John Bull (prophet)

With both men imprisoned, pamphleteer Thomas Heywood recorded their outlandish views in a 1636 tract, with the supposed prophets claiming to have power over the elements, and that it was their fate to be "slaine at Hierusalem" and "rise again".

On 20 February 1636, John Wragg, a messenger of majesty's chamber, was tasked by the commissioners with entering any places where "privat Conventicles or meetings" were suspected and rooting out "seditious and unlawfull writings and papers", utilising "all other his highnes officers ministers and subjects whatsoever" in his search.

[4]According to Naomi Baker, a prominent scholar of Thurgood's work, this position reflected a radical Calvinist belief in the "death of the self", as the agency of individual believers is erased for that of God alone.

[...] But these things you may report to be truths from my own handwriting: I say, I am one of those two witnesses that are spoken of in the 11 of the Revelation, and that the Lord hath given mee power for the opening and the shutting of the Heavens.

[1] The year of their arrest, a pamphlet was published by Thomas Heywood, entitled A True Discourse of the Two infamous upstart Prophets (1636), concerning Bull and Farnham, now imprisoned.

Heywood was hostile to Bull's prophesies, observing they seemed "to smell of the Sect of the Thraskites and Sabbatarians", and entreating the reader to "pitty their ignorance" and "wondrest at their impudence".

[1] An anonymous and posthumous newsbook biography of the two, False prophets discovered (1642), reports that at some point after their imprisonment, Bull had "gone abroad at his pleasure" while Farnham grew sick.

[2][9][10] This group, "esteemed by understanding men to be women of good parts, honest of conversation, and very ready in the Scriptures", believed that, after this mission, the prophets would return to England and "Richard Farnham should be king upon David's throne and John Bull should be priest on Aaron's seat and they should reign forever.

[10] According to Walter, Farnham and Bull "enjoy[ed] a different sort of afterlife" to that of their professed prophethood, serving as "good copy for the pamphlet writers" during "the religious turmoil of the early 1640s".

[2][9] The sensationalist newbook, False prophets discovered, recorded Farnham's marriage to a "Mrs. Haddington", one of his reputed female followers and a "women of fine parts", despite the fact her husband was alive, and at sea, leading to her imprisonment for bigamy.