " 3" by a printer's error (Dexter, 216, note 38).

18 The Examinations of Henry Barrowe, etc., 14-17.

Lord Treasurer.

Why are you in prison, Barrowe ? " Barrowe. "I am in prison, my Lord, upon the statute made for recusants." 19

Lord Treasurer. Barrowe. My whole desire is to come to the Church of God." Lord Treasurer. "Thou art a fantastical fellow, I see; but why not to our churches ?"

Why will you not go to church ?”

Barrowe. "My Lord, the causes are great and many.. (1) Because all the profane and wicked of the land are received into the body of your Church; (2) You have a false and Antichristian ministry set over your Church; (3) Neither worship you God aright, but after an idolatrous and superstitious manner; (4) and your Church is not governed by Christ's Testament, but by the Romish Courts and canons, etc."

Lord Treasurer. "Here is matter enough, indeed. I perceive thou takest delight to be an author of this new religion."

The Lord Chancellor said he never heard such stuff in all his life. After questions on various other subjects, the Lord Treasurer asked Barrowe whether he held tithes to be lawful.

Barrowe. My Lord, they [tithes] are abrogated and unlawful." Lord Treasurer. "Why, thou wouldest have the minister live of somewhat: whereof should he live?"

Barrowe. Ex pura eleemosyna. Of clear [clean?] alms, as Christ in his testament hath ordained, and as he and his apostles." Lord Treasurer. "But how if the people will not give ?

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Barrowe. Such are not the people of God."

Lord Treasurer. "But what shall the ministers do in the meantime ?"

Barrowe. "Not stand a minister to such, neither take the goods of the profane." 20

About the same time that Barrowe was examined at Whitehall before Burleigh, Whitgift, and other great authorities both civil and ecclesiastical, Greenwood was examined by the Bishop of London at his palace. They were sent back to the Fleet, and there they remained for several years.21

Barrowe and Greenwood were not alone in their sufferings. In 1588 a Memorial was presented to Lord Burleigh from 19 By this time, apparently, a warrant had been issued charging him with the offence for which he was imprisoned.

20 It was a great point with Barrowe that we have religious communion with those who contribute with us to a common fund for religious purposes. He would, therefore, not allow the contributions of those outside the Church to go into the church treasury or to be received for the maintenance of church worship or church work.

21 Examinations of Henry Barrowe, etc., 18-21. Penry was examined by Fanshaw and Young, but the place is not stated, ibid., 21 foll. The Fleet prison occupied the site of the present Congregational Memorial Hall in Farringdon Street.

ΙΟ

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many poor Christians, imprisoned by the bishops in sundry prisons in and about London." The memorialists say :

Pleaseth it then your lordship to understand, that we, her Majesty's loyal, dutiful, and true-hearted subjects, to the number of threescore persons and upwards, have, contrary to all law and equity, been imprisoned, separated from our trades, wives, children, and families; yea, shut up close prisoners from all comfort; many of us the space of two years and an half, upon the bishop's sole commandment, in great penury and noisomeness of the prisons; many ending their lives, never called to trial; some haled forth to the sessions; some cast in irons and dungeons; some in hunger and famine all of them debarred from any lawful audience before our honourable governors and magistrates, and from all benefit and help of the laws: daily defamed, and falsely accused by published pamphlets, private suggestions, open preaching, slanders, and accusations of heresy, sedition, schism, and what not. And above all, (which most utterly toucheth our salvation,) they keep us from all spiritual comfort, and edifying, by doctrine, prayer, or mutual conference." 22

Ten of the number had died; the surviving memorialists pray that they may be brought to trial-" and if anything be found in us worthy of death or bonds, let us be made an example to all posterity: if not, we entreat for some compassion to be shown in equity according to law for our relief." 23

Early in 1589 the Bishop of London was directed by Whitgift and the two Chief Justices to arrange for the visitation of these contumacious persons by selected clergymen who were to seek by all learned and discrete demeanour to reduce them from their errors." But these kindly and brotherly visits had another and very different purpose. The visiting clergymen were to take notes of what the prisoners said-to take notes so carefully as to be able to swear in a court of justice that the words were actually spoken by the prisoners.24 It came to this: if the prisoners recanted their opinions about the Prayer Book, the ecclesiastical laws, and the Queen's supremacy over the Church, it would be well, and they might be set at liberty; but if in the warmth of discussion, or in the frankness with which they opened their hearts to a 22 Strype, Annals, iv. 128-129.

23 Waddington, Congregaional Martyrs, 86; see also 85-87.

24 A Collection of certaine Sclaunderous Articles . . . also the some of certain conferences had in the Fleet (1590), 6.

Christian brother who was visiting them in their trouble, they spoke incautiously, and used words on which a legal prosecution might be rested, what they said was to be brought against them on their trial. The visiting clergyman was to discharge two incongruous functions: he was to be a zealous and compassionate pastor charitably endeavouring to rescue a Christian soul from perilous errors; and he was to be a government spy eager to obtain from the prisoner's own lips decisive proof of disloyalty to the Crown. Nor was it only against the prisoners that evidence was to be obtained in these remarkable pastoral visits: it might also be possible to obtain the names of their associates. "Who be those saints you speak of where are they?" asked one of these clergymen of Barrowe. Barrowe was too keen for him-" They are even those poor Christians whom you so blaspheme and persecute and now most unjustly hold in your prisons."-" But where is their congregation?"-" Though I knew I purposed not to tell you." 25

The treatment which the prisoners received varied at different times; it probably varied in different prisons. Many of them complained of the dark, damp, and foul dungeons in which they were confined. Some-as the memorial stateswere put in irons. Some were beaten with cudgels. Sometimes they were forbidden to see each other. But these severities were not always maintained. Occasionally a kindly gaoler allowed one of his prisoners to go out to see his friends and children. Still more frequently the prisoners were allowed to meet together for worship, reading the Scriptures, and mutual exhortation. Barrowe and Greenwood, during the greater part of the time they were imprisoned together, appear to have been treated very badly. The books they wrote were produced under difficulties which would have crushed the spirit of men of weaker fibre and inferior courage. They were denied proper materials for writing, and had to use what scraps of paper came in their way or were secretly furnished them by their friends. Their manuscript was sent out of the prison secretly, a page or two one week, a page or two the next, by any hand they could trust. They could keep no copy of what they wrote, and they saw no "proofs." The printers in Holland to whom

25 Ibid., 28-29.

these fragments were generally sent had to make what they could of them; and, on the whole, did their work fairly well.26

Barrowe's principal work, a small quarto of rather less than two hundred and eighty pages, appeared in 1590, under the title A Brief Discoverie of the False Church.27 It is subscribed on the last page "By the Lord's most unworthy servant and witnes in bondes, Henry Barrowe." The motto on the title page-" As the Mother such the Daughter is " (Ezekiel xvi. 44) -indicates the spirit and substance of the book. Barrowe insists that the English Church is the daughter of the Roman apostasy, and is infected with the vices, corruptions, and superstitions of her origin. He denounces the corrupt communion of the English Establishment which includes—

"all the profane and wicked of the land, Atheists, Papists, Anabaptists, and heretics of all sorts, gluttons, rioters, blasphemers, perjurers, covetous, extortioners, thieves witches, conjurers, etc., and who not, that dwelleth within this island, or is within the Queen's dominion. 'All without exception or respect of person are received into, and nourished in the bosom of this Church, with the word and sacraments." . . . "All this people, with all these manners, were in one day, with the blast of Queen Elizabeth's trumpet, of ignorant Papists and gross idolaters, made faithful Christians and true professors." 28

He is equally severe on the ministry of the Establishment. He maintains that its archbishops, bishops, deans, archdeacons, rectors, curates and the rest hold offices and discharge functions which were never instituted by Christ. He contended that the English Establishment was governed by those to whom Christ had given no authority in His Church, and that those who had received authority from Christ had no power. Christ, he said, has committed to the Church,

26 In Barrowe's Brief Discoverie of the False Church (A. iii.) he says, "If some unperfect sentences, or superfluous repetitions arise in the reading, attribute those to his weakened memory, that is but a little cherished, as also, to the inconvenience of the place, through the iniquity of the times where such was the rage of the enemy, as he might not keep one sheet by him, whiles he was writing of another, having also as evil means to revise or retract that he had written: so no wonder though many things escaped which might with more diligence have been prevented."

27 There is a fictitious reprint of this work (1707), in which, without any intimation, the editor has struck out of the text whatever offended his taste.

28 A Brief Discoverie, 9-10.