John Bunyan was born at Elstow, near Bedford, and baptized Nov. 30, 1628, the son of a tinker, and like his father a tinker. He joined joined the parliamentary forces in the English civil war in 1644. On leaving, he married in 1646 a pious woman whose only dowry was two books, The Plain Man's Pathway to Heaven and Lewis Bayly's The Practice of Piety. They had four children.