Epilogue: The Threat of Reconversion

When Bale ‘abandoned the rule of his papist vow’, he did so, according to an early formulation, ‘along with John Barret’, an esteemed friend and fellow white friar who, like his august companion, had converted ‘with the dawning of God’s truth’ and exchanged ‘the rule of his improper vow so that, more free, he might pursue the word of Christ’. ¹ Such was Barret’s virtue that even in the time of the Carmelites’ collapse, under the licentious prior John Bird, he remained, in his contemporary’s estimation, ‘a man of singular eloquence and learning’. ² Of his friend, Bale frothed in admiration:

John Barret of Lynn in Norfolk, illustrious by birth and of a universally admired character, presented himself to the institution of Carmelites in the suburb of the same Lynn with a wonderful charm of manners beloved by all. Nothing about his youth was foolish, nothing wicked, nothing extravagant, indeed nothing in his appearance or gesture was shameful. ³

Barret’s eloquence was unparalleled, comparable only to the ‘elegance and charm of Cicero’, and his writings were so accomplished that he would survive ‘beyond the age in which he lived’. ⁴ Bale’s adoration for his fellow convert was boundless, and he wrote gushingly about how: ‘[a]lways from youth [Barret] was united in the closest bond of friendship to me, and I will remain his most loving friend, until the life-giving breath of the body’s bulk has expired’. ⁵ Here was a happy ending, for although the wind of conversion had caused the house of Bale’s and Barret’s former faith to be torn asunder, it opened the way for a new devotion in Christ’s gospel. Together in this spirit of enlightenment, the boon fellows, friends evermore, would rebuild God’s house in opposition to their former error. The clock could not be turned back, a devotional threshold had been crossed that could not be re-traversed, or so Bale thought. In the 1 550s Barret did the unthinkable: he returned to Catholicism. ⁶