Thomas Barlow (bishop)

Monument to Thomas Barlow, St Mary's Church, Buckden, Cambridgeshire

Thomas Barlow (1607, 1608 or 1609 – 8 October 1691) was an English academic and clergyman, who became Provost of The Queen's College, Oxford, and Bishop of Lincoln.[1][2] He was seen in his own time and by Edmund Venables in the Dictionary of National Biography to have been a trimmer (conforming politically for advancement's sake), and have a reputation mixed with his academic and other writings on casuistry. His views were Calvinist and strongly anti-Catholic – he was among the last English bishops to dub the Pope Antichrist.[3] He worked in the 1660s for "comprehension" of nonconformists, but supported a crackdown in the mid-1680s. Despite his anti-Catholic prejudices, Barlow declared loyalty to James II of England upon his accession.[4]

  1. ^ The Biographical Treasury. A Dictionary of Universal Biography, etc. Longman, Orme, Brown, Green, & Longmans. 1838. p. 75.
  2. ^ John Spurr, "Barlow, Thomas (1608/9–1691)", ODNB, Oxford University Press, 2004 Retrieved 12 February 2015.(subscription required)
  3. ^ Christopher Hill, A Turbulent, Seditious and Factious People: John Bunyan and his Church (1988), p. 167.
  4. ^ s:Barlow, Thomas (DNB00)