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.”