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Baro the prebend of Bishopstone, Salisbury, and in 1615, being chaplain to Lord Ellesmere, then chancellor of England, he received the degree of D.D. from his university. In 1628 he bestowed certain property in the Strand, London, ‘sometime a common inn (White Hart), but in 1674 made into a street,’ to provide 6l. yearly for a lecturer in Hebrew at Brasenose College, Oxford. He seems also to have bestowed certain properties on the town of Salisbury. Fuller says that he was ‘a bountiful housekeeper, of a cheerful spirit and peaceable disposition,’ and tells an anecdote in proof of his assertion. Wood says that he lived to see himself ‘outed of his spiritualities.’ There are tablets in memory of his wife, who died in 1625, and of himself in Salisbury Cathedral. The inscription says of John Barnston, ‘Vixit May 30, 1645; mutavit sæcula, non obiit.’

 BARO, PETER (1534–1599), controversialist, son of Stephen Baro and Philippa Petit, his wife, was a native of France, having been born December 1534 at Etampes, an ancient town between Paris and Orleans. Being destined for the study of the civil law, he entered at the university of Bourges, where he took his degree as bachelor in the faculty of civil law 9 April 1556. In the following year he was admitted and sworn an advocate in the court of the parliament of Paris. The doctrines of the reformers were at this time making rapid progress in France, and Bourges was one of their principal centres. Here, probably, Baro acquired those doctrinal views which led him shortly after to abandon law for divinity. In December 1560 he repaired to Geneva, and was there admitted to the ministry by Calvin himself. Returning to France he married, at Gien (on the Loire), Guillemette, the daughter of Stephen Bourgoin, and Lopsa Dozival, his wife. The 'troubles in France,' Baro tells us (whether prior to or after the massacre of St. Bartholomew does not appear), now induced him to flee to England, where he was befriended by Burghley, who admitted him to dine at his table, and, being chancellor of the university of Cambridge, exercised his influence on Baro's behalf with that body. (The foregoing facts are derived from a manuscript in Baro's own handwriting, transcribed in Baker MSS. xxix. 184-8.) He was admitted a member of Trinity College, where Whitgift was then master. The provost of King's College, Dr. Goad, engaged him to read lectures in divinity and Hebrew. In 1574, through the influence mainly of Burghley and Dr. Perne, he was chosen Lady Margaret professor of divinity. On 3 Feb. 1575-6 he was incorporated in the degrees of bachelor and licentiate of civil law, which he had taken at Bourges. In 1576 he was created D.D., and was incorporated in the same degree at Oxford on 11 July. His stipend as professor was only 20l. a year, and on 18 March 1579 the university recommended his case through the deputy public orator to the state secretaries, Walsingham and Wilson, for their consideration in the distribution of patronage, but apparently without result.

Notwithstanding his connection with Geneva, Baro appears to have gradually become averse to the narrow doctrines of the reformed or Calvinistic party, and a series of complaints preferred against him in 1581 show that he was already inclining to Arminianism, and was prepared to advocate something like tolerance even of the tenets of Rome. Between Laurence Chaderton (afterwards master of Emmanuel College at Cambridge) and himself there arose a somewhat sharp controversy; and by Chaderton's biographer (Dillingham) Baro is accused of having brought 'new doctrines' into England, and of publishing them in his printed works (Vita Laurentii Chadertoni, pp. 16-7). The controversy was amicably settled for the time; but it was again revived by the promulgation of the Lambeth Articles in 1595. These articles, which were chiefly the work of William Whitaker, the master of St. John's and the most distinguished English theologian of his day, and Humphry Tyndal, acting in conjunction with Whitgift, had undoubtedly their origin in the design to repress all further manifestations of anti-Calvinistic views, such as those on which Baro and others had recently ventured. Whitgift, writing to Dr. Neville (his successor at Trinity College) in December 1595, says: 'You may also signify to Dr. Baro that her majesty is greatly offended with him, for that he, being a stranger and so well used, dare presume to stir up or maintain any controversy in that place of what nature soever. And therefore advise him from me utterly to forbear to deal therein hereafter. I have done my endeavour to satisfy her majesty concerning him, but how it will fall out in the end I know not. Non decet hominem peregrinum curiosum esse in aliena republica' (, Works, iii. 617). It is possible that, owing to the intervention of the Christmas vacation, this warning reached Baro too late. On 12 Jan. following he preached before the university at Great St. Mary's, and ventured to criticise