Henry Barrowe

[6] He insisted on the illegality of this arrest, refused either to take the ex officio oath or to give bail for future appearance, and was committed to the Gatehouse Prison.

[1] After nearly six months' detention and several irregular examinations before the high commissioners, he and Greenwood were formally indicted at the Newgate Sessions in May 1588 under the 1581 Recusancy Act (originally directed against Roman Catholics).

On these occasions he maintained the principle of separatism, denouncing the prescribed ritual of the Church as "a false worship," and the bishops as oppressors and persecutors.

[4] During his imprisonments Barrow was engaged in written controversy with Robert Browne (down to 1588), who had yielded a partial submission to the established order, and whom he therefore counted as a renegade.

In 1592 Greenwood, Barrow and John Penry gained a temporary reprieve and began meeting at a house in the Borough and formally constituted the Southwark Independent Church.

Barrow, on the other hand, regarded the whole established church order as polluted by the relics of Roman Catholicism, and insisted on separation as essential to pure worship and discipline.

[4] Barrowe also differed from Robert Browne regarding church governance, preferring placing it in the hands of elders rather than the entire congregation, as he distrusted too much democracy.