John Bull

Thomas Heywood, A True Discourse of the Two infamous upstart Prophets. A contemporary pamphlet on Bull and Farnham, with a woodprint of the "two infamous upstart prophets".

John Bull ( 14 January 1642) was an English self-proclaimed prophet who claimed to be one of the two witnesses of the Book of Revelation, alongside Richard Farnham. Through the late 1630s and early 1640s, they established a small religious following surrounding their prophesies.

Originating from Colchester, and working as a weaver in London, Bull first came to the attention of the authorities in a crackdown on the "sectaries or schismatiques" of London, in early 1636. As members of a private conventicle and religious dissenters, both Farnham and Bull were arrested and interrogated on 16 April. 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". Sensational literature surrounded the pair, and often emphasized their reputed group of female followers.

Bull petitioned Archbishop William Laud for his case to be heard at trial in 1638, but was not released until before 1641. By 1641, Bull was sick with the plague and, contrary to their prophesies, both prophets died in January 1644. After Bull's death, and in absence of their prophesied resurrection, Farnham and Bull's small group of followers claimed they had risen, and were converting the ten tribes of Israel, after which they would "reign forever". With their following diminishing, Bull and Farnham's lives served as fodder for pamphleteers during the subsequent years of religious tumult.

Early life John Bull is an uncertain figure, and little is known of his life before his claimed prophethood. Ariel Hessayon, writing for the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, has used the scant evidence to construct a narrative of his early life. He possibly originated from Colchester, Essex, as two locals in the 1630s were later recorded as knowing him. Biographer of Farnham, John Walter, notes that Farnham had also come from Colchester, as a 1642 pamphlet asserts. Hessayon considers it equally possible that he either became proficient as a weaver here or learned his trade in London, where he later resided, although no freeman by Bull's name was accepted into London's Worshipful Company of Weavers between 1600 and 1646. At this time, Bull and Farnham seemed to be members of one such "privat Conventicle" together, as the Puritan author Rose Thurgood, in her "A Lecture of Repentance" records that she "reasoned with my brothers Richard Farnam & John Bull concerning prayer".

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. After her initial outrage at these radical teachings, Thurgood came to accept Farnham and Bull as spiritual advisors, and Baker has speculated on a later personal connection with the two, as Farnham's wife, Elizabeth Addington, has been proposed as the scribe of Thurgood's lecture.

There bee many false reports that goe of mee in the City of London, and I beleeve they are spread abroad in the Countrey. [...] 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. — Richard Farnham's testimony in Heywood's True Discourse, taken 16 April 1636.

Bull was imprisoned on 4 May 1636, residing in Bridewell Prison, where Farnham joined him in 1638, after brief stints at Newgate Prison and Bedlam. In 1638, after apparently enduring months of hard labour, he petitioned Archbishop of Canterbury, William Laud to be brought to trial, protesting the "labour of beating hemp, to the afflicting of his weak body, and the being companion of all manner of rogues, to the vexation of his soul", and beseech him that "if he be a false prophet, it is your duty to deal with him as the word of God requires". Farnham wrote similar petitions, successively soliciting the help of Archbishop Laud, the Privy Council, and the King of England, Charles I. 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." The fate of Bull and Farnham's followers is unrecorded, but historian Jerome Friedman speculates they "eventually followed other charismatic leaders".

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". Popular literature abounded, detailing their supposed female following and outlandish views. 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.