This article popped up on Christmas Day in the New York Times. It is ostensibly about the Archbishop of Canterbury. In the photo he stands in his private chapel at Lambeth Cathedral in London.

Here is a link to the original article:
For Archbishop of Canterbury, Heading Anglican Church Is ‘High-Wire Act’ – The New York Times (nytimes.com)

However, the point of the article was completely lost on me. I fixated on the windows behind him. While I’ve never been there in person, I knew them in an instant!

The subtext that the article fails to mention is that the set of 5 windows behind him were designed by one Thomas Babb who in 1634 replaced the windows for the then reigning archbishop at his personal chapel. The new design was not well received, to say the least.

I’ve previously written about this place and the events that later transpired as a result of the new design. Let’s just say that it went severely wrong! Lots of things were destroyed and somebody put their neck out.

When I wrote the linked article above, I lacked some perspective on what was to come. At that time, I didn’t know that the Babbs of the neighboring communities across the river Thames were part of the lineage we know as
“The Lions of the Sea”. It seems clear at this junction that Thomas, was an offshoot of this storied lineage of Babbs.

The name Thomas runs deep in this lineage and, while there isn’t a known Thomas in the tree that fits the exact description, I believe with certainty that he is no further than a 1st cousin of the Babbs of Devon who ran the successful shipping trade with the new world that served as the foundation of the lineage that begat Phillip Babb of the Isles of Shoals.