KIFFEN, William (1616-1701), of Bethnal Green, Mdx.

Despite the existence of an autobiography, the details of Kiffen’s early life are sketchy. His surname is Welsh in origin, but he was probably born in London, and he later said that in 1625, his parents having died of the plague, he was left in the care of relatives who lost his inheritance in an ill-fated business venture.17Orme, Kiffin, 2. In 1629 he was apprenticed to what he described as a ‘mean calling’. According to some, he was apprenticed to John Lilburne in the brewing trade, but although Lilburne later described him as ‘once my servant’, their relationship is unlikely to have been that of master and apprentice as Lilburne was two years Kiffen’s junior.18Edwards, Gangraena i. 55; Lilburne, The Legall Fundamentall Liberties, 19. More plausibly, others said that Kiffen had been apprenticed to a glover, and he is recorded as being admitted as a freeman of the Leathersellers’ Company in 1638.19The Life and Approaching Death of William Kiffin (1659), 1-2 (E.1017.4); Black, Leathersellers, 67n; B. White, ‘William Kiffin – Baptist Pioneer’, Baptist Hist. and Heritage ii (1967), 94; Kreitzer, William Kiffen …(Pt. 1), 2. In 1631 he had run away from his master, but after escaping from the house he was attracted by a crowd of people to attend a sermon by the puritan Thomas Foxley on ‘the duty of servants to masters’. Taking this as a sign from God, Kiffen immediately returned to his master, and resolved to pursue a godly life. Kiffen continued his religious development in the 1630s, attending the lectures of a number of puritan ministers around London, and joining a group of fellow apprentices in early morning prayer meetings. Around 1638 he became a member of Samuel Eaton’s Independent congregation at Devonshire Square. He was tempted to emigrate to New England, but abandoned his plans on his marriage to Hannah, another member of the congregation, and after Eaton’s death in September 1639 he was chosen minister as his successor.20Orme, Kiffin, 3-14; M. Tolmie, The Triumph of the Saints (1977), 22; S. Wright, The Early English Baptists, 1603-49 (Woodbridge, 2006), 232.

In 1641 Kiffen promoted the publication of John Lilburne’s pamphlet, The Christian Mans Triall, of which he probably wrote the preface, and in the same year he wrote the epistle to the reader in another tract, A Glimpse of Sion’s Glory, in which the phrase ‘the Congregational way’ was used for the first time.21Lilburne, The Christian Mans Triall (1641), preface (E.181.7); G.F. Nuttall, Visible Saints (Oswestry, 2001), 8n. In March 1642 Kiffen was indicted at the Southwark assizes for non-attendance at church and for involvement in a non-conformist conventicle, and he was imprisoned by Chief Justice Malet. Despite the intercession of Robert Greville, 2nd Baron Brooke, Malet refused to grant bail, and Kiffen’s release was only secured when Malet himself was imprisoned in the Tower by Parliament.22Orme, Kiffin, 16-19; Tolmie, Saints, 49; Kreitzer, William Kiffen … (Pt. 1), 6-8. In 1643 Kiffen embarked on his first trading venture to Holland which was sufficiently successful to allow him to continue as a self-financed preacher to his congregation.23Orme, Kiffin, 22-3. There is some debate as to when Kiffen became a Baptist, but his allegiance was in no doubt in 1644, when he signed the Particular Baptists’ Confession of Faith, which became the theological foundation stone of the sect. In the same year, he called on the Presbyterian Thomas Edwards for an open disputation on their religious differences.24‘Letter from William Kiffin’ (15 Nov. 1644, E.17.6); Oxford DNB; Tolmie, Saints, 55-7. In 1645 he was invited to debate baptism with Edmund Calamy and other ministers in a ‘conference and private disputation’, which was cancelled at the last minute for fear that the Baptists ‘intended to manage that dispute with our swords, clubs and staves’.25A Declaration Concerning the Publike Dispute (1645), 1, 4 (E.313.22); Wright, English Baptists, 147. In 1646 Kiffen was one of the victims of Edwards’s Gangraena, in which he is described as a ‘mountebank’ and his congregation as a ‘schismatical rabble of deluded children, servants and people without either parents’ or masters’ consent’.26Edwards, Gangraena (1646), i. 55. In March 1647 Kiffen was examined by the committee against lay preaching, and ordered to desist.27Wright, English Baptists, 168-9. He remained a prominent figure in radical circles, however, and in September Sir Lewis Dyve† encouraged Charles I to approach him during secret negotiations for a proposed settlement. Their meeting was considered so successful that Dyve had hopes of bringing the army over to the king if the same satisfaction could be given to them.28Dyve Letter Bk., 90, 92; Wright, English Baptists, 172.

Kiffen’s influence increased during the commonwealth. The council of state solicited his advice on the promotion of trade in September 1649, and, despite being investigated for customs irregularities in the spring of 1652, a year later he was again advising the government on matters of trade.29CSP Dom. 1649-50, p. 308; 1651-2, pp. 203, 217, 239, 241, 243, 558; 1652-3, pp. 523, 568, 616. Kiffen’s efforts to encourage the sects to support the regime made him a controversial figure. In April 1649 he was at the head of a delegation which presented ‘The Humble Petition and Representation of several Churches of God in London commonly, though falsely called Anabaptists’ to the Commons, disavowing the publication of the Leveller tract, England’s Second Chains.30CJ vi. 177-8. An enraged Lilburne described Kiffen and his colleagues as ‘a pack of daubing fawning knaves for so doing’ and suggested that Kiffen had been put up to it by Members of the House.31Lilburne, Picture of the Council of State (1649), postscript (E.550.14); Tolmie, Saints, 182-3. In spite of their stormy relationship, in April 1652 Lilburne considered Kiffen as a sufficiently close friend to entrust him with the care of his family during his exile, and on his return a year later, it was Kiffen who accompanied Elizabeth Lilburne to seek clemency for her husband from Oliver Cromwell*.32Appollogetical Narration (1652), 60-61 (E.659.30); The Banished Mans Suit for Protection (1653, 669.f.17.16). In the meantime, Kiffen continued to support the government, joining Henry Jessey and Hanserd Knollys in signing a declaration opposing calls for a new Parliament to be called in the aftermath of the battle of Worcester in September 1651.33J. Halcomb, ‘A social History of Congregational Religious Practice during the Puritan Revolution’ (Cambridge Univ. PhD thesis, 2010), 171. Kiffen’s attachment to the government was confirmed in July 1653, when he was one of those given official permission to preach.34CSP Dom. 1653-4, p. 13. In the same month, Kiffen joined other Baptist leaders in writing to the congregations in Wales encouraging them to continue their work, and asking for information of other churches ‘that are one with us in the sound principles of truth’.35The Ilston Bk., ed. B.G. Owens (Aberystwyth, 1996), 63-4. In November 1653 Kiffen conducted a spirited dispute on the ‘imposition of hands’ with Dr Peter Chamberlain.36Discourse between Cap. Kiffin and Dr Chamberlain (1654, E.735.4).

In January 1654 Kiffen signed an open letter appealing to all Baptists not to oppose the newly-formed protectorate, and accusing the Fifth Monarchists of bringing ‘shame and contempt to the whole nation’ by their behaviour.37Original Letters, ed. Nickolls, 159-60. The following month Kiffen was present when Cromwell interviewed the imprisoned Fifth Monarchist, John Rogers. His hostile behaviour ‘against the poor persecuted saints’ on this occasion was soon denounced in print, and he was attacked as one of the protector’s ‘time-servers and self-seekers’ who acted ‘in behalf of him to whom he is so highly obliged (above any one man almost in England) for his large favours and beneficial patentees’.38Abbott, Writings and Speeches iii. 615; A Faithful Narrative of the Late Testimony and Demand (1655), 37, 41 (E.830.20). Such taunts were not without foundation. Kiffen was clearly close to Cromwell in the mid-1650s. As the Rogers interview suggests, he was an occasional adviser on religious issues, and went on to be involved in other matters close to the protector’s heart, such as the collection of money for the Protestants of Savoy, and the discussions with Menasseh Ben Israel for the readmission of the Jews in 1655.39CSP Dom. 1655, pp. 182, 197; 1655-6, p. 23; Publick Intelligencer no. 11 (10-17 Dec. 1655), 276. Kiffen also enjoyed a degree of influence in matters of trade, especially in woollen goods. He petitioned the council concerning the confiscation of cloth in Lancashire in March 1654; he argued before the council against a monopoly in the woollen trade in May 1655; he received a discount from his own customs bill in August 1656; and was supplying both the protectoral household and the Swedish ambassador with cloth and other goods in the autumn of 1656.40CSP Dom. 1654, p. 38; 1655-6, p. 335; 1656-7, pp. 79, 90, 100, 121; Add. 32471, f. 5v; PRO, DK Rep. v. Appx. ii. 247.

Kiffen’s election as MP for Middlesex in August 1656 was deeply controversial. Early in the month, there were threats that Kiffen and other government-sponsored candidates would be opposed by Fifth Monarchists, and as a result the contest was conducted in the presence of large numbers of soldiers. The military presence did not prevent trouble from another quarter, however, as ‘the country people fell upon them pell-mell, crying out “No Anabaptist!”’.41TSP v. 286, 337, 349. After this explosive start, Kiffen’s parliamentary career proved surprisingly tame. In what may be a sign of his continuing loyalty to the regime, on 26 September he was named to the committee to consider the bill for the security of the lord protector.42CJ vii. 429a. His own vested interests may have influenced his inclusion, on 17 October, in the committee for removing obstructions to the sale of forfeited estates.43CJ vii. 440b. (Kiffen had purchased confiscated crown lands at Theobalds, Hertfordshire, in 1652, although he later claimed that he ‘was wary of meddling with any public land’.44C54/3689/18; Orme, Kiffin, 23.) In mid-December 1656 Kiffen joined the debate on the fate of the Quaker, James Naylor.45L. Kreitzer, ‘William Kiffen and the trial of the Quaker Jesus’, in William Kiffen…(Pt. 3). While accepting that Naylor was a ‘vile wretch’ and a ‘horrid blasphemer’, Kiffen argued against Nathaniel Bacon’s* scriptural justification for the death penalty and moved that the question be put for a smaller punishment.46Burton’s Diary i. 133, 154.

Kiffen’s efforts on behalf of Naylor did nothing to mollify his enemies among the ‘saints’, however. On 5 January 1657, he was attending the congregation at Allhallows the Great in London when Christopher Feake denounced the protectorate as anti-Christian and likened it to Babylon. Kiffen and two friends intervened, ‘manifesting the dangerousness of his spirit and doctrine in both these particulars’ and for their pains were shouted down, with ‘many crying out, “Mr Kiffen is a courtier”’.47TSP v. 559; B. Capp, The Fifth Monarchy Men (1972), 117. The very next day Kiffen attended a meeting of the committee of trade at which he again argued against monopoly in the woollen trade by the merchant adventurers.48Burton’s Diary i. 309. Although Kiffen was not listed among those who voted in favour of kingship, it is interesting that he did not sign the Baptist letter of 2 April objecting to the re-introduction of monarchy, and he was attacked in print as a fellow traveller who had received favours from Cromwell and ‘thereby engaged to become his vassal, and to command a company of foot in the new militia to support his tyranny, whilst the saints and others are imprisoned for opposing it’.49A Narrative of the Late Parliament (Feb. 1658), 18 (E.935.5); B.R. White, English Baptists of the Seventeenth Century, (1996), 84. During the spring, Kiffen’s committee appointments were uncontroversial. On 1 April he was named to a committee to consider a petition from the lord mayor, aldermen and common council of London.50CJ vii. 516b. On 9 May he was appointed to a committee to prevent unauthorised building in and around London.51CJ vii. 531b. On 1 June he was added to the committee on the recusancy bill.52CJ vii. 543b. The only other sign of Kiffen’s attachment to the regime came on 23 June, when he was named to a committee to draft the oath to be taken by Cromwell, the settling of the council and other matters arising from the final version of the Humble Petition and Advice.53CJ vii. 570b. He is not mentioned in the records of the second session of the Parliament, in what may be another indication of his political reticence. A later critic contrasted Kiffen’s parliamentary activities with his preaching, saying that ‘you would wonder one and the same man could be so silent and clamorous, but he was Will the Whisperer to the one, and the Bawler to the other’.54The Life and Approaching Death of William Kiffin, 4-5.

Despite his long-standing belief that the established authority should always be obeyed, Kiffen had become disillusioned with the protectoral regime by the beginning of 1658. On the day after the dissolution of Parliament in February, one newsletter reported that Kiffen ‘professeth plainly his dislike of the [protector] in the way he is in’.55D. Hirst, ‘Cromwell and the Officers in 1658’, EHR lxxxiii. 105. Kiffen spent much of the late 1650s encouraging the spread of Baptist congregations, and he attended the conference of the western Baptists at Dorchester in May 1658, where he opposed proposals to unite with the Fifth Monarchists.56Capp, Fifth Monarchy Men, 122. His discontent grew after the death of Oliver Cromwell in the following September. In February 1659 he joined Josias Berners* and Samuel Moyer* in representing the pro-republican London petition to the third protectorate Parliament. Thomas Clarges* noted that the petition was ‘the same that was endeavoured the last session of the last Parliament, and caused his highness to dissolve them’, and on this occasion the Commons refused to have it read.57TSP vii. 609, 617. Kiffen welcomed the collapse of the protectorate in May, and supported the restored Rump. He was commissioned as lieutenant-colonel of one of the London militia regiments and appointed to the Middlesex militia commission in July, and in October he supported the military coup.58CJ vii. 735b, 747b; A. and O. In November he was among the London militia commissioners who wrote to General George Monck* expressing their disapproval of his massing of forces in the north.59A True Narrative of the Proceedings of Parliament (1659), 63 (E.1010.24). With the second restoration of the Rump and Monck’s return to London, Kiffen lost his place on the militia committee and, in February 1660, he was arrested on Monck’s orders and his house searched for arms. He was released after petitioning the lord mayor.60Davies, Restoration, 257; Orme, Kiffin, 26-27.

Kiffen lived a long and eventful life after the Restoration. He was arrested in December 1660 on suspicion of involvement in a plot to murder the princess of Orange and again in 1661 in connection with Venner’s insurrection. In 1663, while before the privy council to put the case against a monopoly of the woollen trade, he apparently so impressed Charles II that the king henceforth refused to believe accusations of sedition made against him. Kiffen also counted the 1st earl of Clarendon (Edward Hyde*) and Katherine Jones, Lady Ranelagh among his friends. His house was searched, however, in connection with the Rye House Plot in 1683, and two of his grandsons were executed for their part in Monmouth’s rebellion. Kiffen was made an alderman of London by a commission from James II in 1687, although he served reluctantly and only for nine months. He died on 29 December 1701 and was buried in a family plot in the non-conformist cemetery at Bunhill Fields.61Orme, Kiffin, 28-9, 35-6, 39-40, 85.