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.

Realignment with Catholicism

Bonner resisted the visitation of August 1547, and was committed to the Fleet Prison; but he withdrew his opposition, and was released in time to take an active part against the government in the parliament of November 1547. In the next session, November 1548-March 1549, he was a leading opponent of the first Act of Uniformity and Book of Common Prayer. When these became law, he neglected to enforce them, and on September 1 1549 he was required by the council to maintain at St Paul's Cross that the royal authority was as great as if the king were forty years of age. He did so, but with such significant omissions in the matter which had been prescribed touching the king's authority, that after a seven days' trial he was deprived of his bishopric by an ecclesiastical court over which Cranmer presided, and sent as a prisoner to the Marshalsea. The fall of Somerset in the following month raised Bonner's hopes, and he appealed from Cranmer to the council. After a struggle the Protestant faction gained the upper hand, and on February 7 1550 Bonner's deprivation was confirmed by the council sitting in the Star Chamber, and he was further condemned to perpetual imprisonment. Here he remained till the accession of Mary in 1553.

Related Topics:
1547 - Fleet Prison - 1548 - Act of Uniformity - Book of Common Prayer - September 1 - 1549 - Cranmer - Marshalsea - February 7 - 1550 - Mary - 1553

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Bonner was at once restored to his see, his deprivation being regarded as invalid and Ridley as an intruder. He vigorously restored Roman Catholicism in his diocese, made no difficulty about submitting to the papal jurisdiction which he had foresworn. During 1554 Bonner carried out a visitation of his diocese, restoring the Mass and the manifold practices and emblems of Catholic life, but the work was carried out slowly and with difficulty. To help in the work, Bonner published a list of thirty-seven "Articles to be enquired of", but these led to such disturbances that they were temporarily withdrawn.

Related Topics:
Ridley - Roman Catholicism

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There was in London at this time a determined Reforming element which opposed in every way the restoration of Catholic worship; although the Parliament in 1554 welcomed Pole as Papal Legate and sought absolution and reconciliation from him with apparent unanimity, there was a real hostility to the whole proceeding among a considerable section of the populace. Street brawls arising out of religious disputes were frequent, and Bonner himself was physically attacked on at least two occasions.

Related Topics:
Reforming - Pole - Papal Legate

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Mary's administration thought that the Reformers would best be dealt with by the ecclesiastical tribunals, rather than by the civil power, and on Bonner, as Bishop of London, fell the chief burden to stamp out religious dissent. Therefore, in 1555 began the persecution to which he owes his notoriety among his detractors as Bloody Bonner. Besides his judicial work in his own diocese, Bonner was appointed to degrade Cranmer at Oxford in February 1556. The part he took in these affairs gave rise to intense hatred on the part of the Reformers. Foxe in his "Book of Martyrs" summed up this view in two doggerel lines:

Related Topics:
1555 - Oxford - 1556 - Foxe

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:"This cannibal in three years space three hundred martyrs slew

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:They were his food, he loved so blood, he spared none he knew."

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His apologists, including defenders of Catholicism in England, contend that his action was merely "official", and that

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"he had no control" over the fate of the accused "once they were declared to be irreclaimable heretics and handed over to the secular power; but he always strove by gentle suasion first to reconcile them to the Church" (Mr Gairdner, qtd in Catholic Encyclopedia).

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The Catholic Encyclopedia estimates the number of persons executed as heretics in his jurisdiction as about 120, rather than 300. Bonner did not go out of his way to persecute; many of his victims were forced upon him by the king and queen in Council, which at one point addressed a letter to Bonner on the express ground that he was not proceeding with sufficient severity. So completely had the state dominated the church that religious persecutions had become state persecutions, and Bonner was acting as an ecclesiastical sheriff in the most refractory district of the realm. Even John Foxe records instances in which Bonner failed to persecute.

Related Topics:
Catholic Encyclopedia - John Foxe

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Bonner's detractors, beginning with his Protestant contemporaries John Foxe and John Bale and continuing through most English historiography of the period, paint a different picture.

Related Topics:
John Foxe - John Bale

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Bonner, they point out, was one of those who brought it to pass that the condemnation of heretics to the fire should be part of his ordinary official duties, and he was represented as hounding men and women to death with merciless vindictiveness. Tunstall, Bishop of Durham, was as good a Catholic as Bonner, but he left a different reputation behind him. Bale, formerly a friar and ex-Bishop of Ossory, published from his place of exile at Basle in 1554, an attack on the bishop, in which he speaks of him as "the bloody sheep-bite of London", "bloody Bonner", and still coarser epithets.

Related Topics:
Tunstall - Bishop of Durham - Basle

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Bonner is seen at his worst, by many critics, in his brutal jeers at Cranmer, his former superior. Others have found it that, in spite of his prominence, neither Henry VIII nor Mary should ever have admitted him to the privy council. He seems to have been regarded by his own party as a useful instrument, especially in disagreeable work, rather than as a desirable colleague.

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Bonner's most important writings date from this time. They include Responsum et Exhortatio in laudem Sacerdotii (1553); Articles to be enquired of in the General Visitation of Edmund Bishop of London (1554); and Homelies sette forth by Eddmune Byshop of London, . . . to be read within his diocese of London of all Parsons, vycars and curates, unto their parishioners upon Sondayes and holy days (1555). There was also published under his name a catechism, probably written by his chaplains, Harpsfield and Pendleton, entitled "A profitable and necessary doctrine" (1554, 2d ed. 1555).

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