Edmund Bonner

Edmund Bonner (1500?- 5th September, 1569), Bishop of London, was an English bishop. Initially an instrumental figure in the schism of Henry VIII from Rome, he was antagonized by the reforms introduced by Somerset and reconciled himself to Roman Catholicism. He became notorious as Bloody Bonner for his role in the persecution of heretics under the government of Mary I of England, and ended his life as a prisoner under Queen Elizabeth.

An agent of royal supremacy

In 1529 he was Thomas Cardinal Wolsey's chaplain, which brought him to the notice of the king and Thomas Cromwell. After the fall of Wolsey he remained faithful to him and was with him at the time of his arrest at Cawood and death at Leicester in 1530. Subsequently he was transferred, perhaps through Cromwell's influence, to the service of the king, and in January 1532 he was sent to Rome as the king's agent when the question of the king's divorce was raised. There he sought to obstruct the judicial proceedings against Henry in the papal curia. In October 1533 he was entrusted with the task of suggesting to Clement VII (while he was the guest of Francis I at Marseille) Henry's appeal from the pope to a general council; but there seems to be no good authority for Gilbert Burnet's story that Clement threatened to have him burnt alive. For these and other services Bonner had been rewarded by successive grants of the livings of Cherry Burton (Yorks), Ripple (Worcester), Blaydon (Durham), and East Dereham (Norfolk), and in 1535 he was made archdeacon of Leicester.

Related Topics:
1529 - Thomas Cardinal Wolsey - Thomas Cromwell - Cawood - Leicester - 1530 - 1532 - Rome - Papal curia - 1533 - Clement VII - Francis I - Marseille - Gilbert Burnet - Yorks - Worcester - Blaydon - Durham - East Dereham - Norfolk - 1535 - Archdeacon

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During the following years he was much employed on important embassies in the king's interests, first to the pope to appeal against the excommunication pronounced in July 1533, afterwards to the Emperor to dissuade him from attending the general council which the pope wished to summon at Vicenza. Towards the end of 1535 he was sent to further what he called "the cause of the Gospel" (Letters and Papers, 1536, No. 469) in North Germany; and in 1536 he wrote a preface to Stephen Gardiner's De vera Obedientia, which asserted the royal and denied the papal supremacy, and was received with delight by the Lutherans. After a brief embassy to the Emperor in the spring of 1538, Bonner succeeded Gardiner as ambassador to the French Court in Paris. In this capacity he proved capable and successful, though irritation was frequently caused by his overbearing and dictatorial manner. He began his mission by sending Cromwell a long list of accusations against his predecessor. He was almost as bitter against Wyatt and Mason, whom he denounced as a "papist," and the violence of his conduct led Francis I to threaten him with a hundred strokes of the halberd. He seems, however, to have pleased his patron, Cromwell, and perhaps Henry, by his energy in seeing the king's "Great" Bible in English through the press in Paris. He was already king's chaplain; his appointment at Paris had been accompanied by promotion to the see of Hereford (27th November 1538) but owing to his absence he could neither be consecrated nor take possession of his see, and he was still abroad when he was translated to the Bishopric of London (October, 1539). Bonner returned to England and was consecrated 4th April, 1540.

Related Topics:
1533 - Emperor - Vicenza - Germany - 1536 - Stephen Gardiner - Lutherans - 1538 - Paris - Wyatt - Francis I - Hereford - 27th November - October - 1539 - 4th April - 1540

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Hitherto Bonner had had a reputation as a somewhat coarse and unscrupulous tool of Cromwell – a sort of ecclesiastical Wriothesley, he is not known to have protested against any of the changes effected by his masters; he professed to be no theologian, and was in the habit, when asked technical questions, to refer his interrogators to the theologians. He had graduated in law, and not in theology. There was nothing in the Reformation to appeal to him, except the repudiation of papal control; and he was one of those numerous Englishmen whose views were faithfully reflected in Henry's Act of the Six Articles. Indeed, almost his first duty as Bishop of London was to try heretics under these articles; accusations of excessive cruelty and bias against the accused were spread broadcast by his enemies, and from the first he seems to have been unpopular in London. He became a staunch conservative. During the years 1542-43 he was again abroad in Spain and Germany as ambassador to the emperor, at the end of which time he returned to London.

Related Topics:
Wriothesley - Six Articles - 1542 - 43 - Spain

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The death of the king on 28th January 1547, proved the turning point in Bonner's career. Hitherto he had shown himself entirely subservient to the sovereign, supporting him in the matter of the divorce, approving of the suppression of the religious houses, taking the oath of Supremacy which Fisher and More refused at the cost of life itself. But while accepting the schism from Rome, he had always resisted the innovations of the Reformers, and held to the doctrines of the old religion. Therefore from the first he put himself in opposition to the religious changes introduced by Protector Somerset and Archbishop Cranmer. Bonner began to doubt that supremacy when he saw to what uses it could be put by a Protestant council, and either he or Gardiner evolved the theory that the royal supremacy was in abeyance during a royal minority. The ground was skilfully chosen, but it was not legally nor constitutionally tenable. Both he and Gardiner had in fact sought fresh licences to exercise their ecclesiastical jurisdiction from the young king Edward VI; and, if he was supreme enough to confer jurisdiction, he was supreme enough to issue the injunctions and order the visitation to which Bonner objected. It was on this question that he came into conflict with Edward's government.

Related Topics:
28th January - 1547 - Oath of Supremacy - Fisher - More - Schism - Protector Somerset - Archbishop Cranmer - Edward VI

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