Bishop in Wales
In 1536, he was successively Bishop of St Asaph and then Bishop of St Davids. His appointment at St Asaph was made during his absence on a diplomatic mission to James V, with William Howard and Robert Ferrar. Some historians have argued that he must not have been consecrated because there is no direct reference to it in the archbishop's register. However, that register does record his election as bishop, the royal assent to it and his confirmation. Moreover, "the (separate) record of his consecration may easily have been lost or stolen", as clearly happened on other occasions. His consecration as a bishop is important in the issue of the validity of the Church of England's claim to have maintained the apostolic succession of bishops. These were condemned as null and void by Leo XIII in 1896: the following year the archbishops of England replied in Saepius Officio. Barlow was one of four consecrators, and the principal one, of Matthew Parker (John Hodgkins was also a co-consecrator of Parker; he was consecrated bishop on 9 December 1537, by John Stokesley of London, Robert Parfew of St Asaph and John Hilsey of Rochester, two of whom, Stokesley and Parfew, were Roman Catholic prelates recognized by the Pope; Scory and Coverdale, the other two, had been consecrated using the English Ordinal of 1550 - each of the four men who consecrated Parker had been consecrated by men with the Roman Pontifical before or after the break with Rome - Stokely and Cranmer were consecrated in 1530 and 1532 before the break with the Rome). As bishop, he was also a Lord Spiritual of the House of Lords. However, the Lambeth Registers (ff. 179–182) mention that he was elected in 1535 and his consecration took place on 22 February 1535, while Henry Wharton in his Anglia Sacra states that he was consecrated on 23 February 1535.
He was involved in quarrels with his chapter, who sent up a series of articles addressed to the President of the Council of Wales, denouncing him as a heretic. Nevertheless, he carried on a campaign against relics, pilgrimages, saint-worship, and other Catholic practices. He tried to suppress the cult of Saint David in St Davids Cathedral. The statue of Our Lady of Cardigan, at St Dogmaels Abbey was a particular target, mentioned in his correspondence with Cromwell; the abbey was suppressed in 1536.
In despair of the western district around St Davids, he sought to transfer his see to relatively central Carmarthen. He established the later custom of the bishops residing at Abergwili, a village within two miles of Carmarthen; but the see did not move. He alienated the rich manor of Lamphey from the see. He tried to maintain a free grammar school at Carmarthen, and succeeded in obtaining the grant of some suppressed religious houses for the foundation of Christ College, Brecon, and of a grammar school there (19 January 1542).
Barlow also took part in general ecclesiastical politics. He signed the articles drawn up in 1536. He shared in composing the Institution of the Christian Man, and supported the translation of the Bible. He vainly tried to substitute a milder policy for the Six Articles of 1539. Extreme Erastianism, which maintained that simple appointment by the monarch was enough, without episcopal consecration, to constitute a lawful bishop, he shared with Thomas Cranmer. But the other opinions he maintained—that confession was not enjoined by Scripture; that there were just three sacraments; that laymen were as competent to excommunicate heretics as bishops or priests; that purgatory was a delusion—were extreme and incautious for the end of Henry VIII's reign. At this period he was one of Cranmer's few close allies on the evangelical wing of the bishops: they two with Hugh Latimer were the main clerical supporters of humanist education, and with Thomas Goodrich were the most advanced reformers on some matters of doctrine. In 1547 he supported Cranmer's Homilies campaign, preaching at St Paul's Cross, early in the new reign.
