This last imprisonment of Bunyan's lasted only half as many months as his former imprisonment had lasted years. At the end of six months he was again a free man. His release was due to the good officers of Owen, Cromwell's celebrated chaplain, with Barlow, Bishop of Lincoln. The suspicion which hung over this intervention from its being erroneously attributed to his release in 1672, three years before Barlow became a bishop, has been dispelled by the recently discovered warrant. The dates and circumstances are now found to tally. The warrant for Bunyan's apprehension bears date March 4, 1675. On the 14th of the following May the supple and time-serving Barlow, after long and eager waiting for a mitre, was elected to the see of Lincoln vacated by the death of Bishop Fuller, and consecrated on the 27th of June. Barlow, a man of very dubious churchmanship, who had succeeded in keeping his university appointments undisturbed all through the Commonwealth, and who was yet among the first with effusive loyalty to welcome the restoration of monarchy, had been Owen's tutor at Oxford, and continued to maintain friendly relations with him. As bishop of the diocese to which Bedfordshire then, and long after, belonged, Barlow had the power, by the then existing law, of releasing a prisoner for nonconformity on a bond given by two persons that he would conform within half a year. A friend of Bunyan's, probably Ichabod Chauncey, obtained a letter from Owen to the bishop requesting him to employ this prerogative in Bunyan's behalf.
Barlow with hollow complaisance expressed his particular kindness for Dr. Owen, and his desire to deny him nothing he could legally grant. He would even strain a point to serve him. But he had only just been made a bishop, and what was asked was a new thing to him.
He desired a little time to consider of it. If he could do it, Owen might be assured of his readiness to oblige him. A second application at the end of a fortnight found this readiness much cooled. It was true that on inquiry he found he might do it; but the times were critical, and he had many enemies. It would be safer for him not to take the initiative. Let them apply to the Lord Chancellor, and get him to issue an order for him to release Bunyan on the customary bond. Then he would do what Owen asked.
It was vain to tell Barlow that the way he suggested was chargeable, and Bunyan poor. Vain also to remind him that there was no point to be strained. He had satisfied himself that he might do the thing legally. It was hoped he would remember his promise. But the bishop would not budge from the position he had taken up. They had his ultimatum; with that they must be content.
If Bunyan was to be liberated, his friends must accept Barlow's terms. "This at last was done, and the poor man was released. But little thanks to the bishop."This short six months' imprisonment assumes additional importance from the probability, first suggested by Dr. Brown, which the recovery of its date renders almost a certainty, that it was during this period that Bunyan began, if he did not complete, the first part of "The Pilgrim's Progress." We know from Bunyan's own words that the book was begun in gaol, and its composition has been hitherto unhesitatingly assigned to his twelve years' confinement.
Dr. Brown was, we believe, the first to call this in question.
Bunyan's imprisonment, we know, ended in 1672. The first edition of "The Pilgrim's Progress" did not appear till 1678. If written during his earlier imprisonment, six years must have elapsed between its writing and its publication. But it was not Bunyan's way to keep his works in manuscript so long after their completion.
His books were commonly put in the printers' hands as soon as they were finished. There are no sufficient reasons - though some have been suggested - for his making an exception to this general habit in the case of "The Pilgrim's Progress." Besides we should certainly conclude, from the poetical introduction, that there was little delay between the finishing of the book and its being given to the world. After having written the book, he tells us, simply to gratify himself, spending only "vacant seasons" in his "scribble," to "divert" himself "from worser thoughts," he showed it to his friends to get their opinion whether it should be published or not. But as they were not all of one mind, but some counselled one thing and some another, after some perplexity, he took the matter into his own hands.
"Now was I in a strait, and did not see Which was the best thing to be done by me;At last I thought, Since you are so divided, I print it will, and so the case decided."We must agree with Dr. Brown that "there is a briskness about this which, to say the least, is not suggestive of a six years' interval before publication." The break which occurs in the narrative after the visit of the Pilgrims to the Delectable Mountains, which so unnecessarily interrupts the course of the story - "So I awoke from my dream; and I slept and dreamed again" - has been not unreasonably thought by Dr. Brown to indicate the point Bunyan had reached when his six months' imprisonment ended, and from which he continued the book after his release.
