ABSTRACT

This letter to Mr. Fisher has been collated from the original in the Lansdowne Manuscripts, volume 65, item 65, ff. 182 recto-182 verso. It is also reproduced with notes by F.J. Powicke, “A Letter of Henry Barrow’s to Mr. Fisher from the Fleet Prison, December, 1590,” in Transactions of the Congregational Historical Society, II, no. 4 (January, 1906), pp. 266-271. Powicke states that this letter is printed in the Separatists’ Apology (Henry Barrowe, Separatist, p. 339), but this is an error. The letter printed in [Henry Ainsworth and Francis Johnson?], An Apologie or Defence of Such True Christians as Are Commonly (But Unjustly) Called Brownists (n.p. [Amsterdam?], 1604), is Barrow’s “Letter to an Honorable Lady and Countesse of His Kindred Yet Living,” which was written April 4-5, 1593. John Strype printed portions of the 1590 letter in Life and Acts of John Whitgift, D.D. (Oxford, 1822), vol. II, book IV, chapter XI, seetion 416, pp. 189-190. John Waddington printed it in John Penry, the Pilgrim Martyr, 1559-1593 (London, 1854), pp. 248-252. Unfortunately, Waddington has carelessly read the manuscript, and has made at least seventeen errors. He has “taught” for “stonge,” “warning” for “winning,” “except” for “but,” “began” for “begunne,” “these” for “their,” “straits” for “sute,” “starved” for “sik,” “are” for “remaine,” “John Pardy” for “Jhon Purdy,” “six poor men” for “some poore men,” “fleece” for “fleshe,” “so now” for “suer,” “pent” for “shut,” “recording” for “according,” “next” for “meete,” “fast” for “fiste.” He also omits one phrase-“at the civile magistrate.”