BARBON, Praise or Praise-God (c.1599-1679), of Fleet Street, London.

Barbon’s ancestry and his birthplace are unknown, and problems arise concerning his Christian name. Although known to his contemporaries as ‘Praise-God’, he consistently signs himself as ‘Praise’, and it is questionable whether even this was his baptismal name. Barbon made his first appearance in the historical record when he was apprenticed to the Leathersellers’ Company under John Attwood, and during the 1620s he began to practise his trade and took an active part in the affairs of his company. He rented the Lock and Key Warehouse at the corner of Fleet Street and Fetter Lane and soon became a relatively prosperous merchant, selling Spanish leather and Muscovy hides.11SP16/540/128-9; REQ1/141, f. 19. He joined the Honourable Artillery Company in November 1627.12Ancient Vellum Bk., 42. In 1630 he was made warden of yeomanry in the Leathersellers’ Company, and in 1634 he became a liveryman.13N. and Q. ser. 3, i. 211. By 1632 Barbon had become a member of the separatist church under the pastorate of John Lathrop, as on 29 April of that year he was one of those arrested by the bishop’s pursuivant for attending the services.14C. Burrage, Early English Dissenters, 1556-1641 (2 vols. Cambridge 1912), ii. 296. Most of ‘these saints’, possibly including Barbon, were detained in prison for two years before being released on bail, but ‘not one of those that were taken did recant or turn back from the truth, through fear or through flattery or cunning slights, but all were the more strengthened thereby’.15B. Stinton, A Repository of Divers Historical Matters referring to the English Antipedobaptists (1712), 5. During 1635 Barbon paid £67 Ship Money in New Romney, Kent, on behalf of the mayor of the borough, Daniel Duke, but the connection between the two men has not been established. The receipt shows Barbon’s seal, ‘a device of death as a skeleton bearing a dart with a motto’.16CSP Dom. 1635, p. 609. In January 1637 he was a witness in a case in the court of admiralty concerning leather goods, wine and other cargo on a ship bound for Virginia in October 1635, the other witnesses including the future Fifth Monarchist leader, Thomas Venner.17High Ct. Admiralty Exams. 1637-8, ed. Shilton and Holworthy (1932), 1, 116.

By 1640 the separatist congregation which Barbon attended had become too numerous to meet safely in one place so ‘after many consultations among themselves and advice taken with others, but especially asking counsel from above’ it divided into two churches in June of that year. Half followed Henry Jessey while Barbon, ‘the reverend unlearned leatherseller’, was chosen pastor of the remainder, which henceforward met at his warehouse.18Burrage, Early English Dissenters ii. 302, 325; M.R. Watts, The Dissenters from the Reformation to the French Revolution (1978), 71. He soon became a familiar figure in London as an example of the new sort of preacher and a lay pastor who made his living in a secular occupation, and this is probably when he acquired his nickname of ‘Praise-God’.19M. Tolmie, Triumph of the Saints (Cambridge, 1977), 19. But at a time when hostile mobs could be gathered against sectaries almost as readily as against bishops, Barbon’s congregation was attacked on 19 December 1641. According to hostile pamphleteers ‘a whole swarm of Brownists’, numbering between 100 and 150 and containing as many women as men, were gathered at the Lock and Key to hear Barbon preach ‘as the spirit moved him’ of hell and damnation. He preached for more than five hours but ‘yelped so loud with an horrid exclamation’ that a mob gathered who, becoming impatient with his ‘heretical opinions’, went on the rampage, and removed the warehouse sign, intending to use the hooks as a gallows to hang Barbon. Several members of the congregation were arrested and Barbon ‘and his whole swarm’ were called to answer for their ‘troublesome distractions and confused disturbances in the street’.20The Discovery of a swarm of separatists (1641), Sig. A2, A3 (E.180.25); [J. Taylor], New Preachers New (1641, E.180.26); Tolmie, Saints, 38.

Throughout the period of worsening relations between king and Parliament, and the outbreak of the civil war, Barbon was embroiled in religious controversy and in particular the question of infant baptism, which was causing trouble among the London separatist churches. Although often called a Baptist, Barbon was a steadfast opponent of the practice of rebaptizing believers and defended infant baptism as ‘warrantable and agreeable to the word of God’. In 1642 he published a pamphlet on the subject but was at pains to point out that he did not intend to attack Baptists personally, ‘some of which are my loving friends’ who ‘seem to have the zeal of God’ but ‘miss it only in the point of baptism’. Any differences existing among the godly, he argued, were ‘of an inferior kind, being only for the most part about outward worship and the right way of serving God’.21Tomlie, Saints, 24, 54; P. Barbon, A Discourse tending to prove Baptism (1642), Sig. A2 (E.138.23). By 1644 the controversy over baptism had led to the secession of William Kiffen*, who advocated believers’ baptism, from Henry Jessey’s church. Barbon, together with the leaders of several other Independent churches, was called to a conference in May to decide what action should be taken against the seceders.22Tomlie, Saints, 55-6. The following year Barbon, in another tract in defence of infant baptism, claimed that ‘the main work of this present age’ was ‘to serve God purely’. He warned

all persons to take heed to their setting out at the first, for want whereof this and other errors have been fallen into by not a few. A person missing his way at the first setting out, the further he goeth the further out and to seek; even so it is in this, one error begetteth another and another; and there is no end till men sit down in darkness.23P. Barbon, Defence of the Lawfulnesse of Baptising Infants (1645), Sig. A3.

As a semi-separatist, Barbon was able to play a part in the business of his parish, St Dunstan-in-the-West, as well as holding his own private meetings. He soon came into conflict with the Presbyterian vicar, Anthony Perne, and his supporters, leading to a series of disputes and legal actions in the mid-1640s over such issues as the establishment of a free school and the election of churchwardens.24Oxford DNB. With the rise of the Independents in the City, Barbon’s position in the parish became more secure. From April 1647 he was regularly appointed as an auditor for the churchwardens’ and collectors’ accounts, and in January and December 1649 he was chosen as a constable of the parish.25GL, MS 3016/1, pp. 293, 333, 345, 351, 385, 461. By the summer of 1649 he was evidently a man of substance and in July he was one of four sureties in £500 each for Dr Aaron Guerdon, the newly-appointed master of the Mint.26CSP Dom. 1649-50, p. 249. Despite his local respectability, Barbon remained closely linked with the fortunes of the London radicals. After the purge of the Presbyterians from the city government in the early months of the commonwealth he was one of a group of radical city separatist leaders returned to the common council from December 1649, where he represented the ward of Farringdon Without.27GL, MS 3016/1, p. 353; Tolmie, Saints, 187. He retained his place on the common council until December 1651 when, although nominated, he was not elected.28GL, MS 3016/1, pp. 375, 377, 390. On 18 April 1650 Barbon was appointed to his local parish vestry, and soon became one of the most active members, attending all the meetings until the summer of 1653.29GL, MS 3016/1, pp. 356, 358-79, 381-92, 395-408, 411.

The high point of Barbon’s political career came in June 1653, when he was summoned, as ‘Praise-God Barebone’, to attend the Nominated Assembly.30Harl. 6810, ff. 164-5; CSP Dom. 1652-3, p. 386. It is not clear whether Barbon owed his summons to the nomination of the London congregational churches or to the religious radicals among the nominating officers who shared his beliefs.31Woolrych, Commonwealth to Protectorate, 127. The ridiculing of the Nominated Assembly began almost as soon as it met and within a short time critics had nicknamed it ‘Barebone’s Parliament’, perhaps because he came close to the stereotype of those who sat, described by Sir Edward Hyde* as ‘inferior persons, of no quality or name, artificers of the meanest trades; known only by their gifts in praying and preaching’.32Clarendon, Hist. v. 282; Woolrych, Commonwealth to Protectorate, 165. Although Hyde claimed that Barbon was ‘an eminent speaker’ in the Parliament, he was appointed to only seven committees, and acted as a teller in seven divisions. On 7 July he was appointed to the committee to prepare a declaration announcing the assembly to be a Parliament.33CJ vii. 282b. This was followed, on 19 July, by an appointment to the important committee on the contentious issue of tithes, where Barbon was one of the supporters of Major-general Thomas Harrison I*, who believed their abolition was a step towards establishing the kingdom of God on earth.34CJ vii. 286a. The following day Barbon was appointed to the committee for receiving petitions.35CJ vii. 287a. On 23 July, as part of the efforts to reform the court of admiralty, he acted as a teller for the yeas in the unsuccessful motion suggesting that a civil lawyer should replace the third admiralty judge.36CJ vii. 289a. At the end of the month, when a petition subscribed by more than 6,000 women in favour of the Leveller John Lilburne was brought to the Commons by 12 of their number, the House ‘sent out Praise-God Barbon to dissuade them from their enterprise, but he could not prevail’.37Bodl. Clarendon 46, f. 131v; Burton’s Diary i. p. v; Woolrych, Commonwealth to Protectorate, 255. He was also sent to receive a London petition on Lilburne’s behalf on 2 August.38CJ vii. 294a-b.

Barbon was one of the radical MPs who favoured overhauling the entire legal system to make it ‘more agreeable with the word of God’ and on 19 August he was named to the committee, alongside such men as Andrew Broughton, Thomas Harrison I and Hugh Courtney, to consider a new body of the law.39CJ vii. 304b. On 8 September he joined Samuel Moyer as teller against a clause in the bill on Irish Adventurers, presumably to protect the interests of the City of London.40CJ vii. 316a. When Parliament considered the question of Roman Catholics, Barbon was one of several radicals added to the committee for raising money for bringing in rules for commissioners to compound with delinquents on 13 September.41CJ vii. 317b. As mounting evidence of a royalist conspiracy appeared, the council of state initiated a bill to establish a high court of justice, but its reading on 28 September was for abandoned for lack of time. It was moved that the bill should be reported the following day and the division saw Barbon and Arthur Squibb acting as tellers for the unsuccessful ‘noes’.42CJ vii. 325b. Barbon was once again involved in the campaign for law reform on 4 October when he acted as a teller against the motion to add two lawyers to the commissions of the upper bench.43CJ vii. 329b. A week later he was again a teller, this time successfully, opposing the passing of the bill to give the benefit of the act of pardon to the royalist Charles Cavendish*, Lord Mansfield.44CJ vii. 334a. When the bill to establish a high court of justice was eventually introduced on 13 October, Barbon was one of nine radicals and four moderates who were appointed to a committee to consider it.45CJ vii. 334b. On 21 October the bill enabling the compounding commissioners to dispose of recusants’ lands was read in the House. After a long debate the House divided and Barbon acted as a teller for the unsuccessful group opposing the bill.46CJ vii. 337b. His opposition was probably because, severe though the bill was, it was considered to extend toleration to Catholics.47Woolrych, Commonwealth to Protectorate, 305. Other matters were less controversial, and on 18 November, after a debate on the bill for the sale and improvement of forests, houses and other property belonging to the king, Barbon acted as a teller with the moderate Cromwellian, Sir Gilbert Pykeringe*, in a division over the salaries to be paid to the trustees.48CJ vii. 352b.

After the dissolution of Nominated Assembly and the establishment of the protectorate in December 1653, Barbon seems to have concentrated on business affairs. His local standing had been dented by recent events, and in April 1654 he was not chosen for the vestry of St Dunstan-in-the-West (although he soon bounced back, being re-elected in April 1655 and in subsequent elections, attending regularly until the end of the decade).49GL, MS 3016/1, pp. 411, 455-67, 471-82, 487-503, 509-534, 535-557. He continued to preach to his London congregation, which from 1654 became associated with the Fifth Monarchists, although Barbon himself does not appear to have supported their manifesto. Although Barbon did not sign the Declaration of Several of the Churches of Christ that attacked the government in September 1654, it is telling that 22 of his congregation did.50L.F. Brown, The Political Activities of the Baptists and Fifth Monarchy Men (1911), 54-5; A Declaration of Several Churches of Christ (1654), 22 (E.809.15). His resistance to the protectorate was passive, as in June 1655, when he was reported to the council of state for refusing to pay his assessment.51Clarke Pprs iii. 43. In December of the same year he was nominated as a radical candidate in the common council elections but was not chosen, and his re-entry to City politics had to wait until December 1657, when he was finally allowed to re-join the common council.52GL, MS 3016/1, pp. 463, 466, 494, 499. Although he remained aloof from national politics, in the late 1650s Barbon’s name was synonymous with radicalism. In February 1659, for example, when the Commons were debating the bill for recognition of the protector, Samuel Moyer* presented a petition requesting the establishment of a ‘commonwealth without a supreme magistrate’, but the petitioners were scornfully dismissed as ‘only those of Praise-God Barbon’s gang’.53Henry Cromwell Corresp., 456.

Barbon became more prominent after the fall of the protectorate in the spring of 1659. In July he was appointed one of the commissioners for the London militia.54Mystery of the Good Old Cause (1660), 54 (E.1923.2); A. and O. His appointment as comptroller for sequestrations, with a salary of £300, on 8 October, may have been intended to pacify the sectaries whose schemes for a new constitution had been rejected by Parliament.55CJ vii. 794a. In 1659 the Fifth Monarchist pamphlet A Faithful Searching Home Word alleged that Barbon was the author of An Exact Relation, detailing events in the Nominated Assembly.56A Faithfull Searching Home Word (1659), 17 (E.774.1). It appears, however, that the Fifth Monarchists were mistaken and that the author was in fact Samuel Hyland*.57Gardiner, Hist. of Commonwealth and Protectorate ii. 288-9. Barbon was one of the few radicals to be re-elected to the common council in December, but he was less frequently appointed to that body’s committees.58D.C. Elliot, ‘Elections to the Common Council of the City of London, 21 Dec. 1659’, Guildhall Studies in London Hist. iv. 165, 173, 199.

During the opening months of 1660, Barbone became extremely active in London in a last-ditch attempt to save the Good Old Cause. Described as ‘a great rogue for Rumps’ he opposed one common council’s decision to send the City’s compliments to George Monck*, ‘saying the City was much to blame to send commissioners to General Monck (and recalling the word “general” said he was but a commissioner and no general) before they had owned the Parliament’.59Bodl. Clarendon 68, f. 175v. On 9 February, Barbon, at ‘the head of a crowd of sectaries’, presented a petition to Parliament ‘in the name of the lovers of the Good Old Cause’, demanding that office holders be required, on pain of treason, to abjure Charles II and to denounce rule by a single person, for which he received the thanks of the House.60CJ vii. 838a; Clarendon, Hist. vi. 170-2; Whitelocke, Mems. iv. 395; The petition of Mr P.G. Barebone and several others to the Parliament (1660). Monck and his officers were quick to denounce Barbon and his supporters as ‘a rabble of infamous varlets, who desired to set the whole kingdom in a flame, to comply with their fantastic and mad enthusiasms’.61Clarendon, Hist. vi. 170-2; HMC Leyborne-Popham, 217. The readmission of the secluded Members led to celebrations in the City, but Barbon ‘had but little thanks of the boys, for they broke all his glass windows that belonged to the front of his house’.62Diurnal of Thomas Rugg, ed. H.L. Sachse (Cam. Soc. ser. 3, xci), 39; Pepys’s Diary i. 54. At the end of February, Samuel Pepys heard ‘how abominably Barbon’s windows are broke again last night’.63Pepys’s Diary i. 65. Barbon’s petition had infuriated the apprentices, and it also played into the hands of the royalist press, which produced a host of mock petitions holding him and his associates up to ridicule.64Brown, Baptists and Fifth Monarchy Men, 195-7. A list of persons in the London militia drawn up by the council of state described him as ‘a venomous petitioner’ and he was taunted in verse as

Praise-God though of the Rump he was none,
Was for his petition burnt to the Bare-bone
So Praise-God and Rump, like true Josephs together
Did suffer, but Praise-God lost the more leather.65The Rump or Collection of Songs and Ballads (1660), unpag. (E.1833.4); HMC Leyborne-Popham, 166.

Undeterred, Barbon continued to do all in his power to hinder the restoration of the monarchy. To this end, in March he arranged for the publication of Marchamont Nedham’s News from Brussels which was intended to set the royalists and Presbyterians at variance.66Ath. Ox. iii. 1186. The royalist pamphleteers ridiculed him mercilessly, dubbing him ‘Praise God Leanbone’, and alleging that he claimed ‘I am too lean for sacrifice, and when the king comes to see me, he will say I am not worth the hanging’.67A Conference held in the Tower of London (1660), 6 (E.1017.9). The council of state, however, took Barbon more seriously, and at the end of March he was one of the republicans required to sign an engagement ‘not to act anything in opposition to the present power or to the disturbance thereof’.68Mercurius Politicus no. 614 (29 Mar.-5 Apr. 1660), 1213; Whitelocke, Mems. iv. 405.

After the Restoration, Barbon took advantage of the general pardon. He remained active in his local parish where he continued as a member of the vestry from June 1660 until August 1661, and was appointed as auditor of the churchwardens’ accounts for the year from October 1660.69GL, MS 3016/1, pp. 562-583, 587. Although to many royalists he was still a figure of fun, others counselled caution, with one pamphlet pointing out ‘although he look like a simple skin, he is a wolf in sheep’s clothing, a hide-bound covetous leather-seller, but has a conscience as wide as his windows when it rained stones into them at the funeral pile of the Rump’.70The Picture of the Good Old Cause (14 July 1660, 669 f.25.55). Barbon soon justified such criticism, as he refused to forsake his old radical friends. He called attention to himself by visiting Vavasor Powell and Major John Breman in prison.71CSP Dom. 1661-2, p. 82. He was also one of those who continued to have the admiration and respect of the exiled Edmund Ludlowe II*.72Worden, Voyce, 10. Alarmed by the recent revelations of the Farrington Plot, the government accused Barbon of ‘treasonable designs and practices’ and on 25 November 1661 he was committed to the Tower with James Harrington, John Wildman* and Samuel Moyer.73HMC 11th Rep. pt vii. 3; Ludlow, Voyce, 291; Eg. 3349, ff. 12, 66. Barbon and Wildman were subsequently implicated in the republican Nonsuch House Plot.74CSP Dom. 1661-2, pp. 196-7. In July 1662 Barbon’s wife petitioned for his release because ‘he being very aged is much visited with sickness, wherewith he will undoubtedly perish except speedily released’.75SP29/57/109. After some debate the privy council eventually decided to set him free, provided he gave sufficient security to appear if summoned and gave an undertaking to act ‘nothing in the meantime contrary to his Majesty’s government’.76PC2/56, p. 13; Eg. 3349, f. 85v. But he remained a commonwealthsman at heart and in later months he was reported to have joined with members of ‘the gathered churches’, as well as former army officers, in a design to bring judgement ‘upon the king and his council for justifying his tyrannising and shedding the blood of the people of God’.77CSP Dom. 1661-2, pp. 537, 541; CSP Dom. 1663-4, p. 405; SP29/88/56.

Barbon lost his warehouse in the Great Fire of London in 1666 and moved first to Crane Court and then to Shoe Lane.78The Fire Court ed. P. E. Jones (2 vols. 1966), ii. 85. In 1675 he published another religious tract entitled Good Things to Come which looked forward to ‘the coming of Christ in power and great glory’ and encouraged the faithful ‘to hope and wait patiently together until the appointed time of their fulfilling’, but stopped short of full acceptance of the Fifth Monarchy doctrine.79P. Barbon, Good Things to Come (1675), Sig. A2v. He died five years later and was buried on 5 January 1680 ‘at the ground near the Artillery’ in the church of St. Andrew Holborn. His son, the speculative builder and projector, Dr Nicholas Barbon†, was MP for Bramber in the Parliaments of 1690-8.80GL, St Andrew Holborn par. reg.