Freedome; the Town of Ipswich her Peace and Prosperity, Civill and Ecclesiasticall: being sometimes an Inhabitant there. Printed by Philo-Monarchæus [4 April 1660].’ Barbon is here pronounced ‘worthy of all dedignation, indignation, and abomination.’ Another broadside travesties the petition after this fashion: ‘To the Right Honorable the High Court of Parliament sitting at Westminster. The Illegal and Immodest Petition of Praise-God Barbone, Anabaptist and Leather Seller of London: most impudently showeth that your Petitioner hath known a great while, and indeed long enough to have had more wit and more honesty,’ &c. (4 July 1660).
Although Barbon took advantage of the temporising ‘general pardon’ of 1660, he did not forsake his friends after the accession of Charles II. On 5 Sept. 1661 Humphrey Lee writes to Katharine Hurleston that Praise-God Barebones constantly resorts to Major Bremen and Vavasour Powell, prisoners in the Fleet (Calendar of State Papers, p. 82). On 26 Nov. 1661 Barbon, along with Major John Wildman and James Harrington, was arrested and sent to the Tower (Kennet, as before, p. 567). On 31 Dec. 1661, interrogations were drawn up by Secretary Nicholas to be administered to Mary Ellis, as to what she knew of Praisegod Barebones and others; their meetings at one Porter's house, where she had been servant; the weekly dining there of the post-office clerks (ibid. p. 197). We get a glimpse of Barbon in prison on 27 July 1662, when an order in council on petition of Sarah Barebones released her husband on bail from the Tower, where he had been close prisoner ‘many months, and so ill that he must perish unless released’ (Calendar, p. 447). But under 3 Nov. 1662 we discover that his steps were still dogged: ‘Examination of Lieutenant Kingsley as to his acquaintance with Jesse [Henry Jessey?], whom he apprehended two years before, … and Praise-God Barebones’ (ibid. p. 541).
After his release from prison Barbon reappears, in 1676, as a witness on house-rents, whilst he was resident in St. Dunstan's parish, and, as already noted, he was then aged eighty years. He died at the close of 1679. His burial is registered in the parish register of St. Andrew, Holborn, under date ‘5 Jan. 1679[–80], at ye ground near ye Artillery’ (Notes and Queries, 4th series, iii. 215).
It has been stated that Barbon had two brothers, respectively named ‘Christ-came-into-the-world-to-save Barebone’ and ‘If-Christ-had-not-died-thou-hadst-been-damned Barebone,’ abbreviated into ‘Damned Barebone’ (Granger, Biogr. Hist. of England, iii. 68); but there is no proof of this. The only other Barbon known at this period was Dr. Nicholas Barbon, probably Praisegod's son [see Barbon, Nicholas].
[In addition to the authorities cited, see Carlyle's Cromwell; Picton's Cromwell; Whitelocke's Memorials; Crosby's History of Baptists, ii. 40; Ivimey's History of Baptists, i. 156–7; Fanatics, Puritans, and Sectaries, 1821, in Brit. Mus.; reprint of New Preachers New, with a modern Introduction; communications from Rev. S. A. Swaine, M.A., London, and Rev. G. P. Gould, M.A., Bristol; two tractates referred to in Notes and Queries, 3rd series, i. 395, seem to show that Barbon, in his despair of monarchy and protectorship alike, fell in for a time with the ‘fifth monarchy’ enthusiasm; in Brit. Mus. (Harleian MS. 7332, f. 40) is a collection of verse ‘written (i.e. transcribed) by Ffeare-god Barbon (of Daventry), who, being at many times idle and wanting employment, wrote out certain songs and epigrams, with the idea of mending his hand in writing.’ Cf. Notes and Queries, 1st ser., i. 266.]
BARBOUR, JOHN (1316?–1395), Scottish poet, the earliest and one of the best of the ancient Scottish poets, a contemporary of Chaucer, was archdeacon of Aberdeen. The date of his birth is conjectural, but his death, on 13 March 1395, is proved by an entry in the obit book of the cathedral, the cessation in that year of a pension conferred on him by Robert II, and other documentary evidence. In 1357 he appears as archdeacon of Aberdeen in a safe-conduct by Edward III to him and three scholars going to study at Oxford; and in the same year he was named one of the proxies of the Bishop of Aberdeen in the council which met at Edinburgh to provide for the ransom of David II. Nothing is known of his earlier history, and his name derived from a common trade renders the conjectures hazardous which have found for him a parentage in north, midland, and south Scotland. In all likelihood he was an Aberdonian, and minute observers have even detected peculiarities of that dialect in his poems. Similar safe-conducts in 1364 (when he was accompanied by four horsemen on his way to Oxford or elsewhere, as he might think proper), in 1365 (when he had leave to travel through England to St. Denis with six horsemen), and in 1368 (with two valets and two horses to the other dominions of the king in the direction of France), show that in all probability he pursued his studies and superintended those of others, both at Oxford and Paris. In 1372 he was one of the auditors of exchequer, and
